Hello,
So now since it’s BF-season and all, I’m thinking in about investing in a good cello library, and the Chris hein Solo Cello seems like an excellent buy and product. But before I’m investing in it, I’d like to know how compatible it is to work with dorico, and if there’s any pre-made expression maps for it?
Since I mainly work in Dorico as my first choice, it’s pretty important that the library is suitable for the software notation enviroment with dynamics, articulations, etc.
Does anyone here have any knowledge or experience with CH-products and combability in dorico?
I don’t recall seeing any discussion about the Chris Hein string libraries here, and as far as I know nobody has yet created any expression maps or playback templates (or at least none that they have chosen to share).
well, I just bought it - and absolutely love it, if i ever make an expression map for it to work with dorico I might share if that’s something people would appreciate.
I’ve just bought the complete solo strings from Chris Hein and have made the provisional maps. The main decisions to be made with this library is actually which articulations to allocate to keyswitches (assuming you down the standard road) as the six main libraries have considerably more than the available slots. Particularly with shorts, some experimentation is needed but I’m getting ever closer. Additionally, as there is a certain amount of modelling going on, the samples are not static and can sound different depending on exactly how long the notes are with the shorter ones in particular.
The British Cello has a gorgeous sound and there’s not a lot wrong with the Romantic cello either. I would say it’s worth getting the whole bundle, though. If you like an old-fashioned sweet solo string sound which is nevertheless compatible with being used in a quartet, it’s possibly the most expressive on the market.
Here are the maps I’ve created so far. To simplify things, they are actually identical other than for transposition. The extended instruments which have fewer articulations are mapped the same way as the original full six instruments but just with duplicate entries in the preset where the patches don’t exist. Of course these only make sense together with the Kontakt multi so I’ve put a link to that as unfortunately it’s to large to attach directly. The instruments included are Italian violin, solo violin, French violin, viola, Romantic cello, British cello and German contrabass EX as from investigations so far, these seem to be the best and/or most useful.
The Chris Hein patches can sound quite different depending on the note length and in some cases where a “short” would normally be chosen, a “very short” with manually shortened notes would be more appropriate and for this reason, I included a “short” p.t. Because of the somewhat novel way this library works (it’s advisable to make use of CC1 to control the vibrato in prominent places for instance), further experimentation will certainly take place but it’s possible the maps may be useful as a starting point for those planning to investigate this impressive library.
I’ve used the library quite a lot since I bought it and still feel that for plaintive, rather expressionistic music, it’s unsurpassed. If you do get the library, by all means get in touch for my latest maps – I recently made a few changes
Hi David, I just read through this thread, and I must say, it’s just what I’ve been looking for. I have had the Chris Hein Solo Strings Libraries and Chris Hein Strings Compact for a while now, but I have only used them in my DAW so far. I want to start using them in Dorico as I am making a switch from the Notation software I have been using to Dorico. Please, can I get access to the updated Maps you talked about here?
Hi @isebiama – these seem to be the latest I have on file.Chris Hein SS violin and viola.zip (6.8 KB)
I hope they might be some use but unfortunately I can’t check anything out at the moment if you have any queries as I don’t currently have a working computer with these libraries or even Dorico installed. I’m also not 100% sure if these are still synced with my Kontakt presets as I did do a bit of tinkering not that long ago. But with luck they should at least get you started.
