Hi, folks!
Here is a full expression map of the Spitifre BBC SO Discover version for you.
If you find an error, please let me know.
Greets, Günther
BBC SO Discover.zip (14.9 KB)
Thank you! I won’t be able to try out the expression maps for a few days but look forward to doing that when I can.
You are welcome!
I found that taking Paul’s collection from the “Expression Maps for Dorico 3.5+” thread for the full BBC SO product and removing the unneccesary expressions alone did not do the trick. The Discover series uses different keyswitches for everything other than “Natural”, and the percussion section is completely different.
(I decided to use CC1 and CC11 together because IMO this balances better together with the other HALion instruments I use in my score.)
I found that taking Paul’s collection from the “Expression Maps for Dorico 3.5+” thread for the full BBC SO product and removing the unneccesary expressions alone did not do the trick. The Discover series uses different keyswitches for everything other than “Natural”, and the percussion section is completely different.
This is unexpected considering the “mode switching” between Professional, Core and Discover versions of BBCSO that Spitfire stresses in their advertising materials. However, I am thankful you have taken the time to work this out and are willing to share the results of your efforts with others. Bravo!
Thanks very much for sharing this resource, Günther, much appreciated
Hi Gunther. A quick question about the glockenspiel expression map. Is there a way to have this transpose the played pitch up two octaves to match the way glockenspiels are typically written?
You can always add transposition in the expression map itself if necessary.
I did not find any need to add custom transpositions to my project.
I added a new Player, handed him a Glockenspiel instrument, and routed it to a new BBCSO instance. No additional transposition was needed, the C at two ledger lines above the staff plays back the highest C note within the BBCSO player, which seems to me to be the correct transposition.
Would it be correct to assume one cannot use percussion map for the discover series? All percussion would have to be on one “untuned percussion” stave then?
No, I don’t think there’s any reason why you couldn’t use percussion maps with BBCSO Discover, though off the top of my head I don’t know which unpitched percussion instruments are actually included in the Discover version.
John covered this in his Discover Dorico session yesterday. He’ll soon make the Playback Template available: Expression Maps and Playback Templates for Spitfire BBCSO Discover | Discover Dorico - YouTube
actually I found the most illuminating thing in this video was around 47’ in when the note length table was shown. The imbalance in favour of the shorter articulations, which I felt was the case early on, is clearly shown here. At a average tempo of 80-160, only a semibreve gets the very long treatment which is why it appears to be necessary to use steps 4 and 5 for sustained notes which most EM’s I’ve seen incorporate. This is not designed as a criticism as, having just completed my first major project using this system, it has helped no end and I have been surprised not only just how much time I’ve saved with it but also how much better the results tend to be. It shines in moderate and particularly faster music but with slow, you can switch away to more expressive often non-automateable patches when required
Of course the BBC Discover doesn’t have any choice worth mentioning and I have to admit I skipped much of setting it up part because the library is so basic as to be hardly worth bothering about in itself (of course there are those who disagree 
). However, the overall general procedure, including endpoints and playback templates, was admirably described by John and can certainly be recommended to those yet to discover the joys and frustrations of creating their own maps.