Having come from Finale/Garritan I was rather shocked at the seemingly poor quality of of my songs played back in Dorico. I suppose much of it is a matter of getting used to different sound generation, but when I isolate some instruments I’m hearing some anomalies. Trombone is a good example. In the example below, the un-articulated notes have practically no attack and instead a strange wa-wa-wa, even scooping sound. The staccato notes sound like a trombone to me but the attack is too hard. Then the accented notes have no change at all - just the wa-wa-wa sound. I’ve never played with a trombone player who sounds like that… yikes! I realize this may be a complex subject, but perhaps someone can point me to where I have to learn about fixing this kind of thing (… or do most of you use your own VST?).
- Have you tried using Garritan Sounds with Dorico?
- If using Garritan sounds, what Expression Map have you assigned to the sounds (or left to chance)?
- Is it the sound itself or the absence of Finale’s Human Playback that you are hearing?
Are you using the Iconica Sketch sounds, or the HALion Symphony sounds? The former are much to be preferred.
However, if you really think that GPO5 is better, you can use that in Dorico. It will require a bit of setup, however. See this thread for details. (NB: later posts have updated stuff.)
Are you saying that HSO is preffered to Iconica Sketch?
Woops. The FORMER! Corrected.
If you need solo violins, certainly! (Because Sketch doesn’t have any 
)
If you’re referring to the expression map, it’s “Iconic Sketch Tbn, Hns”. Check out my sample and you’ll see how silly the trombone sounds. The example isn’t very good for dynamics, but I’m also getting odd dynamic changes as various lines are played, presumably from Dorico humanization. The dynamic thing is really annoying with the choir voices.
1&2) Yes, I’ve tried the Garritan trombone sound and it sounds fine. I haven’t learned about expression maps yet, so I added the Garritan VST (multi), routed the player to it, and left everything else alone. I did have to assign the Trombone voice into Aria player manually for it to work.
3) The sound itself is wacky - you should be able to hear it in my sample. It’s not just the “muaa-muaa” attack weirdness but also annoying changes in dynamics (which doesn’t demonstrate well in my tiny sample, although the staccato notes are rather loud). I tried turning off the humanize “pitch contour emphasis” but it didn’t help much at all. I’m not missing the absence of Finale’s Human Playback at this point - I’d be happy just to get a normal trombone sound as a baseline.
Sonic Selection has potential to sound quite nice. Dorico simply doesn’t do a very good job of picking the right sounds, setting them up, and staging them. At some point I think I’ll craft a NICE template targeted to anyone who uses Elements/SE, or just wants/needs to test and render Standard General MIDI files.
Meanwhile…
I run into issues with the expression maps chosen for the Sonic Selection sounds. I seem to recall Trombone being one of them. (Opening a score in Dorico that has bone(s)).
Yes, I see it! I get it when calling up a regular 'Trombone" from the Dorico ‘Setup Tab’, but I don’t get it with say, Alto, or Bass Trombone (even though they all use the same Sonic program/instrument).
Here’s your problem…
Whom ever put this template together mistakenly used CC1 as a dynamic controller, when it should be CC11, Key Velocity, or ‘both’. CC1 is typically for controlling ‘vibrato’ in a General MIDI soundset.
Here’s how to fix it…
Go to the “Play Tab” near the top of the main Dorico Window.
Click the “Track Inspector” tab in the left-most pane.
Scroll to find your Trombone Track/stave, and click it so it highlights.
Change the Ex. Map: popup to use CC11 instead of Modulation Wheel Dynamics.
You could also try it with the “Default” expression map (Uses Key Velocity Only), or even the one that uses “Velocity + CC11 Dynamic” (Personally I clone this one, and make some adjustments to the min/max values of each according to a score’s needs…but that’s a whole new topic/thread).
As for the general sound quality of Sonic, it’s actually quite good. One just needs to stage and setup the sounds properly (which Dorico doesn’t do on its own out of the box).
I’ll come back with another post to point to some tips and tricks to get MUCH MORE out of Sonic Selections.
Are you an inveterate composer of vertebrate scores, @Brian_Roland? 
I’ve been more of a ‘wanna be Educator’ than anything else when it comes to ‘Music’.
They always say, “People who can’t do, teach.” I guess that’s me 
My background and higher credentials are along the lines of learning psychology, course design, and technical writing (instructional technology).
I did spend years performing music as a ‘mediocre’ musician (Piddler on many instruments and singing, master of none). Did the B.F.A. thing in ‘Commercial Music’ and managed to get that undergrad sheep skin. M.Ed. in ‘Instructional Technology’.
Have put in plenty of years doing elementary and secondary level classroom music (General/Choirs/Concert and Marching Band/etc.).
Composing? Maybe someday…I get too distracted by all the ‘marvelous toys’.
I do love to explore music tech advances, and teach people with far more creativity and much better ears than myself to get a little more out of their tools.
If I can get more time in the not so distant future to shut down the phones and other distractions, I’ll see about putting together a nice sounding template for Sonic Selection. If I can, I’ll make it so it’ll render General MIDI files that are all ready to go in any ole GM Player.
It really can sound pretty darn good! Just needs a little knowledge of the concepts behind the design of Sonic, the sounds it has, and how tweak them out and layer them up.
Here’s a post I did not too long ago explaining one way to get ‘string sections with arco, tremolo, and pizzicato’ going with Sonic Selection. I think I posted a score that can be downloaded, and some sample audio renderings to hear.
I forgot to paste the quote from your previous post that contextualized my silly wordplay! (But I certainly appreciate all of the time and effort you put into your posts.)
I see what you did now! Funny
I tried the expression maps that you recommended and all of them made the trombone sound much worse (or barely audible). I even tried other expression maps that had “trombone” in them but same thing. The only one that works is the default: “Iconic Sketch Tbn, Hns”… but that’s the one I’m complaining about. Maybe I can make a copy of that expression map and tweak it? I also noticed I can go into the HALion Sonic editor and adjust the level, attack, and release for 4 of the expressions. That doesn’t fix the harsh timber of the staccato notes though.
Oh!
I thought it was a bone from Sonic Selection…I’d remembered having ‘issues’ with that particular trombone in the past, and jumped to ‘conclusions’ prematurely.
Let me take a look at the one for Sketch and see what it might be. Give me a min.
OK, one thing I’ve found with a lot of the Iconica and HSO expression maps is this…
Make a copy of what came in the box and rename it for exclusive use with your Iconica Sketch Trombone(s)…swap to your new personal copy of the map.
Try getting rid of the legato base switch! Either ‘disable’ it, or trash it. Dorico plays legato/portamento phrases backwards if that thing is active. For some time one could add a few milliseconds of ‘delay’ to the base legato switch and then get proper phrasing, but that has stopped working for me in the most recent Dorico update.
So, I disable legato base switches, and let the default behavior for slurs kick in, which is to just extend the duration of each note living under the slur a few precent (so there is overlap of the tail and attack phases of subsequent notes in the phrase).
You might also get rid of (disable or trash) the alternate articulations like Staccato. At the wrong tempos those can sound pretty bad. They can sometimes be poorly gain staged relative to the other key-switches too (correctable, but I usually just disable them initially).
If you disable/remove the Staccato base key in the expression map, Dorico will fall back to using the Natural sustain keyswitch, and the default global (Library/Playback Options) interpretive behavior for a ‘dot over a note’, which is to shorten the duration of the note, add a little volume, etc.
Ease the extra articulations back in (perhaps manually, or via alternate playing techniques) as needed.
For Sketch, yes, expression volume is on CC1.
Also be aware you can ‘scale’ dynamics somewhat in those Min: Max: ranges for the chosen dynamic control.
I.E. If you don’t want those louder/blatty/brassier/more strident sample layers to be used as much, drop the ‘Max’ CC 1 and Velocity (if active in the map) value to around 80. See how that goes. You might need to gain stage the bone a little louder (mixer fader) if you do this.
It also might help to explore the global dynamic curve in: “Library/Playback Options”.
For clarification, just checking…
An Expression Map is specific to the VST and Sound Library you are using. It ‘maps’ the notation markings on the page onto specific Keyswitch and CC messages that the particular VST/Sound Library will understand to best replicate the meaning of the notation.
You cannot just swap an Expression Map and expect it to work without also changing the VST and/or loaded Sound Library.
It would help us if you could upload a few bars of your problem score so we can see how you have everything set up.
That’s not necessarily true. You can swap/build/change them as needed on the fly. Thusly, why they added a button right there to quickly/easy pull up the currently used Map for the endpoint.
Yes, I know. But emphasis on not necessarily. You have (beyond) advanced user understanding. I was just trying to establish the basics.
Well, I tried what you said and more, but couldn’t shape the sound. I presume I can do more with CC values but I can’t find a reference for Halion Sonic that lists them… or maybe that’s the wrong path anyway. I’ve attached the sample score that I’m testing the trombone sound with. Here’s what I’d like to fix (mainly for educational purposes - not working on a project right now):
- The natural attack is a silly “mua-mua” (and possibly scooped).
- Natural, legato, slurred, and accented are all sound identical.
- Staccato notes are relatively loud and blatty (to much velocity?)
- Marcato sounds okay (but I spent about an hour trying to assign it to a group of notes and finally gave up… hence the stack of marcatos!)
trombone 2.dorico (598.8 KB)