Questions & Answers

14-Bit MIDI CC Support in S1 Please

+8 votes
1,240 views
asked May 1, 2016 in Studio One Feature Requests by Funkybot (21,640 points)
Please add support for 14-bit MIDI CC's in order to allow users to utilize higher resolution hardware control of instruments, effects, etc.

At the moment, Studio One only supports standard 7-bit MIDI CC messages. Many modern controllers can use 14-bit MIDI CC's, which allows for much higher resolution control of parameters. For instance, if I map the tune control of a synth to a 7-bit knob, it can be difficult to get the level of fine tuning I'm looking for (forcing me to go back to the mouse), whereas with a 14-bit knob and the greater resolution it offers, I'd have much more fine control of the tuning. The same concept would be true for any MIDI CC message.

3 Answers

+2 votes
answered May 4, 2016 by niles (54,650 points)

Studio One already handles 14-bit (128²) messages. If your external controller is capable of sending out (NRPN) MSB/LSB messages you can control all your plugins through Control Link with a resolution of 16384 steps (more info).

Writing 14-bit automation is a different story though.

+2 votes
answered May 7, 2016 by Funkybot (21,640 points)
Hi Niles, thanks for your response. I'll play around with that tonight. That said, two problems:

1. This seems more like a hack than what I'd call full support. 14-bit MIDI support should just work no differently than 7-bit support. Users shouldn't be required to manually edit an XML file to make that happen. Ideally, it would be transparent to the end-user. Studio One should recognize both types of controller messages, and just respond accordingly, no further action required by the user.

2. Recording high resolution automation would be a given.

Right now, I'd argue that 14-bit resolution still isn't fully supported. It would be nice to see.
0 votes
answered Jul 22, 2020 by robertgray3 (42,810 points)
Agreed. Also some hardware synths are able to send hundreds of parameters as opposed to the usual 128 using the MSB (most significant bit) and LSB (least significant bit) of NRPN. Hopefully I phrased that right- I'm simply relaying what I'm seeing from my Sequential keyboards MIDI specification.

I wish it would be supported natively in the GUI instead of having to manually edit the xml files.
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