I’m new to Dorico and a recent convert from Finale. I’ve spent some time getting acquainted with the Dorico interface, but I have found that I vastly prefer the Garritan sound library to HALion or Iconica. I’m sure it’s just a taste thing. I’ve made a few expression maps for the instruments (and found a few on this site) but there’s one thing I just can’t make work.
Here’s the problem: no matter what I do, I can not get my violas to play pizzicato! This forum will not allow me to post more than one image, so I suppose I’ll post the Expression Map.
The weird thing is, I’m using this same map for my violins, and they work correctly. And the Garritan site lists these as the correct keyswitches (they are 1-2 octaves lower for cello and bass). All the other keyswitches work for violas, as well, so this is isolated only to pizzicato.
I noticed that when I open Aria player on its own, independent of Dorico, and manually select the keyswitch it plays back correctly. But when it’s opened through Dorico, the pizzicatos disappear.
If it matters, I’m running Windows 11 with 32GB ram and an 8-core processor.
Much appreciate any help, workarounds, or good guesses!
And here is the passage in Play mode. You can see that Dorico realizes it’s supposed to be pizzicato, but I get silence for those notes. Everything else plays right. Thanks all!
My guess is that you are using @benwiggy’s expression maps (which are specific to GPO5 and GOS instruments) with a different Garritan library. I am not familiar with Finale Default Bank instruments, but I do not recognise a patch called just Violas KS in any of the Garritan Personal Orchestra libraries. You should check the correct Key switch exists.
@Janus Yes, I think that’s what I imported. The thing I can’t figure out is, it shouldn’t matter. The patch called Violas KS was in the set included with Finale. For some reason, the pizzicato sound from violas simply won’t play. Even if I open a new document in Dorico and load Aria player I can not get it to make a sound in pizz – even a patch that is ONLY pizzicato with no keyswitches. But everything works perfectly for violins, cellos, basses… what is going on?
All I know is that Garritan key switches are a mess. They are not consistent across instruments (even instruments/sections within the same library). You would need to check with the original documentation for your specific library what the key switches are for that patch.
All I can confirm is that with the Garritan Personal Orchestra library the viola pizzicato works as expected with Ben’s expression maps.
Thanks - don’t love the answer but it sounds like you’ve found the root of the problem. New here, so what’s the best way to get @benwiggy to chime in on this? Is just dropping his name and the @ symbol enough to poke it his way?
That seems odd. If you only the ARIA Player standalone application, can you load the Pizzicato Viola patch and play it on the on-screen keyboard? That would rule in or out a problem with the GIFF installation itself.
The Viola KS GIFF instrument uses the same keyswitches as the GPO Strings, so it should be F for Pizz (at the lowest octave).
Also, make sure that the expression map is using Note Velocity for dynamics; and check what the velocity values are. (Make sure the sound isn’t just really quiet!)
Yes, the pizzicato keyswitch works properly in standalone mode. It also works/worked in Finale. So for some reason, something in Dorico is blocking the pizzicato. I checked key velocity, note length, all are silent.
BUT for anyone hoping for a workaround, I was able to enable the Aria player in multi mode, and it did work to load the pizzicato violas in the next channel. Channel switching for just the violas works as expected.
@Derrek I don’t think it is. I have the keyswitch in the same octave as all the other ones (which do work correctly). Additionally, I tried every other octave imaginable! @benwiggy I will post the file in question tonight. As I said at the top, I a a recent Finale convert so there is a 99% chance I clicked a box I shouldn’t have an that explains everything!
GPO Strings.dorico (1.2 MB)
Here is the file. As you will hear, the viola simply won’t play pizzicato! I so appreciate anyone who can sort out where I went wrong! Thanks @Derrek@benwiggy
Even after I set each of your string lines to a separate MIDI channel (the original file had them all assigned to MIDI channel 1), I did not hear any of them playing staccato notes. I set middle C at C4 per the Garritan manual and verified F2 as the code for pizz.
In Iconica Sketch, they do all play pizz where indicated, so I suspect something in the Expression Map or the assignment to it is causing the problem.
Firstly, you’re not using the Notation Bank of GPO instruments. (which are all prefixed by n- , e.g. n-Viola KS.)
The Notation bank and the Standard bank (which is for live playing) have the key switches in different octaves.
Secondly: in the GPO Strings Expression Map, you have Pizzicato set to F2. It should be F-2. (Compare to all the other switches in the map.) But obviously, the C-2 to F-2 range only work for the Notation bank, not the Standard bank of instruments!
You can audibly hear the additional note, because it’s in the viola’s range!
You’re also loading an unused Violin 2 sample into slot 2 of every VST instance, which does nothing but use a little bit of time and memory.
If you use the GPO5 template from this page, you shouldn’t have any of these problems. Or, better yet: use my latest template, though as you’re on Windows, you’ll need to install the Sforzando VST to gain the latest ARIA update.
@benwiggy thank you I will try the template you posted here. As for the Garritan patch, I only used the Garritan sounds that came bundled with Finale, and I don’t see the notation versions at all in my list of choices in Dorico. Would I have had to purchase a more fully-featured Garritan than the bundled one to get the notation bank instruments?
Also, is F-2 different than F2? Is that a negative sign perhaps? Thanks for the continued help!
