I’m writing today because I can’t figure out how to make a decent conga drum pattern. The current system seems pretty limiting - you can only choose one conga at a time, and for each conga there is only one note / sound you can get, an open tone. Does Dorico have the capability to apply conga techniques to playback? I’m attaching a screenshot for reference.
I can’t find any VST or anything related to a decent conga playback from either Note Performer, HALION Sonic or GASE.
Welcome to the forum, @localfreshvibes. Dorico doesn’t come with a comprehensive set of sounds for congas. It doesn’t provide sounds for the various techniques you show in your image. If you can find a set of conga sounds that you like, you should be able to set them up in Dorico easily enough.
If you have the full Kontakt plug-in, this looks like it might be a decent starting point:
You will need to run the gauntlet of setting up both the noteheads and playing techniques in your conga instruments to display the expected appearances for each of the extended techniques you want to notate. This is done via the Edit Percussion Playing Techniques dialog:
You will also need to create a percussion map that defines the mapping between the MIDI notes you need to play in order to hear the right sound in your sampled conga instrument and the notated appearance, so that Dorico knows what MIDI notes to play when it encounters, say, a regular hit, or a muted hit, etc.
This can appear a bit daunting at first, but if you approach it methodically it’s absolutely achievable, and you only have to do it once: you can then save everything you have produced as a template for future projects.
You might find this earlier post of mine that explains the principles of percussion mapping in more detail a useful introduction:
Thanks for this introduction. I’ve been on this subject for days now; it’s indeed complex.
After learning how to download VST’s and add them to Dorico, and luckily before purchasing any, I realized that both HALION and Note Performer have the sounds that I need. HALION has a Latin percussion kit, and Note Performer has conga sounds in its orchestral percussion kit. I shouldn’t have to look any further, right?
Here’s where I’m stuck. I’m hoping since I made it this far, it’s a relatively simple set of steps.
I selected “congas” from the Players tab. In the Edit Percussion section, I defined the playing techniques (I may edit these later, but just this for starters).
What I’m stuck on is how to assign the sounds to each one of these notes / playing techniques. From what you wrote above, that seems to be what you’re trying to explain, but based on the link you sent me to “how does mapping work”, I’ve just been in a rabbit hole and I can’t seem to find the solution.
When I go to Play/Percussion Map, which is set to the NP Orchestral Percussion, I get this window. I just want to connect the dots now; MIDI Note 2 to left hand Muffled, MIDI Note 13 to right hand slap, etc.
Like I said, it feels like I’m close but I’m not getting this last step. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Hi @localfreshvibes that is an good idea to look in NP for conga sounds. I was just looking how to make a salsa groove.
You can make the sounds by going to setup mode, click >, click … and choose edit percussion kit. There you can add playback techniques.
In the attachment a basic salsa groove I just made. It is not super but for me maybe good enough to have an idea how the arrangement will work. Funny enough the timbales don’t have a cascara sound so I used the hi-hat of a drumset.
It should be as simple as making sure that the Instrument shown in the percussion map matches the instrument you have in your percussion kit, and that the Playback technique shown in the percussion map matches exactly the techniques shown in the Edit Percussion Playing Techniques dialog. For example, in your Edit Percussion Playing Techniques dialog screenshot, it shows Slap (conga), but in the percussion map, it’s only using Slap, and those two values are different. Make sure they match exactly, and everything should spring into life.
