I have a question regarding the Electric Bass VST.
I’m using it in Dorico, and overall it works extremely well. In the E5 range, the library provides slide triggers that respond to velocity. I can activate these slides in Dorico using a MIDI Region, and that part works as expected.
However, I haven’t been able to find a way to control the initial dynamic of the slide itself; in my current project, the slide begins too loudly for the musical context.
So my question is: Is there a way to control the initial dynamic of a slide generated not by using the auto slide functionality (which seems to generate a scale), but one of the additional embellishment samples (in the range E5, for example)?
I am sorry to confess that I can‘t contribute anything to your problem other than saying that I ran into the same issue.
However, it is my impression that Dorico in general has the tendency to introduce any instrument that newly starts playing during a piece overly loud. So much so that it even audibly — and unwantedly — ducks other tracks. Like, there is an acoustic guitar chord ringing while a second acoustic guitar starts playing. It will interrupt the ongoing chord of the first guitar quite unnaturally which makes it sound like a flaw, and I don‘t know how to solve this. I have the feeling there is some kind of undesired playback prioritizing happening under the hood which makes Dorico put too much focus on newly introduced instruments — just like the slide-in of Electric Bass which doesn’t sound to my liking, too. Maybe it is all my own fault, by some kind of playback setting that I did wrong or that I am not aware of. Anyhow, me too, I would be very grateful if somebody gave me a hint to solving this issue.
Thanks for responding, if only to confirm that I’m not the only one dealing with this issue is reassuring.
Sending a velocity value from Dorico to Electric Bass is straightforward enough, but since that value determines the direction of the slide rather than its dynamic, I’m finding it hard to see how this feature is meant to work in practice, either in Dorico or a DAW. Specifically, I’m unsure how to ensure the slide embellishment correctly matches the dynamic of the starting and ending notes either side of it.
I reached out to Steinberg support last week and am still waiting to hear back. I’ll post an update here if I ever manage to get to the bottom of this issue.
Out of interest, I have been unable to find a manual for the Electric Bass. Does Steinberg provide manuals for its VSTs, I wonder?
Sorry for the delay — the manual should be found here
I should take the time to thoroughly re-read it and work on the issue some more, unfortunately, due to some traveling I‘m having to do, it will have to wait…
Thanks so much @Sarawii for getting back to me. I’m not sure how I managed to miss the link, though, to be fair, my Google search for ‘Electric Bass Steinberg Manual’ didn’t show it. I really appreciate the help!
Hi @Sarawii, I’ve checked the manual, but it doesn’t shed any light on how to control slide-embellishment dynamics. I emailed Steinberg support a week ago and haven’t heard anything back, which is frustrating, especially compared with the stellar support you get from the Dorico devs. I’ll just have to be patient and hope that someone from Steinberg will respond in due course…
Sorry for the slow reply, I’ve been away from my desk for a few days.
While Dorico is primarily a notation program, it provides much more advanced and flexible playback options than most other notation software, including the manipulation of CC values.
I’ll investigate and get back to you later today. In the meantime, thank you for the suggestion, which is much appreciated.
Please accept my apologies for the delayed response.
I’d like to thank you for your suggestion and confirm that it works perfectly in Dorico.
For anyone wishing to use the Electric Bass embellishments in Dorico, the process is very straightforward:
Add a MIDI Trigger Region (Shift + 0).
Type the required command, for example: E5 (20).
(This means the embellishment is triggered by E5 with a velocity value of 20, which in this case does not relate to volume but instead indicates the direction of travel of the slide.)
In the Key Editor, add an automation lane for C11 and draw a line to set the desired volume.
Hopefully someone at Steinberg will see this and consider improving the quality of support for this instrument. The response I received from them avoided the issue and simply suggested using pitch bend instead, which is far from an ideal solution.
Thanks once again for taking the time to help me @Fujiu
