I’m trying to build an expression map that used specific CC 11 values for different articulations. I noticed that the CC value set for the specific articulation doesn’t hold for the duration of the sounding note. The CC value will jump back to the “natural” setting before the note is finished sounding (even if the note is followed by a rest) causing weird jumps in volume. It very well might be that the sample lingers a bit after note up, but it seems an odd behavior that playback should snap back to “natural” during a rest instead of staying on the articulation setting until the next note occurs.
Is there a way to deal with this problem? Is there something I’m not getting right?
Do you mean you entered a CC11 value in the actions section? If either of your volume dynamics use CC11, yes, it will revert to the prevailing dynamic in the score. If you aren’t using CC11 in the volume dynamics section, a cut-down project to inspect would help to help you.
Since this may be VST specific, I’m not sure a reduced score would be helpful. But here’s what i’m talking about… if you look at the image, the note is an accent add on to natural. You can see that as soon as the note ends (though there is no subsequent note), the regular natural expression takes over. The CC value seems to change right on that boundary. If the accent and natural have different CC values, and the VST implementation of the accent note hangs over a bit past “note up”, then the CC value seems to change to natural while the note is sounding, causing artifacts. At least this is what I think is happening.
Doesn’t matter, whatever VST you are using (and which I don’t have) will just show up with exclamation marks. I don’t need to hear it, just see it. It could even be just those few measures.
Also, what does your volume dynamic section look like for Natural? If either one is CC11, it will, of course, revert.
That’s the point. Whatever the CC value is set for “accent”, will immediately revert to the value set for “natural”. Even if the “accent” note is still sounding.
If you are trying to control the dynamic of the articulation, you should probably start with the Playback Options>Dynamics>Note Dynamics… which specifies how each articulation modifies the underlying dynamic, rather than mess with expession maps.
And these can be overriden for each instrument in the Playback Options Overrides section of an Expression Map if you need differences between instruments.
Yes, that is how I ultimately solved the problem. But it does raise in my mind a question about how CC’s are implemented in the expression map. Seems to me it would be more sensible to hold off on the expression change to “natural” until a note of that quality needs to be sounded instead of snapping back to it at a subsequent rest.
That’s the difference between attribute and direction with play(ing|back) techniques. Attribute types (e.g. Accent) reset, direction types (e.g. pizz.) are retained until nat., ord. or a technique in a mutual exclusion group appears.
I get that. But why change technique when there are no notes present? It doesn’t allow for attributes that might result in a note that has a long sonic tail.
