I’m brand new to Dorico – just going through the “first steps” guide to learn the program. I did the “Walzer-Capricen No. 2” project, and now I’m doing the “See See Rider” project.
I entered the “con sordino” instruction in the cornet part with the playing techniques popover, following the instructions, which say, “It has an associated “Muted” playback technique. Dorico uses playback techniques to link playing technique notations with techniques or articulations in sound libraries in order to produce the correct sounds in playback.”
This has not been the result for me. It sounds no different with the “con sordino” instruction than without it. I’ve dug around some of the online forums, and poked through some of the settings, (playback techniques, expression maps, playback templates in settings), and I can’t figure out how to make it change sounds. (I’ve also experimented with other mute instructions available in the playing techniques panel like harmon, straight mute, bucket mute, cup mute, etc. to see if any of those work, but to no avail.)
I’m not terribly interested in getting too deep in the weeds with different sound libraries and playback stuff – I’m mostly concerned with creating good clear parts for musicians, and so far I’m very happy with the program for that – but I’m wondering if I’m missing something obvious here.
Welcome to the forum, Jay, and thanks for giving Dorico a try. What version of Dorico are you running: Pro, Elements, or SE? Each version comes with a different set of sounds with different capabilities.
Thank you for your reply! I’m running Pro.
Dorico doesn’t provide dedicated cornet sounds, so it uses a trumpet sound instead; I had to look at the trumpet sounds included with Iconica Sketch and HALion Symphonic Orchestra to remind myself, and it turns out that neither of those libraries include mutes for these orchestral trumpets, so in fact the “con sord.” playing technique won’t have any effect by default.
The First Steps guide explains how playing techniques work and what effect they have on playback, but perhaps it ought to make clearer that in this specific case you won’t hear a difference!
Ah, okay! I was so sure I had missed something obvious.
Are there any muted brass sounds anywhere in any of the libraries that came with when I downloaded Dorico Pro, or is that something I’d have to find somewhere else if I ever needed or really wanted to hear those in playback?
So far, I love the program, all of its capabilities, its intuitiveness, (not to mention its help forums where people actually respond to questions!) but I would suggest making it clearer in the tutorial that by default, the playback will not reflect brass mute instructions, or better yet, making muted brass sounds available in the default/preloaded libraries. (So far that’s the ONLY thing I’ve found that’s in the least bit inferior to Sibelius, where by default, playback did reflect brass mute instructions written in the score.)
The HALion Sonic Selection library includes a basic muted trumpet patch, but it’s more like a harmon mute sound than a straight or cup mute, and it’s a bit tricky to arrange switching from e.g. the Iconica Sketch sound to that muted trumpet sound because it requires loading multiple patches for the same instrument. (That can be done, but it’s not something that Dorico does by default.)
Noteperformer supports five different mute styles, including bucket, cup, plunger and harmon. If you want decent, fairly comprehensive instrumental coverage, with the minimum of effort, then NP is essential.
As mentioned above, most people use NotePerformer and that gives an easy solution for mutes. The only other solution I’m aware of that does mute simulation is Sordina by Librewave, that’s a VST effect plugin that basically provides a series of predefined EQ curves to simulate various categories, makes and models of mute. I use this myself for mute simulation in libraries used outside of NotePerformer.
Have you used Sordina in dorico or only inside a daw?
Yes, I use Sordina in Dorico all the time, although not directly. I use it in Vienna Ensemble Pro b/c in there I was able to program it to respond to MIDI CC’s on the same channel to change mutes, and add those to the expression map so that Dorico could change mutes on the fly. It works really well.
Interestingly, GPO5 contains some brass samples with mute patches, and others which have simulated mutes using EQ curves.
Interesting! I guess using VEPro would not be possible with noteperformer?
You cannot host Noteperformer in VE Pro.
But, you can support Noteperformer and VE Pro separately in any Dorico project and include instruments from either one in that project.
I would like to send audio from Note Performer to be processed in VEPro with this plug-in, but I think that is not possible at the moment… Also it is not possible to automate effects inside Dorico. However it is very interesting option with other libraries!