Have parallel MIDI channels switch up and down

Dorico
1

So I have happily bought the special strings in Berlin strings and trying to program Sul Ponticello and Sul Tasto to work together with the ordinary strings.

The problem is that Sustains and Tremolos -has to- be on separate midi channels as it is defined by Orchestral Tools.

This means I have to have Sustains on Ch 1 and Tremolos on Ch 2.
This means the playback technique for Tremolos says “Absolute channel: 2”, right?

My plan was to have Sul Tasto Sustains on Ch 3 and Tremolos on Ch 4,
and just program the Sul Tasto pt as and add-on going Relative channel (+) 2.

This would first interpret Tremolo to play on Ch 2, and IFF Sul Tasto is “activated”, it should go relative + 2 , from Ch 2 to Ch 4, right?

But alas, it I just learned it has to be a different control on the add-on ( a cc, a Pg or something completely different than MIDI Ch, since it will collide with the Base switch for Tremolo.)

Then I thought of having two instruments for Violins, define Sul T and Ord. as separate instruments, and switch between them, but section players does not allow that.

As Sine does not allow Sul Tasto Tremolo and Ord. Tremolo to exist on the same instrument, it is not possible to use CC or any other parameter to switch between them.

Not to mention I have Sul Ponti. and Con Sordino as well that I need to do the same thing with.

Or I could define separate divisi voices, with separate MIDI Ports, but this will be very messy when I have to hide empty staves later on, not to mention getting the naming right (Sul Tasto in stead of divisi? Hide the div. markings and insert sul Tasto and con word as text?)

What is left is to triple each combination with Tremolo + Sul Tasto, Tremolo + Sordino, Harmonics and so forth. (Not to mention Staccato, Marcato, Portato and on and on.(Brain Explosion, right?)

Any takers?

2

I’ve made expression maps for these in the past, and generally with Sine I opt for either control change or program change, as opposed to midi channels:

Screenshot 2024-11-27 at 3.06.43 PM
Screenshot 2024-11-27 at 3.06.43 PM672×878 23.3 KB

I think it’s a lot easier to manage complexity and variation.

The nice thing with using CC is you can assign certain techniques to have a global consistency; in other words sul pont tremolo is always the same CC value, regardless of instrument, so this obviously makes it a lot easier to have one map which rules them all, and to translate to other libraries within the OT ecosystem.

I forget specifically how I had set up sul tasto trem vs sul pont trem, but I believe I used trem as an add-on, sul tasto or sul pont being the base. When it sees the tremolo marking it uses the add-on to switch via CC to the right patch, and when tremolo is no longer there it will return to the previous base.

2 Likes
3

Yes, but this will still make naturals and con Sordino need its own Exmap definitions right?

And yes, I do use CC to skip between articulation -inside- and instrument, but the base Berlin Strings library does not allow that when i comes to tremolos and dynamics.

I wonder how you did this without the possibility of going “Relative CC”, though (looking at your screenshot :laughing:

4

You can have the two base techniques with all related key switches on the same staff also for section players.

You create voices in Dorico for each technique which need a separate « instrument » with its set of key switches in the sine player , activate the independent voice playback and allocate each voice to its respective channel. I think it even works with all required channels loaded into one sine player instance in the VST rack.

I use this method for Berlin muted brass for trumpets and trombones which have three different mutes as « instrument » with a number of articulations.

1 Like
5

Yes, I mentioned that in the OP, and it seems like the only solution as long as it works with section players without getting two staff lines in the score.

So either way it will be a two part process when writing, first change to the right voice and then insert the playing tech (without a playback tech attached)?

(Trumps and bones are single players an other rules apply, yes? Also the ord. articulations are not divided into 4 different instruments as Berlin Strings are ) :thinking:

6

I use the same setup to switch between regular and con sordino strings sections using different libraries and also to get short solo violin passages in a string section. All without opening any additional staffs.

I am not sure I understand what you are saying about no playback attached to the articulations. You can use all key switches in each of the Sine instruments attached to the voices and playback all articulations correctly. You have separate EMs for each voice.

The Sine Muted Brass has three separate instruments straight, harmon half and harmon in mute for trumpets 1-2, trombones 1-2 and bass trombone with about 10 articulations per instrument . So I have 4 voices for these regular + 3 mute types. The horns have only one type of mute technique. So it has two voices regular + mute.

1 Like
7

I’ll admit I only own the Berlin Con Sordino and Special Strings library – I don’t own the standard Berlin Strings.

But I think it should be able to mix and match. In cases where I’ve used different libraries I usually just load them into the same Sine Player and use midi channels then to switch library patches. And then within that, CC to switch the actual techniques for each.

Using CC in this way, I treat it similar to how Spitfire designed their universal CC (UACC) which makes it so much easier to always assign the same technique to the same number across all kinds of patches, including unrelated instrument families (e.g., all legato on the same number, whether that’s a violin, flute, or trumpet). Therefore this should reduce the different maps you’d have to create and manage – in theory. In practice can be a different story (especially if you need to create manual adjustments for volume and latency), but it definitely does help to simplify things for me to have a list of CC numbers which always do the same thing.

Regarding my screenshot above to be clear they are all using CC070 (defined in the options menu in Sine). And then those numbers you saw in my screenshot are individual number values within that (from 0-127 – it could be technically possible to run out of available numbers for articulations, but the likelihood of this ever happening are slim to none so that’s why I like using this system because it simplifies everything in one place, and I don’t have to deal with keyswitches which can be annoying when translating over to a DAW).

I haven’t had any issues switching within my Sine libraries from base techniques to tremolo, and dynamics have had no effect on that, so I’m not sure what that is in reference to. If you provide a screenshot of your setup or sample project it might be easier to diagnose.

1 Like
8

Yes, using CC became very important, as not all “instruments” (like sordino, 1st chairs and sul tasto) has the same articulations throughout. Berlin strings for instance, has “Trills short” that is not in the Sordino library, but they can still share the same CC for “Trills” and “Trills acented” (I have set these to 60 and 62) and “Trills short” (set to 64) will still work for Berlin strings :wink: in the same ExMap.

I had to set all the Berlin string instruments to all be using MIDI Ch 1, so that a “Con sordino” instruction simply switches to relative channel 1, “Sul tasto” to relative 2 and so forth. This would not have been possible with Program Changes as Sine always start a new “instrument” on 1, and Berlin Strings forces Longs, Shorts, Tremolos and Trills to be in separate “instruments”.

(I initially used Pg changes to avoid having to program all articulations, but it became necessary to make this work)

Thank you!

9

As I now have the same CC for SulT Trem and SulP Trem, I have put them on separate “instruments”, each with its own MIDI Ch. Works like a charm.

1 Like