I’m struggling to get a harmonic articulation to play reliably in Dorico Pro 6 with VSL Synchron Solo Strings, and I’m hoping someone can see what I’m missing.
Setup / Goal
- Dorico Pro 6 on macOS.- VSL Synchron Solo Strings (Synchron Player), using the VSL‑supplied playback template / expression maps.
- I’m trying to use a natural harmonic articulation (VSL playback technique “Natural harmonic 1”, mapped to the correct Synchron harmonic slot) and also a combined harmonic+tremolo articulation (NH_Trem).
Symptoms
- In some parts of the score, the harmonic articulation works perfectly and triggers the correct Synchron slot.
- In other places (especially at the beginning of a flow or passage), the same notated harmonic articulation results in no sound at all.
- Removing the harmonic playing technique from those notes makes them play normally (plain sustain), so the general routing/audio setup is fine.
- In one test, a 4‑bar passage of harmonics:
- First two bars: totally silent.
- Last two bars: play correctly with the harmonic articulation.
- Copying the same notes to a later point in the piece can make them work there while still failing earlier.
Playback Techniques vs what the VST actually does
- In Dorico’s Play mode, the Playback Techniques lane consistently reports “Natural harmonic 1” (or NH_Trem) active on both the silent and working notes.
- However, watching the VSL Synchron Player shows that in the silent measures the intended harmonic slot is not being selected:
- Previously I could see a fallback / “custom” state being triggered (which produced no sound).
- I removed that custom/empty switch from the expression map, so now the issue is: Dorico shows the right playback technique, but the corresponding switch in the map still doesn’t seem to be used in those first measures.
- I checked the tooltip over the Playback Techniques lane carefully: the list of active techniques appears identical between silent and sounding notes (no extra hidden technique name).
Expression map details
- I’m using the VSL‑provided expression map and/or a copy where I’ve only adjusted a few things.
- For “Natural harmonic 1” (NH1):
- The Playback Technique in Library > Playback Techniques is exactly “Natural harmonic 1”.
- The Playing Technique in Library > Playing Techniques uses that playback technique and is what I apply in the score.
- In the Expression Map, there is a row whose Techniques cell is exactly “Natural harmonic 1” (and I’ve also tried adding “natural” so it’s “natural + Natural harmonic 1”).
- There are no Conditions on that row (no length filters, etc.).
- The keyswitch in the Actions section is the correct MIDI note for the harmonic slot in my Synchron preset, and the Transpose is set to ‑24 as recommended so Dorico’s harmonic pitch matches VSL’s mapping.
- There are no other rows with empty Techniques cells except Init, and no other row that obviously overlaps the NH1 technique.
- I deleted the previous “custom” / empty row that had no techniques and no actions.
Init and reset attempts
Things I’ve tried that did not solve the intermittent silence:
- Setting Init to send the default long sustain keyswitch and some baseline CC values, so the instrument starts in a known sustain state.
- Adding nat./ord. before the harmonic section (both in the same bar and in an extra bar before it).
- Adding legato to the NH1 combination.
- Creating a new project and copy‑pasting only the notes, then redefining NH1 with the same name as in the VSL map. In that new file, I still get the pattern where some measures are completely silent and later ones play correctly.
- Watching the techniques lane and tooltip to ensure there are no extra or different techniques in the silent bars—there aren’t.
What I observe in Synchron
- In the first measures where there is no sound, Synchron does not show the intended harmonic slot being selected, even though Dorico says NH1 is active.
- In later measures of the same passage, the harmonic slot does get selected and sounds correctly.
- This suggests either:
- Dorico is somehow still falling back to another switch (despite the same visible technique combination), or
- The VSL patch is in a “not ready / legato‑only / out‑of‑range” state at the beginning of the passage, so the correct keyswitch + pitch produces silence until something later “wakes it up”.
My questions for the group
1 - Has anyone seen a situation where a VSL Synchron harmonic articulation (e.g. “Natural harmonic 1” or a harmonic+tremolo like NH_Trem)
- shows correctly in Dorico’s Playback Techniques lane,
- but fails to trigger its expression‑map switch for the first bars of a passage, then suddenly works a few bars later with the same notation and technique combination?
2 -Are there any known quirks with:
- VSL Solo Strings harmonic patches needing an extra “first note” setup,
- specific note lengths / overlaps that prevent the harmonic slot from speaking on the first few notes, or
- Dorico’s handling of harmonics at the very start of a flow?
3 -Is there a recommended, robust setup recipe for natural harmonics in Synchron Solo Strings with Dorico (including expression map row definition, Init contents, and any required mutual‑exclusion or technique combinations) that avoids these “silent first bars” issues?
4 -If someone is willing to look at a minimal Dorico project, what exact elements would you like included (e.g. only one instrument with an 8‑bar harmonic passage, which preset loaded, etc.) to debug this properly?
Any insight, especially from people using the same Dorico 6 + Synchron Solo Strings + VSL expression maps combo, would be hugely appreciated.