I’m trying to make an expression map for Audio Imperia Dolce and I have successfully mapped the first 9 articulation. However, for some reason (there’s gotta be an answer!), I’m not able to map the 10th articulation “tremolo sul ponticello”. Nothing I do seems to work, yet I’m doing it the same way as for the first 9 articulations which did work! I’m new to this so it’s likely something I’m doing wrong or my process which is wrong.
If anyone has Dolce, and knows how to make expression maps, and has suggestions or would like to take a look at what I have so far, please let me know and I’ll send along what I have for analysis. Contact me at synergy543 “at” gmail.com"
Here is the issue I’m faced with and a description of my process.
Dolce, does not have keymaps as do all other Dorico libraries I’ve looked at so far. So I’ve used MIDI channels to switch between articulations. So far, this seems to work well but I’ve never seen any examples of other expression maps using this method. Maybe there is a reason? If anyone knows of another library using this method, please let me know as I’d like to have a look at it.
Here’s what I’m doing:
I assign the instrument (Violin 1) to Kontakt and
I create an Expression Map and assign this expression map to the instrument.
Next, I assign each articulation to a different MIDI channel in Kontakt so I have one MULTI containing all of the articulations (each on a different MIDI channel).
I create each articulation in the Dorico Expression Map and assign the action to the Absolute MIDI Channel.
I assign mutual exclusions to each articulation so that can’t happen at the same time.
Then I make a playback technique for the articulation if it doesn’t exist. For simplicity, I’m using text popovers.
Then I make a playing technique and assign the playback technique.
I test the articulation with a new line that switches and look in the Play Piano Roll to confirm that Dorico has recognized the new articulation.
Lastly, I adjust any dynamic controls such a velocity or MIDI CC1 control.
And using the above method, the first 9 articulations work fine, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out why “tremolo sul ponticello” won’t work! Either I made a mistake I’m not noticing or, I’m missing a critical 10th step, that is keeping me from assigning this 10th articulation!
Also, I haven’t done trills HT and WT yet, as I’m not sure how best to trigger these.
Any thoughts?
Sincerely,
Baffled and Confounded
It’s a lovely library so I really want to make this work. If you haven’t heard it yet, here is my favorite demo:
If you can attach your test project and its expression map here, I can take a look and see if I can spot any obvious errors. (I don’t have the library so I won’t be able to test that it actually works, but it should be possible to work out what’s up.)
Thank you Daniel for offering to take a look! There must be something I don’t understand about the connection between Playing Technique and Playback Technique as I’ve tried recreating this many times and I always run into the same problem with this particular articulation.
I have an example on ms 22 calling for tremolo sul ponticello and you can see that it reverts to another articulation. However, all of the other articulation switches work great! So I did make “some” progress. I gave it the name “tremolo sul ponticello2” to differentiate from any existing playing or playback techniques.
Daniel, thank you so much! That was the problem. Yay! I NEVER would have figured that out! I owe you a large pint of your choice. So why would I have to cancel the con sordino if other articulations are intervening? (such as pizzicato, spiccato and tremolo). I suppose the answer might be that that in reality for a real string player each of the following articulations is not mutually exclusive to con sordino? However, in the sample world, they would be mutually exclusive. How very confusing.
If I had set the con sordino to mutually exclusive, would this also have solved the problem?
So what I did was put a “nat.” before the legato starting on ms. 10. Is this the best “real world” solution? (when writing for real players) Like this:
OK, with that problem out of the way, I’m on to finish the rest of this library and then maybe tackle some others such as Pacifica and Nashville Strings.
Thank you so kindly for your help. I was getting a bit distraught this morning when after all weekend there were 52 views, but not as much as much as a peep. I thought maybe I hadn’t explained the issue well or I was barking up the wrong tree. So I’m very pleased to have had your help.
@fratveno - I’m using the tremolo sul ponticello as a base switch. Honestly, I don’t understand when to use the add-ons. Would that be when two different articulations are activated simultaneously?
Sorry, but no. Senza Sord is the instruction to remove mutes. And a practical point, it takes time to add/remove mutes, so some time is required before and after a con sord passage to do so.
