East West Changing Midi Channel / Instrument

Dorico
1

I bought the EW Choir. I don’t want to use the wordbuilder stuff, but for every articulation, EW makes a new instrument.
‘ah legato’ on midi channel 01
‘ah stacc’ on midi channel 02
and so on…
I don’t have access to the articulations with keyswitches.

If i’m composing for a double choir, I can’t make a new instance of the ‘Play’-Software for every articulation for every voice…I would end up in 50 staves in Dorico.

Is there a way to deal with that? Is there a way to load different instruments in just 1 ‘Play’-Software instance and tell Dorico: now please change from Midi Channel 1 to 2 - but on the same instrument stave?
I don’t know if I explained it well enough…

2

It’s not currently possible to change channels for a single instrument in Dorico, but this is something that we aim to look at for a future version.

3

Hey Jazz! I use EW Choir with Dorico in one instance only with a little workaround, if you are interested I’ll explain:

1.- Load all articulations in one Play instance
2.- Right click on the volume Knob and click Learn MIDI
3.- Select the choir in Play Mode
4.- In your MIDI Controller assign a knob to say CC 100 and move it
5.- Repeat the process for every articulation incrementing the MIDI CC (101, 102, etc.)
6.- In the expression map you’ll now have to indicate to Dorico the control change according to each articulation

This is an example:

EW Setup.JPG
EW Setup.JPG1592×697 171 KB

As you can see, I told Dorico that when playing legato turn CC 100 to 0 and CC 101 to 100, that mutes sustain in Play and puts legato at 100.

4

Interesting workaround - thanks for sharing it. I notice in the lower right label there is a setting labelled ‘keyswitch’. Could that also be used to switch between articulations?

5

Hey Paul,
don’t ask me why, but the ‘keyswitch’ setting doesn’t work. I tried it 30 times. I think it is a standard interface ‘Play-Software’ layout which is adapted to other EW instruments in which keyswitches are possible.
I think it works for other choir plug-ins of EW which work with a differnt system. But for the ‘diamond choir’ I have, every articulation is an instrument of it’s own which is assigned to midi-channels. That makes keyswitches impossible I guess. Changing instruments would be possible in a multi-bank in Kontakt Player, but EW doesn’t use program changes for that - unfortunately.

6

Damn ! Fantastic idea. I’ll check it out immediately. Thanx so much for sharing !

7

Works like a baby !!
Lots of work (new expression maps, new playing techniques, new interface for the Stream Deck)…but it’s worth it !
Thanx so much for sharing :slight_smile:

8

My pleasure sir! New interface for the Stream Deck? I’m always looking to improve mine so if you want to share any ideas please head over to Dorico Elgato Stream Deck Profile for Windows - #8 by Bollen - Dorico - Steinberg Forums and suggest ideas!

9

I don’t have windows…
I shared my intervals and tuplets for the stream deck there: https://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=879373#p879373
I’m a bit doubting if it makes sense to share most of my stream deck stuff cause at the end the buttons only work in connection with newly created expression maps (for spitfire for example) and newly created playing techniques.
I have a lot of stuff like: ‘Men ah’ (for the choir). So the playing technique: ‘Men ah’, expression map with the playing technique ‘men ah’ and a button on my stream deck which types in automatically the playing technique ‘men ah’ in my score. You see: the pure stream deck button doesn’t help a lot without the rest.

10

Ah fair enough! Although I was told that it’s as simple as changing the CTRL for Command and everything should work, but I take your point on ‘custom’ keys…