Realizing that I don’t have one, I thought I should make an expression map for Symphonic Choirs, but I have to admit I don’t really know what I need, beyond setting secondary dynamic to cc1.
Any tips?
There are several ways to control the dynamics in the Symphonic Choirs: velocity, CC1, CC7 and CC11. If the “DYN MOD” patches are used, increasing CC1 changes the quality of the sound, going from samples with little vibrato to samples with full vibrato. As velocities increase over 101, sounds can be generated with progressively stronger attacks if the samples with full vibrato are used. Otherwise, changes to these parameters only change the loudness of the sounds. Different users will choose different parameters for the primary and secondary dynamic controls in the expression map.
For the Init switch in my expression map, I include a Control Change that sets CC20 to 127. This resets WordBuilder so the next syllable it sings is the first one in the Text Editor. Of course, this means that playback in Dorico must start at the beginning of the piece in order to keep the notes and syllables in synch.
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What does cc11 affect? Seems odd that it would just duplicate cc7.
I believe that increasing CC11 simply changes the volume from silence to the maximum loudness permitted by the setting of CC7. If Dorico’s mixer is used to set CC7 for each section of the choir so a good static balance is achieved, then using the same value for CC11 across all sections should maintain that balance no matter whether the choir is singing softly or loudly.
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As has been said a few times, the fact that Symphonic Choirs does not use external key switches means that an Expression Map in the normal sense is not necessary. However, @johnkprice is absolutely correct in saying that you should set both CC1 and CC11 as controllers and in his description on how they work–I find CC1 is easiest as primary as this is the normal method with other libraries and I assume is also what EWQL intend here, but you can indeed reverse them. CC7 is the global master volume and should not be edited within the piece – that’s the job of CC11. Otherwise having two sliders which do effectively the same, as you say, just causes confusion.
I haven’t experimented myself to see if there’s any difference between an Init switch of CC20,127 or simply drawing it directly into the lanes but if you do neither, there is indeed a danger that the text will not reset to the beginning if neither are done.
Thanks guys. I’ll call this solved.