Adding Nondestructive Vibrato to VST in GP?

I’m wondering if it might be possible to use a plugin or perhaps built-in GP feature to add an LFO to a VST (Pianoteq) within GP? Specifically I’m trying to add vibrato control, non-destructively, to Pianoteq without changing Pianoteq’s tone. I’m hoping to specify the pitch fluctuation depth, and then map the rate to an expression pedal. I would need the vibrato to be at zero (basically off) with the pedal at zero, and then have it seamlessly engage and increase in speed as the pedal was used. Even better still if the pitch depth could be made to increase a little bit (but not too much) as the rate increased. I was told that chaining Pianoteq to a VST wasn’t ideal as it would degrade the tone, and I couldn’t find any vibrato VSTs that I could make work quite right anyway.

My technical knowledge of how best to do this is very limited, so any ideas would be appreciated.

Have you tried the free Vibrato VST from Melda?

It offers lots of parameters to control its effect.
Just yesterday i used this plugin to give a brass sound some “vibe” - i chose to control it via aftertouch, but it would work with an expression pedal the same way.
I used two knob widgets, mapped one to the Depth parameter and the other to Speed and placed both into a widget group, so they always move in sync. To fit the amount of effect to my needs, i changed the min/max scaling of the widgets values, so that the parameter change only happened within the range that was useful (i.e. from 0-10 for Depth and 60-80 for the speed).
Since both widgets (or more if you want) are placed into the same widget group, i just had to MIDI-learn one of them to aftertouch (or the expression pedal in your case)… and that’s it. Works flawlessly!

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Thanks for the reply. I actually did try MVibrato, and it was the best plugin I tested, but it didn’t quite do what I was hoping for (though I could have missed something). I was hoping to control the vibrato so the pitch primarily bends up from the note and back, rather than both bending above and below the note. Also, the vibrato ‘rate’ knob not only controls vibrato rate, but also its pitch depth… which is odd since there’s a separate ‘depth’ knob that only controls depth. I was hoping to have these completely independent so the depth would be more or less fixed (I did want to map it to increase very slightly), and then I would map the vibrato rate to an expression pedal. Of course I would also need it to start the oscillation with each note-on message, rather than the oscillation being continuous (which changes the pitch of a note’s attack each time it’s pressed). Since vibrato rate is connected to depth in MVibrato that’s not so much of an issue, but again not the behavior I was hoping for.

And then there’s the issue of it acting destructively, which I was told is not ideal. Personally I’d have to hear vibrato done both destructively and non-destructively side by side to make up my mind there. But would it even be possible to use something within GP with an LFO to control Pianoteq’s pitch bend?

Sure you can! but you would need some scripting :wink:

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Ha, I had a hunch that might be the case…

I use the MIDI shaper plugin from CableGuys for this kind of thing. Though I admit freely I have never wanted to add vibrato to my piano!

Thanks, MIDI shaper looks very interesting, I’ll experiment with it.

No vibrato on your piano? You don’t know what you’re missing! Before, but especially after Pianoteq came out with their morphing/layering update in v7 you can easily get some really wild sounding instruments. Of course controlling bebung on clavichord without after-touch could be useful too…