Importing Superior Drummer 3 MIDI Into Dorico?

UPDATE:

I ended up using Paul’s EZDrummer Drum Map since it got me closer to the ideal transfer than what I had created, though still not perfect. For now his map will do since I really don’t have time to figure out how to make my SD3 Drum Map work. I still have a few more charts to port into Dorico, plus more drum parts that need to be added to the charts I’ve already transfer.

Apologies to Lindsay for not finishing the SD3 Drum Map. I thought I would be done by now, but alas that wasn’t the case. You may want to use Paul’s map, if you haven’t already. It’s pretty good! Thanks for sharing it Paul!!

I’m dragging a MIDI file onto a drum set with my own SD3 map in Play mode. It looks like the techniques are imported as noteheads, except:

  • combination techniques (such as Bell + Stick (tip)) drop all but one, and
  • hi-hat techniques (such as half-open) appear to be ignored, except for Open 2, which is converted into a playing technique.

Is there any way to get around these? I suppose I could create an alternative kit and map for importing only, that has a bunch of extra playing techniques and instruments…

At the moment Dorico won’t automatically add instruments to the percussion kit definition if the incoming MIDI data includes instruments that are not already present in the kit. So yes, you should make sure that your kit already has all of the instruments you expect to be used in your MIDI file.

Thank you, but I’m specifically talking about the techniques that struggle to import.

For example, if I have Snare defined on two MIDI notes (one for Natural, one for Rim), then dragging a MIDI file of those notes onto the drum set in Play mode works pretty well: the Natural notes use the default notehead, and the Rim ones use the slash notehead. If Rim weren’t defined as a percussion playing technique for the snare in the score, a new definition is created with the default notehead and the Rim playback technique. However, a combination playback technique (such as “Rim + Stick (tip)”) would not import correctly, as the percussion playing techniques seems to only support one playback technique. I’d like to request that percussion playing techniques support playback technique combinations.

It also appears that the hi-hat is special-cased to convert the Open 2 playback technique to the Open playing technique (instead of a notehead), and it discards all other playback techniques, regardless of whether or not they’re defined as additional noteheads. Is this indeed the case?
If so, I’d like the option to disable that special-casing. Better yet, extend the option so that arbitrary percussion playback techniques can be imported as their corresponding playing techniques. There might be a lot of redundant ones all over the score, and a default one would need to be specified for each playing technique somehow, but I’d rather clean up extra information than re-add lost information in the import.

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It is indeed the case at present that a notehead (or notehead + articulation/tremolo stroke combination) can only support a single playing technique. It might or might not be practical for you to define some single playback techniques that represent the combined technique, perhaps, and use those in your percussion map?

I’m having a related but different problem. SD3 has 20 techniques listed for the hi-hat. For example, when I try to add {Hi-hat: open Edge 1, Hi-hat: open Edge 2, Hi-hat: open Edge 3} from SD3, I seem to be forced to choose names Dorico has listed and can’t edit these to match SD3 in any meaningful way. The best that Dorico offers is {Open 1, Open 2}. It doesn’t even have an Open Edge or an Open 3 that I can map to.

Am I missing something, or have I run into something that truly makes it impossible to use these techniques via the 'Shift-Alt up/down arrow method in ‘write mode’? Is there a workaround?

Thanks again for the help!

I just discovered one more thing that goes with the questions above.

In the precussion map dialog it seems that you need to add the playing technique a second time from the same list as in the ‘Edit Precussion Playing Techniques’ dialog in ‘Setup’ mode. However, you get to choose your own name for the instrument.

Does this imply that the playing technique you choose doesn’t really matter as long as you map it to the correct midi note that your VST is looking for? You could use the Name column for the technique names given by SD3?

Last, is there any harm in using the same note-head for all playing techniques for an instrument? 20 for the SD3 hi-hat seems excessive. I’d rather not have to memorize 20 of anything like this.

You’re correct that it doesn’t really matter what the underlying playback technique is, provided you use the same one in your percussion map and in the playing technique or notehead combination in the Edit Percussion Playing Techniques dialog. But it’s also worth knowing that you can define your own playback techniques, as well, so if you want to define e.g. open 3 or whatever, you can do that in Play > Playback Techniques. That will make that technique available for use in your percussion map, and in Engrave > Playing Techniques, and in the Edit Percussion Playing Techniques dialog.

Regarding the hi-hat openness, I’ve found combination techniques to work pretty well. I made up this notation to indicate how open the hi-hat is:

Staccato = tight
None = closed
Tenuto = open 0
Half-open + staccato = open 1
Half-open = open 2
Half-open + tenuto = open 3
Open = open 4
Open + tenuto = open 5

To get bell techniques, I use the above combined with a triangle notehead assigned to the playback technique “Bell”. (You could also make a playing technique with the text “bell”.)

I assume that closed is using the tip, and open is using edge. To get a different articulation (i.e. closed edge, open tip, open shank), I use the above with a playing technique “tip” / “edge” / “shank” assigned to the playback technique “Stick (tip)” / “Rim” / “Stick (shaft)”. You could also use a custom notehead, but I prefer the text, as it allows me to combine it with a triangle notehead to trigger “bell tip” on the other cymbals.

It’s worth noting that if you don’t need specific MIDI notes to fire, you can manually adjust the pedal position in Superior Drummer by going to Play mode and assigning CC4.

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Thanks very much! I’m just learning about this. That is very useful info.

I’m using Dorico Elements 3.1.10 and don’t have Play >Playback Techniques. Is this something only in the Pro version?

It is included in Dorico Elements in version 3.5. You might consider buying the update from Dorico Elements 3.1 to Dorico Elements 3.5. It’s not very expensive: see here.

Thanks! I wonder if I’ll find out eventually that the Pro version has features that I need to reach SD3 and GrooveMonkee nirvana? …and eventually interop with a DAW?

Dorico Elements does end up being the gateway drug for many Dorico users… which is of course just how we want it to be!

You got me! I guess I’ll start with 3.5 and see where it goes.

I upgraded to 3.5. It kept all of the techniques I added in the Setup | Edit Drumkit dialog. However, it wiped out most of my percussion map that I just spent the last two days setting up. Is this a know issue?

…a few hours later

Having seen all of the people having so much trouble with this, I would like to first suggest that you upgrade to 3.5 if you are using 3.1. It’s a huge improvement if you are trying to get SD3 to work.
…and, plan on starting from scratch in 3.5 - not as bad as it sounds once you get it rolling. IT REALLY DOES WORK VERY WELL!

That said, I read all of the documentation, read most of the post and had a really tough time with it for four reasons 1.) the necessary information is spread over a lot of places, 2.) there aren’t many error messages when you make the smallest typo that causes things to quit working, 3.) the keyboard handling is inconsistent, causing you to have to mouse or track pad way too much and 4.) this process in anything but automated - tons of data entry that has to be perfect.

Easy way to work with SD3 and 3rd party loop libraries =>

I discovered that General Midi files from Groove Monkey and OddDrumGrooves import just fine in Dorico and can be exported to SD3 after you edit them. Trying to export the same GM files that originally work in SD3 to Dorico doesn’t work. SD3 seems to edit them on export in a way that makes them not work for Dorico. These same GM files also work imported directly in SD3. This seems to imply that the SD3 map is made of additions to GM and not simply doing something different. Anyone know?

This approach skirts the issue of using SD3 in Dorico which I’ve found to work partially with tons of effort (drum kits, drum maps and a very error prone method of setting it all up).

The upside is that you get to edit high quality grooves with a five line staff and then make use of all the great features in SD3 afterwards. The down side is that you start with GM and miss out on some of the techniques that you can only get with the SD3 midi map.

If anyone else has gone down this road, I’d love to know what your experience is like?