if the lyrics are in English, you can just cut and paste the lyric line directly into Wordbuilder (English mode) but as melismas are written differently in the score to WB (in other words with an underscore instead of hyphen or space), you’ll need to correct those. It’s then best to show the native Votox so you can make any corrections to the pronunciation you feel are necessary.
With any other languages, you’ll need to just enter the text manually into WB.
Hi @dko22, sorry I can’t follow. You wrote: “Ah, I’ve just looked at the EM and template. It seems it’s not designed for use with Wordbuilder at all which to me is the whole point of these choirs.”. I did not find a way so that the user may write the lyrics in the dorico score and have them automatically imported (by the template) inside worldbuilder. I think it would be a really cool feature, and for that I was asking some suggestion. Manually copy the lyrics inside worldbuilder currently is the only way…
there is no way you can write the lyrics in Dorico and have them automatically imported into Wordbuilder. We’d all love this but the truth is that WB works a quite different way from lyrics in a notated score so I can’t think of a way to automate this (and even if you did, it could only work for English and with the proviso that melismas would have to be corrected).
I don’t personally use an Expression Map for EWQL choirs – or rather I just choose a basic one which includes controller support for both CC1 and CC11
I’m confused. I don’t think this playback template supports dynamics. I did a simple test: one instrument (soprano) with this expression map as the default. I made a ramp from ppp to fff with a hairpin in between. No change. What am I doing wrong?
Thanks,
Mike
the attached is what I use if you’d like to try that. By reinforcing the CC1 dynamic with CC11 (as EWQL expect as far as I can see) there should be adequate contrast in the dynamics.
Choir.zip (1.3 KB)
Thanks, dko22, but what do I do with this file. Where do I put it?
Mike
it’s simply an Expression Map so after unzipping it, you go to the Expression Map window and choose “Import Library” from the buttons at the bottom, remembering to save the changes and change the Endpoint in your project to include it.
Thanks, my friend, but what is an endpoint, and how do I change it? Sorry for being so stupid, but this is so complicated for my old brain.
Mike
Mike, the Endpoint is just the name for the playback configuration of your instruments. Just go into the Play window and select the instrument/choir voice you’re interested in and then click on the cog as circled in red. Then the Endpoint setup window will open, allowing you to change the Expression Map for any channels using this particular library as illustrated below.
It’s possible this tutorial video might help if you’re still relatively new to the Dorico 4 Play mode.
YYYAAAYYY!!! THANK YOU, dko22! It works. I don’t quite understand why, but it’s just what I wanted.
BUT, although this works for this piece, is there a way to create a new piece from scratch (without having to load this one) and have Dorico configured for both NotePerformer and the Opus Hollywood Orchestra at the same time, so that I don’t have to do all this nit-picky stuff?
Mike
usually with NotePerformer, it’s best to use the specific template for that, otherwise it probably won’t work properly and then add the choir manually afterwards. I haven’t myself tried to combine these two (but it’s possible others have and may have some sort of preset)
Incidentally, I haven’t been using Opus for my Choirs projects but I see there is an updated version which seems to have sorted the weirdly inconsistent dynamics so I’ll probably switch for future as PLAY will eventually be phased out.
One can configure Playback Templates to add one VST just for singers and then catch all remaining voices with NotePerfomer if one desires.
Hi all,
I’ve updated the expression map to use both CC1 and CC11. I also updated the template itself to verify the dynamic variation.
Expression map and Playback template:
HollywoodChoir_Dorico_Expression_Playback_2_0.zip (2.6 MB)
Project template:
HollywoodChoir_Dorico_Template_2_0.zip (3.3 MB)
Great to have these but are they intended for the diamond edition of Hollywood Choirs. I have the composer cloud gold Hollywood Choirs installed and when I load the Project template sample file I get the message saying the diamond edition is not installed. Do I need to do some tinkering with the end point set up? I guess this is maybe just that the Project template has been set up for the diamond edition but this is independent of the use of of both expression map and playback template which will work with the gold edition of the choir as well.
Thanks a lot anyway
Hi @nomisllewdor,
I’m not really sure how easy this could be.
For each vowels/letter (e.g. Aa, Ah, EE, etc) the expression map defines a specific key-switch (e.g. Aa → C#-2).
Inside the endpoint (e.g. “EW Hollywood Choir Women”) I loaded all the possible wovels, and assigned the above keyswitch to each of them (see inside Opus → Perform).
I fear that, to use a different Choir version, you should:
I have no idea how much time it could take you; on the other side, since I have a different Choir version, I could not do a template for your… 
OK thanks - it’s useful to know all that - simplest thing would be to find an upgrade to the diamond version of the choir. A bit irritating that East/West don’t seem to allow that in the Composer Cloud but they do seem to support diamond editions of libraries in Composer Cloud+ so I will probably go for that.
Thanks for all the work you have put in anyway.
Thanks again, @gabrio! Unfortunately, after I’ve installed the v2 library and then open the project template, I get this:
This project references a Playback Template playbacktemplate.user.ew_hollywood_choir that is not installed on this system.
This is Dorico 4.3.30. Using Play 6.1.9 because I couldn’t get Opus to work properly (skipped lots of notes).
In spite of the error, the vowels consonants all work, but dynamics changes don’t.
Thanks for any help!
Stephen
