Hi! Being a former Finale user, I’m used with a lot of work arounds and tricks. One of them is the use of Key Switches for a lot of purposes, f.i. changing Midi channels and/or sound etc. with hidden text messages.
But how to add those ¨on the fly ¨ in the score in Dorico? Is it possible?
This is all done with Expression Maps and Playing techniques.
(Edit: the premise being that if you want a sound to change, there ought to be a mark on the notation eg. a dynamic or articulation change or even an instrument change)
As @Janus states, expression maps are they way to link articulations with samples, but for one-offs, samplers and other, yet unforeseen usages, check out MIDI trigger regions:
I wonder how it is then possible to change MIDI-channel?
I mean by key switches.
Thanks, but will it work as a note event?
I don’t think so.
You would need to apply the Playing Technique that it is associated with, which will trigger the channel change.
I could be wrong.
E.G. I have a clean Electric Guitar and a Distorted one. When I want dist. I use the Distortion playing technique that triggers a channel change to my dist guitar on channel 2. When I want it clean again I use the Clean playing technique to switch it back to channel 1.
As a note event? I don’t even know what you are asking. A note is a note. So nothing except a note can be a note.
EDIT: Oh do you mean specifying a channel number as an attribute of the note, like what some DAW’s allow, and then it will send that note to that channel number instead of the regular channel? If so, no, Dorico will not do that. There’s no way under a note itself where you can override the MIDI channel number for sending that specific note to as a property of the note itself.
But what you can do is do voice independent playback, and then you can send another voice to a different channel. So you can make a voice for each separate channel that you might want to send things to and put notes in those voices, and then they will go to different channels.
Depending on what you are doing, that may or may not be easier than the expression map route. The different voices can make a mess of rests if you switch voices within a bar (which then you have to clean up). But changing from one bar to another won’t be that bad.
2 Likes
For a proper use of midi channel changes in Dorico one should probably use different voices associated with the “Independent Voice Playback” function found in the track inspector. This will allow immediate and transparent midi channel changes, you may have to hide a few rests here and the but that’s all.
As others have noted above, there are various features in Dorico that you can use to control the playback. However, I would suggest that you describe what you want to achieve (eg ‘I want to switch between clean and distorted guitar’, or ‘I want to use legato strings from one plugin but pizz from another’), instead of (eg) ‘how do I switch channels?’.
Dorico can handle things like channel switching through higher level concepts such as Playing Techniques, Expression Maps, Instrument Changes and Playback Templates. It’s often possible to have things set up so that you don’t need to do things by hand.
1 Like
Welcome to Dorico! 
As said, the ‘formal’ way of applying keyswitches is with Expression maps.
Playing Techniques (and other notation) in the score are then mapped to MIDI messages that the sample library requires.
However, you can also do an “on the fly” keyswitch, using MIDI Trigger Regions, which trigger a MIDI note in the score. But if you’re filling a score with these, it’s probably quicker, easier and more flexible to create an expression map.
@PaulWalmsley, on a side note:
I have CineStrings, which includes separate Articulation and Legato patches for each section. The Articulation patch seems to sound and work identically to the Legato one except the legato switch is switched off by default. Currently, I have an Expression Map set up to trigger the Legato switch on when I want it (using CC64).
Can you think of any benefit to me using separate patches spread over two channels, rather than “switching” the legato on and using only one channel?
I think it’s usually better to use the articulation switch on the same channel, as you will have the same stereo output and signal path for both switches. If you have a separate plugin then that’s a different channel in the mixer, with different pan and FX potentially (and this may be desirable in some situations, such as for the clean/dist guitar use case).
If you use separate patches on two channels then this could lead to situations where the dynamics or other controllers are inconsistent, eg if you draw in CC changes they will be played into the channel that is active. Again though, there may be cases where this is desirable.
1 Like
Hi all, and thanks for the replies! Someone request me to clarify what I mean and ask for.
I am working with sample libraries from Vienna Symphonic Library and others. For instance here attached is a screenshot from a piece with organ (The Rieger Organ from VSL). To use the different set up of stops, I have to use Key Switches for changes the different registrations of the organ. These are written in the Expression Designer with hidden text and contains MIDI info. I also use these hidden messages to change other thing like changes of channels, as shown in the screen shot.
I hope this will explain what I’m looking for in Dorico.
Thanks for sharing your example.
Personally, I would definitely use Playing Techniques to trigger the keyswitches - it’s literally what they’re there for.
If you want them hidden then that’s easy - you just hide them via Properties.
Hi, Daniel and thanks for your reply!
Since I’m a beginner I haven’t yet get the clue how to create a Playing Technique. When I’m trying by pressing the +buttom, I get only predetermined phrases or articulations on the screen. How to create it from scratch?
For these organ stop options you’ll probably need to create “playback techniques” first via the library menu, and then create “playing techniques” through the library menu that you can add to the score to trigger these playback techniques. The playback techniques would be the individual stops most likely in this case, and the playing techniques would be the text you want displayed on the score and part when these are called for. You can then make a custom expression map for the Rieger organ and map these playback techniques to trigger specific keyswitches or MIDI CC’s or whatever is needed. So in the expression map for the Rieger organ you would add switches for each of the playback techniques (in this case, the stops), with the keyswitch or CC that should trigger that stop. When you add the playing technique to the score, it will trigger the playback technique which in turn triggers the expression map entry.
It can get a little more complicated than this because in some cases it may think that playback techniques stack on top of each other. For instance, with strings you could have con sordino and harmonics at the same time. So you might also find that you have to configure mutual exclusion groups manually in the expression map if you find that Dorico thinks that multiple techniques can be used in combination but they actually cannot be, or alternatively add an extra “ord.” to the score (which can be hidden) to cancel out the previous technique.
Usually what I try to do is do all of this in advance for a library I plan to use and define all the techniques I might want to use so that when I’m writing I can just easily add these and don’t have to go through too much of a process. Otherwise having to define new playback techniques, playing techniques and expression map switches while I’m in the middle of the writing process can get in the way a bit and take me out of the zone.
VSL makes the maps for most of their libraries so generally I don’t have to do this work for their libraries, but the Rieger organ does not yet have an official map from VSL.
Here’s a useful link about some logic behind them:
Thanks for your answer! It seems to be the way I feared, a lot of work arounds when it is much more straight forward in Finale. I wish there would be a feature to write a text and fill it with the MIDI info I need.
Just thinking of all the stops in the Rieger organ AND all the possible combinations I have to create separate Playing Techniques, makes me almost giving up Dorico! 