Expression Maps for VSL and Dorico 3.5

Dorico
#10

For anyone who just wants a very brief teaser of what happens with Note Length, here is a short test VSL SE Synchronized project which strips everything down to the basics for clarity. Watch how the artics. change in the Synchron Player or look at the new Note Length automation lane which shows the steps.

The detache could be substituted by Legato. rep which I see as more as tenuto and thus don’t want to programme it under the legato category but it could be done that way. The decision to make staccato explicit is simply due to only really having four steps available, otherwise sustain kicks in too soon in just about anything I tried. With the Special Edition, the number of articulations is relatively limited, thus making management a bit simpler. With solo strings, I suspect I’ll need to give it more thought.
Note Length test.zip (396 KB)

#11

I have made a new Expression map for VSL synchronized Solo strings based on that of dko22.
It is fur use with the preset “Viola basic”, to which I have added two articulations:
Marcato:
Marcato.PNG.jpg
and Portato:
Portato.PNG.jpg
.
Instead of working with “sul tasto” for “con sordino” I have made a filter for this:
Filter.PNG
which is controlled by CC 24. In the Expression map there is an init CC 24,127 to assure that dorico plays back senza sordino by default.
The EM works with just two conditions: Note length ≥ long will be played by “sustain” and note length < long will be played by “Multi shorts leg.” which will chose the fitting length by itself. (Alternatively one can distinguish between
Note length ≥ medium and note length < medium, which one can activate if wished so.)
In this way a playback quality is achieved which is much mor realisitic than before 3.5.
Any comments and any suggestion for improvement are welcome.

#12

This is the Expression map which belongs to the former post.
VSL Synchron-ized Violins and Violas V. 1.04.zip (2.77 KB)

#13

Thanks, I’ve linked to them on the sticky thread.

#14

This is great, but I just have the original version of VSL Solo Strings 1 & 2. Is there an expression map for them, or will this work with them as well?
:question:

#15

there are Cubase EM’s for the original VI Solo Strings which you can download from Steinberg. They’re more or less useable as far as they go. The VI mapping bears no resemblance to the Synchronised version. Most of my Sibelius stuff is still programmed with VI but getting the two extra instruments is worth the price of the upgrade, I feel.

incidentally, the EM I posted is for the SE solo strings, not the full version, just in case that’s not clear. The full Solo Strings Synchronised version with note length programming version I’ll upload shortly when I’ve finished the quintet I’m currently writing and am reasonably happy things work the way I want them to. Just want to make sure I don’t feel the need to add any new conditional entries.

#16

Ok, as I probably won’t make major revisions to the Synchronized Solo strings maps for a while so they are attached below. Rather than a detailed explanation, just one or two pointers as to whether my philosophy behind then might make them attractive or not as a basis for further customisation.

  1. EM entries are tied to the articulations which actually exist without substitutions for playing techniques you might want but are not programmed though the library is pretty comprehensive.
  2. Although it’s comprehensive, the vast majority of my p.t’s come from the basic template as much of the full consists of switches which are arguably irrelevant in a notation setting. Because VSL in their infinite wisdom did not see fit to include certain things like even trills with violin 2 and cello 2, I have simply copied all the essential stuff from the original instruments. Sacrilege, but to my mind better than nothing.
  3. Note Length conditions are programmed for Natural only. For legato, there actually seem to be fewer speed automated patches or just tempo-related in general than in the VI version – at any rate I haven’t found a convincing case for Dorico automation here, though I’m happy to be proved wrong.

An entire quintet (over 40 mins) using these maps can be found here. https://app.box.com/s/43mrdpyqu9i8uesm59my6oevwhbgstqv
The timing points are 2nd movement scherzo 16:53 and 3rd movement largo 25:22

David

UPDATE
the original EM’s have not included using the scaled secondary controller which to my mind definitely help to give better dynamic differentiation. So I’m uploading more recent versions which I would recommend or try both and compare
VSL solo strings Nov 2020.zip (17.4 KB)
VSL Solo string synch.zip (16.1 KB)

#17

I don’t know how many are using the VSL Dimension Strings for the Synchronized Special Edition vol. 5. Unlike the average Expression Map which tends to have two actions to define a technique, this map not only has all techniques both con and senza sord but also combinations for all the available instrument combinations which is up to 8 for the violins. To put all of this including note length conditions into a map would be pretty time consuming if it were to be comprehensive (the official Sibelius version for instance doesn’t even try to support the player combinations), though if and when mass copy/paste becomes available for switches in the Expression Maps, the job would be much simpler. I’ve found in the meantime that it’s possible to support all the entries individually with the sole restriction that you cannot combine an instrument grouping (like divisi 1) together with an other playing technique in one instruction. If there’s a hidden “ord” straight after any “Player” switch then it seems to work OK but of course feedback is welcome in case anything is not as expected.

UPDATE
I’ve updated and greatly simplified these maps and the new versions can be founf further down the thread. Using add-on’s allows not only all the player combinations to be supported but also mute. There are therefore only 14 entries to exactly match the 14 available articulations (including imported trills for senza sord, otherwise there are only 12) for each instrument. The other ten entries are all add-ons. Some, like VSL themselves, add duplicate entries for things that may be in notation but are not supported by any individual keyswitch. If it’s not supported, it will simply be ignored by Dorico so I’m not sure of the point of this – perhaps it is a hangover from Sibelius or perhaps there are genuine reasons. If anyone knows of any, then I welcome being enlightened!
SE Dimension strings.zip (10.1 KB)

#18

I’ve just acquired vol.5; thanks for the post, which I’m about to try out

#19

OK, comments:

  1. ain’t no trills on E1 D2 in SSE vol.5, just tremolo & trem. marcato.
  2. I made user presets for SSE chamber strings that combined muted & open. For that, I just made entries in the expression map for muted and open, with a mutual exclusion. Seems to work, so I don’t think one needs to craft individual entries for each articulation.
  3. I notice that you don’t have secondary dynamic assigned to cc11. I’m puzzling about this at the moment, just set up a test with cc2 as main, cc11 as secondary – works nicely – and another with them the other way round, which seems to work just as well. I’d be interested to hear any comments about that.
#20

Here’s my initial map for violins 1. (Haven’t thought about how to implement desks yet.)
VSL SSE Dimension Strings Violins 1.zip (1.87 KB)
::update:: I’ve amended this to remove other articulations copied from chamber strings, which aren’t available in vol.5, e.g. harmonics

#21

only just saw this post for some reason:

  1. In vol 5, I have borrowed trills from the chamber and solo strings as I don’t regard the omission by VSL as acceptable. Thought I’d documented this somewhere but maybe not. Of course it’s only a workaround and requires adding them in the Synchron player.
  2. I have recently created an add-on switch for mute in Vol 5 which completely eliminates the requirements for separate entries. On that basis, I imagine you are perfectly correct in what you’ve done with the SSE Chamber strings and I’ll look at simplifying this library also.
  3. These maps are now out of date. In all recent ones, I have used a scaled secondary controller which definitely improves the dynamic response. I’ve now created short and concise Dimension strings maps which have also added all the player divisions to add-ons (which must obviously be in the mutual exclusions). The only small thing to look out for which I’ve found is that if you are in “con sord” mode, playing techniques such as pizz for instance (but not note-specific articulations) require the “con sord” to be reapplied on changing back to “arco” even if there is no reference to A0 in the switch. This would simply be hidden in the score.

Here are the latest vol5 maps
VSL SE vol 5 Dimension strings.zip (9.17 KB)

#22

Thanks for this. I’ve read elsewhere about the re-applying issue. Just now it’s time for me to find out about add-on vs base.

On scaling the secondary dynamic, could you explain? Do you mean narrowing the range (by default 1-127) in the expression map, or is there a control in the Synchron player that I’ve overlooked?

#23

I mean narrowing the range in the Expression Map. The top end can stay largely unchanged – I currently use 120 typically – but the lower end must be higher. I’ve tried with between about 40 and 60 and it’s just a matter of seeing what suits you but allowing the CC11 to go all the way down to zero will mean the quiet dynamics will be barely audible.

#24

All parameters can be adjusted in the Synchron Player. E.g. you can use the same CC to control both Expression and VelXF and just scale the effect individually in the SY player.

#25

@fratveno: how, specifically? For reference, let’s say that what we want is for cc2 to scale from 1 to 127, and we want cc11 to follow the same contours, but with reduced variance. For instance, centred on 96, with a lowest of 64 and highest of 127. If one wanted to do that, could it be done in a simple fashion?

#26

more on that base/add-on gambit. Following Andi’s thread in the VSL forum, the idea of using add-ons to switch desks in the Special Edition Dimension Strings arose. I thought about this, and it seems more logical to me to reserve Base for things that are both mutually exclusive and subject to various inflections. The obvious e.g. is mute/open, but desk layout too.

So I’ve set up these maps (attached; it says ‘violas’, but has violins too. Only difference is that violas only have 3 desks, and solo is on a different switch to the violins’ solo).
VSL SSE Dimension Violas.zip (4.59 KB)

There are three exclusion groups: mute/open; players (i.e. desks etc.); and bowing. Everything in these groups is Base, and everything else is Add-on.

If anyone feels like trying them out and commenting, that’d be appreciated.

#27

I’m not sure you can do everything by numbers only, but I was referring to the right hand side of the SY player’s CONTROL section. This is basically the same functionality as in Vienna Instruments, and very efficient as one CC can be used to control several related parameters…

#28

There has been a lot of discussion recently about the “official” VSL SE synchronized templates, I just wanted to put my current EM versions here in one place for comparison (they don’t seem to be currently on the main Expression Maps thread)
VSL SE+ Synchronized maps.zip (11.4 KB)

1 Like
#29

Thanks for sharing David !