What does mod wheel on MIDI keyboard do?

A mod wheel (diminutive for Modulation Wheel) is a controller found on keyboards such as MIDI controllers and synthesizers, which takes its shape in the form of a wheel mounted perpendicular to the surface of the keyboard. ... One typical use is to modulate an LFO in order to produce vibrato.

1. What does the mod wheel do on a keyboard?
2. What does a pitch wheel do?
3. Is pitch bend important in keyboard?

What does the mod wheel do on a keyboard?

An auxiliary performance control on a synthesizer, whose conventional usage is to add vibrato to the note or notes being played. On many keyboards the mod wheel is a large thumbwheel identical to, and alongside, the pitch wheel; it may or may not be sprung to return to the zero point when released.

What does a pitch wheel do?

The pitch wheel is used to smoothly pitch bend or raise or lower the pitch of notes held on the synthesizer or keyboard. The pitch wheel transmits a MIDI pitch bend message, a special MIDI control message specifically designed to produce a change in pitch in response to the movement of a wheel or lever.

Is pitch bend important in keyboard?

Pitch bend messages were designed to be able to hold and transmit a lot more data than most MIDI messages primarily because it can take a lot of data to produce a truly smooth (as in unquantized) bending of pitch over a potentially broad range.