I’ve had this problem with two different sound libraries - VSL and Virtual Drumline - where creating custom techniques under the Engrave menu doesn’t work (i.e. play back) as expected. With the VD one, I’m trying to get the vibraphone pedal to switch on and off. It is controlled by the mod wheel (cc1), not cc64 as would be standard for pianos. Anyway, I noticed in the Play palette that:
- at the first instance, which works, the techniques line says Base technique: pedal; active techniques: pedal.
- at the second instance, after damping (which works), it says Base technique: motor off; active techniques: motor off + pedal.
Is this likely to be where base vs add-on comes into play?
Yes, I think defining your pedal on/off techniques using add-on switches would make sense, because then you don’t need to worry about mutual exclusion groups and defining what should happen with every other combination of playback technique and the motor on/off techniques. This is exactly the kind of thing that the add-on switches were added for.
Thanks Daniel. I changed the pair of terms so that both were add-ons, as seemed logical. The result was that the second Ped. cancelled the Damp, as I wanted, but the pre-Damp material did not play at all.
(I have cc1=1 as an Init setting, in case of doubt.) The first Ped. marking did not appear in the Play palette’s Techniques lane, and there was no sound until the Damped notes.
So I made Ped. a Base technique, and left Damp as an add-on, and that worked (after deleting and re-applying the marking on the Write palette).
Incidentally, I thought to apply the technique to a rest in the prior measure, but that seems not to work in any context. Is that intentional/expected?
Adding a playing technique might be a bit of a corner case; I’ll need to check with Paul (or go spelunking through the code) to say for certain what to expect there. In general I would advise adding playing techniques on the notes from which you would like them to take effect.