Imported MIDI drum track from cubase. How do I map it correctly in Dorico?

Dorico
#1

Hi folks,
I have a drum track in cubase but none of the pitches line up with any sort of standard because the midi notes are feeding kontakt samplers, etc. I need to score the song in Dorico, but when I bring in the midi file the pitches are all just randomly assigned to various parts of the kit. For example, my kick is on the part of the staff where the snare would be. I see where in Dorico I can edit the percussion kit and drag the snare down to the right spot, but the notehead still isn’t right, and dorico still thinks it’s a snare. How do I fix this? I have tried to look in to creating new percussion maps, but I’m lost and I’m not even sure if that’s what I need to do.

Currently my workaround is to duplicate the midi track in Cubase and then make a dummy part that is mapped correctly and then just export that, but it would be great to be able to get this to automatically work on import. Thanks!

#2

I think the working method is to make sure you assign
It in Cubase to MIDI channel 10, and then make sure when Dorico imports that you tell it to look out for general MIDI and for drums that are assigned to channel 10 (and make sure of course the track you’re exporting is labeled “drums”).

  • D.D.
#3

Thanks for the reply. These are assigned to channel 10. To be clear, Dorico puts the midi file in to a drum kit, it’s just that the notes are all assigned to the wrong instruments, and so I’n trying to figure out how to reassign them. I was thinking of a way to do the reassigning on the Cubase end, so that may be the best way, but I’m still curious if there is a way to do it on the Dorico side. Thanks again for the reply!

#4

The best way to handle this is to create a percussion map in Dorico that matches your drum map in Cubase, and create a kit instrument in Dorico that contains the expected instruments, and which is assigned to use that percussion map in the Endpoint Setup dialog. Then you can select the regions on the track in Cubase’s arrange window, and drag and drop them onto the apprporiate track in Dorico’s Play window, which will then import just that one track into your project, and it will use the assigned percussion map to do it.

#5

Thanks Daniel. In Cubase, my “kit” is like 20 different VST instruments-each playing an instrument. So in Dorico, I don’t have any need or expectation that I will hear the sounds. Playback isn’t important for me in Dorico-just the notation. So with that said, is your recommendation still the best way for me to proceed? Thanks!

#6

Yes, you’ll still need to proceed in that way because without creating the approprpiate drum kit and then a percussion map that tells Dorico which MIDI notes in the track correspond to which instruments in the kit, Dorico can’t sensibly import the music.

#7

Hi Daniel, I’m trying this exact method… created a percussion map, with a kit with corresponding instruments and assigned the endpoint setup, but when I drag an event from cubase to the “drum set” in play mode nothing happens. If I drag it to one of the instruments below (e.g. snare drum), all the midi notes are imported to that one instrument.
Any ideas?