Controllable Pitch Bending on Midi Harmonica
Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2025 12:43 am
Ever since I started playing MIDI harmonica when the Lekholm DM48 first came out (now the DM48X), I've found the lack of ability to bend notes as I do on my regular harps (half-valved diatonics and chromatics in custom tunings) quite frustrating! The original model only enabled bending based on breath pressure (the harder you blow, the deeper the bend), but this was too crude and uncontrollable. The DM48X introduced a pitch ribbon for note bending - better, but still not giving control of in-tune bends to selected pitches.
I developed an add-on Midi controller called the Mini-PitchBender to give in tune bends in 1, 2 or 3 semitones. It worked well but was challenging to learn, as it was easy to select the wrong depth of bend if you didn't concentrate hard all the time.
Later I came up with a system that's more similar to a real harmonica, where the bend depth is essentially set by the difference in pitch between the blow and draw reeds. I asked Erik Lekholm (the inventor of the DM48X) if he could incorporate it in a firmware update, which he did last year. It allows the bends to be set in the Tuning menu, so they come out without thinking and always in tune.
That's good for strictly modal music, but for blues, bending is more subtle, and variable. For example, sometimes you might want to bend the tonic to the 6th, or the b7th, or the Maj7th... And sometimes the cracks in between.
So I asked Erik to allow me to add a new MIDI controller that worked with the latest firmware update but added more ability to vary the bends as needed. He kindly did, and I tried many different potentiometer types of controllers. Eventually I arrived at the one I'm using now: a modified Sony PlayStation2 joystick. It's capable of the range in different bends I wanted, as well as natural sounding, controllable vibrato.
Here's a video clip where I'm using all semitone finger-bends on the DM48X to track a Lucky 13 in PowerBender tuning, playing an original tune "Wriggle & Writhe":
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DIgJnWJI ... FlcThsdg==
It's a different but effective way of playing MIDI harmonica, compared to the standard semitone-up slider button style. I'll post more videos showing the wider bends available in due course.
I developed an add-on Midi controller called the Mini-PitchBender to give in tune bends in 1, 2 or 3 semitones. It worked well but was challenging to learn, as it was easy to select the wrong depth of bend if you didn't concentrate hard all the time.
Later I came up with a system that's more similar to a real harmonica, where the bend depth is essentially set by the difference in pitch between the blow and draw reeds. I asked Erik Lekholm (the inventor of the DM48X) if he could incorporate it in a firmware update, which he did last year. It allows the bends to be set in the Tuning menu, so they come out without thinking and always in tune.
That's good for strictly modal music, but for blues, bending is more subtle, and variable. For example, sometimes you might want to bend the tonic to the 6th, or the b7th, or the Maj7th... And sometimes the cracks in between.
So I asked Erik to allow me to add a new MIDI controller that worked with the latest firmware update but added more ability to vary the bends as needed. He kindly did, and I tried many different potentiometer types of controllers. Eventually I arrived at the one I'm using now: a modified Sony PlayStation2 joystick. It's capable of the range in different bends I wanted, as well as natural sounding, controllable vibrato.
Here's a video clip where I'm using all semitone finger-bends on the DM48X to track a Lucky 13 in PowerBender tuning, playing an original tune "Wriggle & Writhe":
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DIgJnWJI ... FlcThsdg==
It's a different but effective way of playing MIDI harmonica, compared to the standard semitone-up slider button style. I'll post more videos showing the wider bends available in due course.