I have a piece for 2 flutes, 2 alto flutes, 2 bass flutes. I only have the sound libraries that come with Dorico (and my old Finale ones). If I select Iconica flutes or HASO flutes, it won’t play anything below C4 (alto plays down to G3, bass plays down to C3). If I select general midi (GM Flute 74) with the Default expression map, I can hear all the pitches, but there are no dynamics and no articulations, no metrical feel, nada. There are no extended techniques in this piece, but there’s a lot of slurs that correspond to the changing metrical feel.
This has been fine for composing, but the group that’s playing it would like a soundfile. I feel that a soundfile with zero phrasing is not going to help much. Is there a quick fix? Or do I have to spend every waking hour next week learning how to create an expression map from scratch that works with general midi sounds?
This is one of those things that it took a long time for Finale to do, but eventually you could get a decent MIDI rendition straight from the notation without having to go deep under the hood. I don’t need something super-fancy, but something more than beep-beep-beep-beep-beep would be excellent.
Check the expression map. I’m fairly certain the volume controller for GM MIDI is velocity (main) and CC11 (secondary). Make sure the expression map is Velocity + CC11 Dynamic.
Lots of people are not as underemployed as I am at the moment (and lots are!). Purchasing something new is not in the cards for the time being. I will look into the Garritan Playback Template. Thanks!
I switched to Velocity + CC11 Dynamic and the dynamics are happening — yay! And thanks!
But no slurs. I hate to be Whiny McWhinerson, but why is this all so obtuse? Maybe you were being polite, but even you said you were “fairly certain” what expression map goes with general MIDI — why isn’t this made clear in the documentation and easy to find? Why does one have to buy a whole third party extension to get something as basic as slurs happening in playback? To get a bass flute that actually sounds in the proper range? Again, I’m not trying to make something of professional studio quality, just something with an ounce of nuance so my players have an idea of what’s going on.
In Dorico I don’t believe the General MIDI samples were ever really intended for widespread common use. You get them because they come with Halion Sonic which also comes with Cubase, but more of a bonus than anything.
General MIDI handled dynamics with velocity control only (meaning the Default expression map). As you play louder on a MIDI keyboard (with a higher velocity), you get a louder sample. As you play more quietly (with a lower velocity), you get a quieter sample. The issue there is that with velocity, a note can only stay at the dynamic it is at until it ends. You’ll hear the next note quieter or louder if it is set so, but no < or > during a note. Back in the day of General MIDI, the workaround for this limitation was to use CC11 (which is a secondary volume knob) to let you turn the volume up or down during a note so that you could at least do something during a note.
But using CC11 all the time with velocity is going to give you a doubling of dynamic range in some cases (if velocity is doing reasonably accurate shifts in level alone, adding CC11 too will cause quiet dynamics to be half as quiet as they should be), so it is not perfect, but the closest workaround.
But unfortunately there is no map (and it isn’t possible to design one) that would 100% get rid of these problems with General MIDI.
Slurs are not “basic”, doing legato recordings is one of the most expensive and time consuming aspects of sampling. As a result, most low end (and even some moderately high end) libraries don’t sample instruments like the alto flute let alone the bass flute (due to the cost of legato sampling for all those instruments). It is often people like media composers and hobbyists buying the libraries and recording more instruments while maintaining the depth means increasing the cost of the library.
Most high end libraries would include an alto flute, but not a bass flute which is considered a more rare auxiliary instrument.
HSO is pretty old, predating Dorico, and did not include an alto flute. Iconica Sketch is a starter library and so it wouldn’t include any auxiliary instruments to speak of.
Yes, I do mean audio file, thank you. Clearly my annoyance is affecting my vocabulary usage.
My experience trying to get Dorico to play nicely with Garritan has not been positive. And I know it’s because I have very limited experience with audio synthesis. It’s not that I don’t want to learn, it’s that I don’t really have the time at the moment to dig into all the ins and outs.
I’ve put together some very extensive notes about using Garritan libraries with Dorico. Most of it is aimed at GPO5. The “GIFF” instruments that come bundled with Finale usually don’t have (m)any keyswitches and different playing articulations.
I haven’t created a playback template for GIFF, because there are just far too many instruments; but in general, you should get far using the GPO Default map.
I’d also recommend Anthony Hughes’s excellent series of YouTube videos on audio stuff; as well as John Barron’s Discover Dorico tutorials.
Yes, I’ve started looking at all of those things and it takes a lot of time to put it all together. I will start working on it, but in the meantime… I need something simple but workable. Thanks for all the work you do!
So! I have ARIA up and running, using the GPO Flute Piccolo expression map. It wasn’t so hard after all. In case future readers need more explicit directions: I had to add ARIA in the VST/MIDI section (it didn’t automatically show up), select all the relevant instruments (it has alto and bass flutes!), and set the number of channels (it was at 1 by default).
Except! Everything is out of tune. It’s really weird. I don’t know quite where to look to remedy this. I looked at the ARIA settings and the only thing I thought might be causing it is the portamento setting, but it’s at zero. I appreciate any help!
If it’s off by a semitone, that usually suggests that something in your audio chain is set to sample rate of 48,000 Hz, and something else is 44,100 Hz. The ARIA Player will be at 44.1 by default; check Dorico’s “Device Setup” in the Edit menu; and also your computer’s audio setup.
ARIA Player is the machine that plays the Garritan samples. (Similarly, HALion is the player for Steinberg’s samples.)
