Hi all.
I’m trying to write a part for a snare drum using the Cross Stick technique, but it sounds like a normal snare drum unless I chose Side Stick from the available techniques. This is for a snare that is part of the Drum Set instrument provided in the Concert Band template. Any suggestions?
The cross stick sound in the default Yamaha XG drum set that is used when you create a normal drum kit in Dorico is MIDI note 32, and is mapped to the circled notehead by default; side stick is MIDI note 37, and is mapped to the cross notehead by default.
As I cycle through the techniques using Alt + Shift and the arrow keys, the description on the screen says Sn. Dr.: Cross Stick and the note head changes to a sold note head with a circle around it, but the sound is a normal snare drum, just like when the regular note head comes up and the description is Sn. Dr. I’m using all the defaults as you have described, but the sounds don’t coincide with what the description says they should be.
Are you using the regular HALion Sonic SE sounds, or NotePerformer, or another virtual instrument?
The regular HALion sounds that came with Dorico 3. I upgraded from Dorico 2
Please try opening the attached project (you’ll need to unzip it first). When you play it back or click on the noteheads in the score, do you hear four different sounds? Hopefully you do!
snare.dorico.zip (240 KB)
So, interesting result. When I manually move from one note to the next, I hear normal snare, cross stick, normal snare, rim shot. When I play it back, I hear normal snare, cross stick, two sticks being hit together and rim shot. I tried to attach an mp3 for you, but apparently that’s not allowed. 
I’m a little mystified by that, because auditioning and playback both produce precisely the same results for me. You can attach an MP3 file if you zip it up first.
Well, for what it’s worth, your MP3 sounds the same as the Dorico playback, i.e. there are four different sounds in there. I suggest you open up the HSSE interface and click each of the keys until you hear the sound you’re expecting to hear as cross stick: which note triggers the sound you’re expecting to hear?
The sound that’s loaded is [GM 129] Stereo GM Kit, and the key that triggers what I hear as cross stick is C#1. I noticed that I hadn’t upgraded to Dorico 3.1, so I’ve done that to see if it would help. Having done that, the snare file you sent seems to have the cross stick and side stick sounds reversed. This is what I’m experiencing in my file as well.
Then I suggest you go to Play > Percussion Maps and edit the Yamaha XG percussion map such that you swap the techniques assigned to notes 32 and 37. For what it’s worth, the GM drum set defines MIDI note 37 as side stick, which is how we have the percussion map set up. To my shame I don’t personally know enough about drum sets to know whether or not these two sounds are mapped the wrong way around!
Ok. I’ll do that. I’m just basing this on what I hear. Thanks for your help.