Joining this thread rather late, since I’m still pretty new to Dorico. The whole SWAM world is an interesting place as concerns Dorico. Modeled instruments are essentially playing all the time, so there’s a bit of a hangover effect if a note is still ringing when technique changes. When you have an attribute technique (such as Bartok Pizz) it only lasts as long as the note, then Dorico reverts to “Natural”. If the Bartokian note is still sounding when those parameters change, you get something that sounds like a restrike–a bowed note at the same pitch as the pizz. There’s a secondary issue in that the SWAM strings (as of February 2026) don’t have a place on the Bow/Pizz/Col Legno parameter for Bartok pizz. It’s the velocity itself that makes the switch. In this particular case, I’ve made Bartok Pizz a base technique with velocity of 127. I’ve also shortened the duration so that the note isn’t still ringing when technique falls back to natural. That seems to work (at least at the tempi of my test score).
Timing is pretty critical with SWAM, and you also need a little advance on parameters so that they reach the instrument a teensy bit ahead of the note-on. It’s quite different from sample libraries, where you’re generally just switching over to another sound file while the previous one finishes. Solo strings are the trickiest, since you can change techniques so quickly.
I’ve got all the solo SWAM stuff (I’m content to wait on the string sections for another generation or two) and I really appreciate the expressive control. But it’s tricky. I have some Pianoteq stuff (mainly pianos and pitched percussion) which is easier to wrangle.
So if anyone makes any interesting discoveries, please come back here and post.
–Michael