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The synth doesn't seem to pick up pitch bends at all and weirdly the portamento settings seem to respond better to note changes than bends..

This annoys me as there are some great sounds in there. Is there a way around this? Does the PX5D fix it at all?

Synth player not guitarist (except on RARE occasions) but I think you need to look at how the synth works.

The main thing about portamento is that it is pitch movement delayed over time. Say your portamento is set to 1/2 second - that would mean that the glide rate is 1/2 second between two notes - a dramatic sweep over distances of a fifth to an octave but on guitar the duration of your pitch bends notes can easily be under that time. The other thing is the distance between notes - typical bends are 1/2 step or less - so the setting is set to take 1/2 second to glide between two notes that are so close together the synth recognizes them as essentially the same. I'm guessing that a whammy pitch bend of a 3rd or so would sound OK.

As to not picking up bends - the "synth" may simply be ignoring it if the bend is falling within the synth's pitch deviation/intonation parameters -- the things that let the synth play in tune are keeping it from recognizing even deliberately de-tuned playing.

BB

billbaker wrote:Synth player not guitarist (except on RARE occasions) but I think you need to look at how the synth works.

The main thing about portamento is that it is pitch movement delayed over time. Say your portamento is set to 1/2 second - that would mean that the glide rate is 1/2 second between two notes - a dramatic sweep over distances of a fifth to an octave but on guitar the duration of your pitch bends notes can easily be under that time. The other thing is the distance between notes - typical bends are 1/2 step or less - so the setting is set to take 1/2 second to glide between two notes that are so close together the synth recognizes them as essentially the same. I'm guessing that a whammy pitch bend of a 3rd or so would sound OK.

As to not picking up bends - the "synth" may simply be ignoring it if the bend is falling within the synth's pitch deviation/intonation parameters -- the things that let the synth play in tune are keeping it from recognizing even deliberately de-tuned playing.

BB

I understand this, however the fact remains that the PX4D doesn't do it, whereas most other guitar synths can.