I’m a new Dorico user, migrating from Finale. I need to make percussion parts for some non-Western instruments in Dorico, so I’m looking for the closest equivalent sounds that I can use. I can open the Edit Instrument pane from Play mode in Dorico, to see the Halion Sonic 7 panel, where I can see a keyboard and play different percussion sounds (see attached image). But when I find one I want to use, how can I determine what instrument to select in Dorico to get this sound? Is there a list for each of the percussion maps?
Specifically, when I open Halion Sonic 7, and select the Latin Percussion map, I can find exactly the sounds I want to use and identify their MIDI key. But how can I figure out what instrument I need to choose in Dorico setup to get this sound?
I don’t see a Latin percussion map in Dorico that accesses these sounds. (There’s an “HSSE Latin Percussion map” but it only has five sounds assigned.) I can make my own Percussion map, but I still have the same problem of not knowing what instrument to select.
Once I have the correct sounds, I can make a kit of the appropriate and name the kit to make my instrument parts. My only point of confusion is how to select the instrument with the sounds that I can find in Halion.
Thank you!
This is exactly what the Percussion map is there for. On the MIDI line where your wanted sound is, in that Latin percussion patch, you decide which instrument in Dorico and with which playback technique will trigger that MIDI note.
Yes I had been misunderstanding how the map worked which was my point of confusion. But the map isn’t specific to any particular patch in Halion. It’s just a map that assigns MIDI notes to particular instruments and playing techniques from the available instrument lists in Setup mode. So the map functions independently of the patch selected.
Part of my map looks like below. So I pick Cajon from the instrument list in Setup mode, but I’m naming it something else (“Janggo”). And then I’m selecting Latin Percussion in Halion, making sure it’s the correct Halion (they are numbered) and on the particular channel to which Cajon was automatically assigned by Dorico. In my case it was 03 - Halion, Channel 10.
But you could pick a different patch and the map would still work, it would just play whatever sounds happen to be on those particular MIDI notes.
Oh by the way, one little thing I noticed – Halion and Dorico label MIDI note 60 differently. In Dorico it’s “C4” but in Halion, on the little keyboard, it’s “C3”.
So it’s better to think about the MIDI number. So for example, my pitches for janggo are 38 and 40, which Dorico calls D2 and E2, but those notes are actually “D1” and “E1” on the Halion keyboard.
Thank you, but I still can’t get it to work. Could you help me check this sample file to pinpoint what I do wrong? would be very grateful! Dorico sample.dorico (1.6 MB)
I finally got the right playback sounds to work, by assigning 3 instruments to the percussion player, and then combine them to a kit! (And choose keys one octave higher than the little Halion keyboard in the percussion map). The only problem left is that it displays in a 3-line Grid even if I choose a 5-line staff in the “Edit percussion Kit” in setup mode! Any hints?
It´s not so easy to transit from Finale to Dorico…