I’m trying to set up Addictive Drums 2 in Dorico 5, without success.
There have been previous posts about this, but I still miss a solution as how to get it to work.
Side note: I’m coming from Finale (where AD2 worked) so I’m quite new to Dorico.
Here’s what I did:
(Obviously) Set up a drum staff in SetUp.
Selected the drum part in Play, selected Addictive Drums as vst instrument.
In AD2 I selected a preset of Jazz Drums Sticks.
Chose AD2 in the Track Inspector.
Created a percussion map (midi note, note name, instrument, playback techniques) and chose this in the Track Inspector. I basically copied the mapping manually as was laid out in AD2.
Didn’t know what to choose as expression map in the Track Inspector so I chose ‘default’. I left the port and channel both to 1.
Back in SetUp, I selected the Drum player, selected ‘Edit Percussion Kit’, added instruments (kick, ride, etc.) and dragged them on the right staff. For most ‘instruments’ there are different sounds in the percussion map, eg Snare Open Hit, Snare Rimshot, Snare Sidestick, etc. So I created different snares, put them on the same line but gave them the appropriate name in ‘Edit Names’.
Now the result: when I put in some notes in Write mode, I hear only kicks and toms, regardless of the pitch.
I understand that the Percussion Map and the Edit Percussion Kit are crucial, but I don’t get how these work together.
What am I missing?
It sounds like you’ve got very close. I wrote this post a while ago that describes how these things fit together, and I wonder whether it might give you a clue as to where to look next:
Okay, @Jerome6 — your thread prompted me to dust off my copy of AD2 that’s been languishing unloved since I switched to Dorico two years ago. Thanks for the “nudge!”
First Steps:
I put in four bars of a simple groove into a drum kit player in a new default project:
To work on getting it to play back through AD2 after loaded it in as my VST (Jazz Sticks kit), under Library > Percussion Maps… I created a new map from three MIDI Notes (see AD2’s keymap) each to an instrument with a Playback Technique (“Natural” for the kick and hi-hat, “Side stick” for snare — notice how I’d need to do more work(EDIT: see below)to get the open HH on beat 4.2 to play correctly):
…right-click copyMIDI Note 49’s line in the Percussion Map and enter an alternate Key Switch value of 54 (in the area circled in green after selecting the new copy of MIDI Note 49).
(Next challenge: the open hi-hat ismuchlouder than the closed. Hmm…)
'Yet More Work': Correcting Open Hi-hat Playback Level
I got the open hi-hat to play back at a more reasonable playback level by editing it in AD2’s Map Window…, setting a global high velocity of 60 for HH Open A.
I see in XLN’s documentation that there’s also the possibility of using CC data to control the Hi-hat’s closed/open amount (128 levels!) for some extra nuance. I’f I’m understanding it correctly, then this can be done through Dorico’s Key Editor > Add Automation > Add Editor lane. Not sure I’d want to work quite that hard just for the sake of a decent playback rendition, but I might just try it another day…
Thank you Daniel, that’s a very thorough explanation indeed.
New for me in this text is that it’s necessary to make sure that the playing techniques you define in the percussion map should match the playing techniques you define for the notation of the instrument in the Edit Percussion Playing Techniques dialog.
I decided to remove the instruments from the percussion kit and start over, this time just with 3 crashes to try out. As playing technique for all 3 I chose ‘sticks (tip 1)’, as chosen in the percussion map. I dragged the 3 crashes in the percussion editor to their corresponding lines. Now, when listening in write mode, I notice that the ride is being played (!). Is this perhaps because I also assigned ‘sticks (tip 1)’ as playing technique for the ride in the percussion map? Could it be that all sounds, or instruments as Dorico calls them, should have a different playing technique assigned?
I imported your project. As for the percussion mapping and the endpoint assignment I did not see anything different, at least conceptually.
I did notice that you did not edit the percussion kit. I see instruments like China Cymbal and Splash Cymbal, that are not part of AD2 Jazz Sticks. That’s a bit confusing: I understood that you have to build your own instruments in the percussion editor according to the percussion map. Or maybe I’m wrong?
I only did this trial run by getting hi-hat, snare, and kick to play back correctly, so I didn’t mess with the kit at all. My hope is that now that the pathway is visible, I’ll keep walking down it and build up full sticks and mallets kits.
Truth be told, this aspect of Dorico remains a bit of a “Wild West” to me, only because I’ve been working just with NotePerformer until very recently. It could be that starting with the kit build-up is the better way. Wiser minds than mine may join in here.
Wild West indeed. I’ll keep trying for a while. I got AD2 working in Finale and Cubase, so why not in Dorico?
On the other hand, I cannot begin to understand 6 or 7 snare sounds can possibly be programmed like this. Maybe it’s best to forget about AD2 and just go for whatever drumsounds Dorico has preconfigured.
The six or seven snare sounds should be programmable via setting up different playing techniques using the Edit Percussion Playing Techniques dialog. Provided these then match up with the combination of instrument and playing technique defined in the percussion map, everything should work OK. (This is how the default kit allows e.g. open and closed hi-hat sounds, or regular snare hits vs cross-stick hits, etc.)
What Jerome means by " different snare drums" is that, for example, AD2’s Jazz Sticks kit actually has eight different instruments from which to choose (each of which, of course, can be played in the expected different ways). One can even load in more than one.
Aha, well, I’m also not sure how that would be done. Provided you can access each of the drums via a different MIDI pitch, you can set up a percussion map to access those sounds.
Thanks for confirming, Daniel — that’s what we were thinking will have to happen (or any subset thereof that seems important to take time building). Jerome and I may work up a few to share here with any other AD2 users.
Actually, I meant different playing techniques on one kitpiece, like Snare Open Hit, Snare Sidestick, Snare Rimshot, etc. So Daniel was on point.
You’re talking about changing a kitpiece. I have no interest in mapping this; you can simply change that within AD2.
Ok, thanks for that.
I’m working on aligning the playing techniques as you suggested.
For the first time I’m getting the sounds I want, at least for the snare.
Things I discovered:
When I adjust the playing technique and close the dialogue, Dorico puts it back to the first slot ‘natural’. The way to prevent this is by deleting the other playing techniques. Before I got this I was getting nowhere.
A playing technique cannot be repeated throughout the entire drumkit. If you do, Dorico will play the instrument that was first assigned to this playing technique. For example: AD2 has a sound called ‘Snare Rimshot’ and a sound called ‘Snare Shallow Rimshot’. It is tempting to choose rimshot twice as a playing technique. To get the right sounds I selected ‘rimshot’ as playing technique for the first and ‘rim only’ for the latter, and adjusted those in the percussion map as well. Then it worked.
