… instead of being triggered when the previous note ends?
I am trying to use a velocity crossfade in Synchron Percussion to control the dynamics of cymbal swells, which requires turning on CC dynamics using a switch in the Synchron Player. This works for the duration of the note, but when the tremolo note is over it immediately switches back to “Natural” and turns the XFade off, meaning the cymbal can’t ring.
Have you tried putting the cymbal into a separate voice and extending the length of its sound in the key editor?
No, I’m not looking for workarounds but the best way for having standard notations used to trigger the right playback. In my experience, workarounds like that are serious workflow killers.
Users don’t have direct access to the playing techniques derived by Dorico from the score, so some kind of work around is going to be unavoidable.
In any case, learning the techniques Derrek mentioned is going to be very useful. Using different voices and independent voice playback is a very powerful technique for customising playback.
I use it all the time to mix and match sounds from different libraries to play back one instrument.
For example, you can use different libraries for divisi passages, or different playing techniques.
Users don’t have direct access to the playing techniques derived by Dorico from the score.
I’m not aware of how you could customise the way Dorico does that.
So some kind of work around is going to be unavoidable.
In any case, learning the techniques Derrek mentioned is going to be very useful. Using different voices and independent voice playback is a very powerful technique for customising playback.
I use it all the time to mix and match sounds from different libraries to play back one instrument.
For example, you can use different libraries for divisi passages, or different playing techniques.
I’m not finding it logical that a rest triggers a “Natural”. It would make more sense if the next played note triggers a change in technique.
VV1, what does Natural mean in this context? (on a string instrument it is coming back to arco / the default playing technique after pizzicato.)
I don’t have more than the SE Cymbal from VSL which has no separate swell articulation but I don’t understand why you don’t have CC dynamics/Xfade permanently activated? I do for all instruments in VSL as I find it works better (although admittedly I use almost exclusively Synchronized libraries so the newer Synchron ones might possible work differently). Surely it will then continue to ring even if the EM goes back to “natural” which will indeed happen if there is a rest?
I think he explained this in the first post: The playing technique he uses for sounding a swell is only in use during the very note, and when the swell should ring (probably because there is a “l.v.” tie on the note) the playing technique is lost because the following rest will immediately trigger the “natural” playing technique - which is something else and stops the cymbal from ringing.
1 Like
If you’re using a playing technique object then you can give this an explicit duration (with a hidden continuation line if necessary)—that might be a usable workaround.
1 Like
my point was that if the library as a whole --including of course “natural”-- is programmed for VelXF and not just that particular articulation, then it’s possible the note wouldn’t stop ringing. Of course this is only speculation as I don’t have the library but certainly it should be checked if not already done so.
1 Like
Blockquote but I don’t understand why you don’t have CC dynamics/Xfade permanently activated?
There are multiple reasons why I don’t want in on the whole time.
- The sounds are all triggered externally, not inside Dorico. Dorico is sending MIDI to an Orchestral Template in either Reaper or Nuendo. In both cases, I also play from MIDI controllers directly in to the Orchestral Template and do not want CC2 XFade on all percussion instrument articulations. I want them to default to using velocity for dynamics, not CC2.
- I don’t like the response of the XFade for dynamics on all articulations. In my testing, the CC2 is sometimes sent later than the note. This means when playing a ppp, pp, or p just after an ff or fff gives me a “thud” at the very beginning of a “Natural” note, as the CC2 takes a few milliseconds to clamp down to the lower dynamics.
fair enough. But can’t you still set the default “nat” patch to a CC --assuming this would actually sort the problem and programme the actual patches you use to velocity (in other words defining an alternative “natural” equivalent in as much as it makes sense for the particular instrument).
Still, there is of course a case for your request to switch to natural at the beginning of the following note rather than on a rest. It would be interesting to know just how many people are affected by this.
Not quite sure what you mean about the “nat” patch. Suggesting that I use multiple presets on the Synchron Player? I prefer to have 1 per instrument.
Nonetheless, I found a way to essentially remove the “Natural” technique from a percussion instrument. By editing the percussion instrument setting techniques in the setup I changed the first notehead technique from “Natural” to a substitute I added called “Natural 2” which switches the dynamics back to velocity from CC2. So now “Natural” is never triggered, and “Natural 2” is only triggered on a new note, meaning the laissez vibrer cymbal swells are free to ring.
not on the Synchron player but in the EM or PM. Anyway, it sounds like the solution you’ve hit on is not so different in principle - in other words bypassing the “official” “natural” – although of course not having the library (nor your set up with Reaper/Nuendo), I can’t be sure exactly.