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.
XLN Audio announced an update today, that has me again interested in connecting this with Dorico. In the past, when I have looked at this, it seemed so complicated I decided not to do anything with it.
I have never really figured out a combination that works very well. AD2 has its own key assignments, or you can load in any f a couple dozen maps, including GM. But no matter what combination I try, I am always missing at least half the kit pieces. Most importantly (to me) AD2 has loads of drum patterns that should be droppable into Dorico. However, if the mapping doesn’t match, this is of no use.
I don’t need to map every possible AD key, but I need enough of it mapped that when I drab some beats from AD2 into Dorico, the playback is reasonable.
Has anybody gotten that for with AD2-Dorico integration?
I had a pretty comprehensive map for AD2 but ditched it for the GM mapping. When I get back at my desk in the morning I’ll try to find it. It’s interesting that you are missing kit pieces even with the GM map. I don’t recall that ever happening to me.
I am not clear about how that GM mapping works within AD2. I want to be able to drag drum patterns Drum AD2 into my drumset in Dorico. And then I want those notes to play reasonable back through the AD2 VST that I assign to that instrument in Dorico. I am not sure if AD2 does the mapping to GM both directions.
Unfortunately, I must have nuked the AD2 percussion map. To be able to drag the pattern from AD2 to Dorico, I found the best results were when the destination kit is “Drum Set (Full)”. You need to set the MIDI mapping in AD2 to General MIDI and the percussion map for the kit to General MIDI.
I just dragged a bunch of patterns successfully. If you can show what, exactly, gets dropped, I’m sure there’s an explanation.
Also, the mapping setting inside of AD2 is what it reads in order to trigger the correct samples. The General MIDI percussion map writes those values to the VST so the two need to have the same mapping (either general MIDI or create your own based off AD2). I prefer the GM map for ease of use.
Thanks. I’ll give that a try. I’m sure I must have left off one of the steps you mentioned. It has been a long time, but I have a couple of days free to play around with this and the new AD2 release.
It sounds likely that the GM mapping ought to be good for me. I don’t do anything very sophisticated. I just want to have some halfway realistic-sounding beats to include in the Dorico playback.
I added a full set and gave it the GM map. I set that to play through AD2 and also gave that the GM map in AD2. I saved a short loop from AD2, uploaded here as AD2Beat.
When I drag that into Cubase, I get all the beats.
When I drag it into Dorico, I am missing about half the beats on the hihat. In Cubase, the hihat notes are split between F#1 (42) and E8 (124). In Dorico I think I am getting the higher ones (but that is at E9). I am missing the lower ones (F#2). I tried to add a mapping in the percussion map and I also tried to edit the percussion kit to add Normal and open techniques. None of that worked.
AD2 describes E8 (aka E9) as “HH closed shaft” and F#1 (aka F#2) as “HH Closed tip”
I am not understanding how all these things are connected because each product seems to use a different mapping and a different description of the kit piece/technique.
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FWIW, I note that with Cubase, nothing is discarded from the MIDI file/stream Even if Cubase doesn’t know the semantics (what some MIDI notes mean), it simply stores them and plays them back at the right time. So if the beats originally came from AD2, then they will sound as expected when Cubase plays back those same MIDI notes via AD2.
Dorico does not work that way. It discards anything that has not been defined in advance. It seems to me there would be merit in Dorico saving those uncertain MIDI notes. That would make it easier for a person to come in after the MIDI has been imported and add semantic definitions as needed.
I only used CYM 1-4 and FLEXI 3 is Dorico’s Kick Drum (very low).
EDIT: One can go crazy with adding playing techniques to each kit piece with different note heads etc. so that the display looks great. I did the bare minimum to get +97% of strokes mapped. When you drag a pattern into Dorico, it might not look pretty but it will have all the different hits. E.g., this is American Rock Beat 02:
