Getting Spitfire Studio Brass/Kontakt to respond to dynamics

Apart from NotePerformer, which just works happily without my needing to understand how it works, I’m still in the first stages of learning about third party VST playback. Thanks to help from various directions I’ve now succeeded in adding Spitfire Studio Brass/Kontakt to a score that’s otherwise all NotePerformer, and have imported an expression map for the Horns a4 patch. It all works nicely - except that I haven’t yet grasped how to get Kontakt to respond to dynamic markings in the score. I’m attaching a screenshot of the two Kontakt interfaces, and of the expression map of the patch. I’ve looked through the Spitfire Studio Brass manual, and these are its references to dynamics:
DYNAMICS - CC#1 This slider displays and controls which dynamic layer is live. Also controlled via the modulation wheel.
Expression - This is instrument trim (CC11), so this adjusts the volume within the instrument volume (CC7) great when used in conjunction with expression.
EXPRESSION - CC#11 Displays the overall instrument volume (0- 100%). Remember you can also trim your instrument volume with CC#7.
Unfortunately, I don’t understand what this means. I can see ‘CC11’ listed as a separate heading in the expression map, but nothing that I can see within the patch map, and what references I’ve found in the Dorio forum to these CC numbers assume some prior knowledge of them which I don’t possess. Could somebody help me through the next step?


You need to ensure that CC1 is the dynamics controller for each articulation in the expression map.


If you want to experiment, you could activate “Secondary dynamic” and assign Control Change 11 with a very narrow range: say 95 to 105. The result is CC1 continues to switch dynamic layers (say from p to f), while CC11 slightly increases the volume at the same time.

Thanks for looking at this for me. I didn’t even realise that CC stood for ‘control change’ until I read your post, which shows how little I know about this side of things - and I didn’t know either, until I read your comments, what makes the window on the right of the page appear!
As it happens, all the articulations had already been set for CC1 in the expression map that I downloaded, but as things stand the dynamics in the score don’t have an effect, and that still holds true if I change the settings to C11, or indeed to ‘note velocity’, so I’m still doing something wrong.
One thing I still don’t get: dynamics - specifically - don’t figure in the expression map , only articulations; so what does Dorico do to translate - say - a pp entered as a shift-P dynamic into a soft sound or an fff into a very loud one? Is there a separate map for that, or is my question irrelevant to the way playback works? I’m very much aware that I may be exasperating experienced users with my lack of knowledge, but I really do want to get my head round this.

Gareth,
Have you watched the short D4 Key Editor tutorial? The last half talks about dynamics. You can experiment there with changing (eg) your CC1 or Velocity levels and seeing if there is any impact on what you hear.

In the key editor Expression & CC section, you will see a sub menu for all CCs as well as Velocity and Dynamics, where you can see, and change the dynamics data.
Generally VST short (staccato) patches only respond to velocity (hit the piano keys harder and it sounds louder) but that doesn’t work for sustained sounds, so those use a continuous controller (CC1) - think of it as the swell pedal on an organ.
Whether your VST is using Velocity or CC1 at any point in time, will depend on your Expression Map settings for the current articulation. So, as you play a phrase involving different articulations, Dorico might send both changing Velocity and CC data to adjust volume, depending on what the VST needs.

When you playback, you should see the level meters on the top RH side of your VST responding to your dynamics.
horn

If the overall level is too quiet (relative to other instruments), you could increase the VST master volume (top middle) slightly. But that gets us into the esoteric area of mixing and balancing for which I’m not competent to comment.

I suggest that you experiment with Velocity and CC1 using Halion. Then, when you are more comfortable, move on to experiment with Spitfire. Good luck!

Many thanks for directing me to the video. I’m starting to get my bearings now, and have been able to get Studio Brass to respond both to articulations and to dynamics. There’s just one more jigsaw piece to get into place, which is how to get ‘normal’ playback to resume after an articulation, so I’ve put that particular question in more detail in a thread which has been discussing a related issue: Legato playback on natural switch : note length issues? - #15 by Gareth_Glyn
But I certainly wouldn’t have got this far without your help, @Janus - thanks.