Hello, I have imported a score from Finale via MIDI and created an expression map for the trumpet, which should switch between Natural on channel 1 and Muted on channel 2. During playback, however, only channel 1 is addressed, regardless of whether Muted or Natural is requested.
In a simple test project with manually entered notes, switching works without any problems, but not with the imported score. Any ideas as to what is going wrong here?
Are you able to attach the project itself? Perhaps cut it down to just a few bars for the affected instrument, and then attach it here.
Off the top of my head: have you definitely assigned the right expression map to the instrument in Play mode? Have you loaded the correct patches into the VST instrument? Are you using the same playing techniques to switch between natural and muted sounds?
Thanks for the quick response and please find attached a demo project that shows the erroneous behavior.
ErrDemo.zip (1023.1 KB)
Addendum to my upload: I have double-checked the expression map and the assignment and see no errors. If I enter channel 2 in the playback routing, it is actually used and the correct sound is produced. Only the switching via expression map does not work.
I use Kontakt 7 as the VST instrument and the trumpet from the Factory Library 2 Band.
Hi @m.raetzmann I tried out your file.
I found 2 possibilities (but I donāt know the technical reason why is working, it seems like the vertical order of the midi channels in the expression map has some influenceā¦?):
ErrDemo-CORRECTED.dorico (1.0 MB) (This follow the second possibility.)
-
possibility
(Probably what you also found)
-change to Channel 2 in Track inspector, and the expression map correctly triggers the 2 articulations:
-
possibility
-re-set the track inspector to channel 1
-edit the channels in the expression map,
-and adjust it accordingly also in Kontakt as in the examples below.
The expression map triggers correctly the 2 articulations:
Iām not quite sure exactly what your setup is here. If your muted articulation is a different instrument (as is sometimes the case with VSL libraries for instance) then you need to create a different instrument for the player and assign this instrument to channel 2 so you have something to switch to. You donāt currently have any instrument assigned to channel 2 in Dorico so I think Dorico doesnāt know what to do.
Or is it the same virtual instrument that requires a channel change for this articulation switch? I have no libraries which work like this and itās fairly non-standard ā almost invariably keyswitches or CCās are used but perhaps your trumpet does work like this ā I havenāt installed the Kontakt factory library so canāt tell. You can still get round the problem in the same way though by creating a new trumpet instrument for the trumpet player and assigning it to channel 2.
Somewhat similar to @Christian_Rās thoughts, but a different experiment.
If you start with an unmuted rest , or even suppress playback of the first note, the passage plays correctly.
I have absolutely no idea why this should be the case.
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Indeed! very strange 
He is using Kontakt as Multi: 1 multi that has 2 instruments each on one channel. (This is like an instance of Vienna Ensemble pro with 2 channels loaded each one on a different midi channel)
If you are referring at the second slot of the VST and MIDI view, I think the number donāt represent the Midi Channel, but the slot nr. of the VST (you can have much more than 16 slots in this viewā¦). The Midi channel is assigned in the Track Inspector View.
(if I am mistaken please someone correct meā¦)
OK - I somehow missed the screenshot showing the Kontakt setup ā now itās clear. So my point remains, .The mute instrument is not set up anywhere in the Dorico project that I can see. There is one player holding one instrument and this is set to channel 1. I thought ā and possibly this is mistaken - that if an instrument is not defined in the track inspector, then Dorico has no reference point for being asked to switch to channel 2 as Dorico doesnāt know what is on channel 2, only Kontakt does. Normally in setting up a template, allocated MIDI channels in Dorico and the .vst should match.
At any rate, Iād be very surprised if it doesnāt work if my suggestion above is followed.
Itās like @Christian_R said: a KONTAKT 7 Multi with an unmuted trumpet in slot 1 accepting MIDI data on chanel 1 and a muted trumpet in slot 2 accepting MIDI data on chanel 2.
Ups - that solves the problem. I just added an empty bar at the beginning of the part and moved the āwith muteā direction to the rest in there. Now everything works fine.
Seems like Dorico needs an amount of time to set up the mute - just like a human player. 
The instrument must be defined as a VST or MIDI instrument. But VSTs may have several slots that host several diferent variations (e.g. articulations) of your instrument. You can assign different MIDI chanels to different slots and change the chanel via a playback expression defined in the according expression map.
You may want to read more about that in the Dorico manual under Expression maps ā Expression maps dialog ā Types of actions.
@dspreadbury @Christian_R @dko22 @Janus
Thank you for responding to my problem. I guess itās solved (at last for me, the Dorico team might want to have a look why āwith muteā does not work correctly when it is set to the first note of a part).
of course this is correct but what I see in Kontakt is a separate instrument, not a different articulation. But anyway, I decided to run a test with the VSL SE trumpet which uses a different instrument for muted. I only set up the ānormalā instrument in Dorico and the switch worked fine to mute through the EM.
It also works fine when the first note is muted so thereās obviously something specific to your project and not a general issue for the Dorico team to investigate as you suggest. There is also nothing in the manual which indicates whether itās necessary or not to specify this instrument in the track inspector but obviously either my memory is faulty here ā itās a long time since I last tried this out ā or possibly the Dorico behaviour has changed over time because it obviously does work without assigning the extra instrument so Iāve been reminded of something at least ā thanks!
I have seen this issue before, with a number of expression map triggered articulations or instructions/directions. Seems like Iāve even resorted to having an empty beat or bar at the beginning of flows (at least temporarily in a backup project relegated purely for āplayback purposesā).