I’m finding this the most challenging part of using Dorico. I want to create a single line percussion instrument, say a suspended cymbal, using a key switch vst instrument from something like HSO. I need to be able to have the instrument play back a crash as well as a roll, thus the KS instrument. Between expression maps, playing techniques, and percussion maps, I’m going in circles trying to get this to work. If someone can provide a list of simple, reusable steps to use whenever in this situation, I would be greatly indebted to them.
Thanks in advance.
I don’t claim to be an expert on percussion, but I don’t believe it’s possible to perform a crash with a suspended cymbal, because you have only one of them. So you’ll need two instruments, a suspended cymbal and a crash cymbal, assigned to the same player. In theory it should be as simple as this:
- Add a solo player.
- Add two instruments to the player: “Suspended Cymbal”, “Crash Cymbal” (choose between high and low).
You don’t need to put these two instruments into a kit: in fact doing so would be a bad thing, because then the instruments would be shown at the same time. You want to see only the one that’s playing, and have Dorico switch back and forth, which it will naturally do if the instruments are simply two instruments held by the player. To write for each instrument, you can simply switch to galley view, which will show both instruments at the same time. Write on each instrument as needed, and when you switch back to page view the instrument changes will be handled automatically.
You should, I hope, not need to mess with percussion maps at all in this case: the appropriate patches will be loaded for each percussion instrument, and the appropriate percussion maps chosen automatically, so all you should need to do is just write the music.