Key Switching Press Instead of Holding

Hello all.
I am having some issues getting the new Opus engine by East West to work within Dorico, and I believe it’s due to the different ways Dorico and Opus are wanting to do Key Switches.

It seems Dorico wants to hold the key switch down, but Opus activates a keyswitch once you press it, as well as once you release it, which is causing issues in my playback. This is most noticable whenever I use a legato patch in between articulations. In the engine I can see the keys being pressed, so all the midi data is being transferred correctly from Dorico, but I was wondering if there was a way to change the way Dorico holds down the key switches and turn them into a press and immediate release, or some way around doing this. This Opus engine is a huge upgrade from the Play engine and it comes with new sounds that I would love to use in Dorico. Unfortunantly they can’t work and Play, so I really would like to make this engine work.

If anyone has any insight what so ever, please, I am all ears.

Thank you.

Does Opus have an option for whether or not keyswitches latch? Unfortunately Dorico doesn’t have any such option at the moment, so it will always keep the keyswitch held down for the duration of the technique. Perhaps the people at EastWest can advise whether they have implemented an option to control the latching behaviour of keyswitches in their new player?

Hi Charles,

I bought Opus a few weeks back (it’s great, exactly what I was after ) and have been using it in Cubase. Having read your post I’ve just tried it in Dorico and got the Hollywood Strings Opus Edition 1st Violins KS working OK with the pre-assigned keyswitches. By working OK I mean that the switches are working and playing back the right patches as and when they should.

I did spot one fault, the Opus keyboard (bottom) shows when the Legato switch is being activated but it’s not lighting up in the the Opus list of articulations (central window). I assume that’s an Opus issue - if it’s working in one, it should be working in both and I’m certainly hearing the Legato patch. All the other articulations are appearing on cue in both areas.

If you can describe the faults you’re getting in a bit more detail, I’ll see if I can replicate them.

Thank you for the replies, guys.

I have created a case with East West to see if this is really intended or if they can help with the latching.
Screenshot 2021-05-29 091551

For more detail, it happens when A KS happens immediately after another KW. In this example I had natural notes and then immediately after legato.

But as you can see in the other screen shot, legato is being initiated, but not being performed because that key went down before the original key was lifted. Thus, reverting back to the natural articulation. David, is there something specific you did with the Playback option overrides to make it happen with the strings? This is happening to all my brass and woodwind libraries.

Another note. It does not happen when there is a rest in-between as all the KWs are lifted and things get to reset. At that point, it works perfectly. It’s only going from one articulation to the next. The last two notes play fine.
Another note, if the tempo is slow enough, the KS works. This happens with quarter-notes at 60bpm. I guess Opus at that point has enough time to lift one key before moving to the next, so maybe there is some lag there?
Screenshot 2021-05-29 090227

Thank you all for the help.

This appears to be quite similar to what often happens with Kontakt. I don’t think Dorico is to blame as such, but there might be an unfortunate combination of factors.

In the Xmap editor there is a NOTE OFF event section. Try to enter the equivalent of a Natural technique there for every technique… It may/may not improve things…

I tried doing the off events to the same KS at both high and low velocity, and sadly it doesn’t work. I even tried assigning a different key as an off event, but that fact that triggering a KW as the key is a thing, I do not think I will be able to use it with the KS. This program however does allow you to change the way articulations are programs, so instead of the Key Switches, I can assign CC 3 to all the articulations and have them be a different value. I do not want to do this method as I would have to make custom instruments for each instrument, which would take forever.

Hopefully East West will get back to me soon. If/when I find out new information regarding the situation, I’ll post an update here incase anyone else is finding this issue. Unless David Tee is doing something right that I simply am doing wrong.

Thanks again, guys.

Perhaps you could export and attach an expression map here? (Using a CC rather than KS is inferior in my experience…)

Hi again Charles,

Apologies, I should have paid more attention. There is an issue with the legato patches - the first legato instance is getting the trigger (D0) from Dorico but Opus is not activating the legato patch. This is the case whatever legato patch is being used and whether or not a rest is placed before that first legato section. After that, however, subsequent legato sections are activating the patch correctly.

I didn’t make any changes to the settings and the expression map I set up was very rudimentary - just linking the articulation and the keystroke. I’ve only tested this on Violin 1, using the first 5 available articulations.

Thank you for your input David. I believe we have come to the conclusion that this is on Opus, and until a new update rolls out, having it work with dorico 100 flawlessly or without a work around won’t happen. It is a brand new software running version 1.0.1, so I figure it just has a few bugs.

Thank you all again for your input. Once I get an answer from East West, ill put it here.

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FWIW, I finally installed EW OPUS today and have tested Key Switching from Dorico. I didn’t experience any abnormal behavior. The GUI may not be the swiftest around (noone beats VSL there!) but the audio sounded as expected. Since I have all my strings/EW libs on a separate PC, I had to use Vienna Ensemble Pro, but that shouldn’t make a difference in this context.

EW updated Opus a few days ago. I’ve just played back the file I created before, the one that wouldn’t trigger the first legato, and that legato is now playing back as it should. I can’t see any reason given in the version history as to why it should - but, anyway, all seems to be well now.

You all have been great with trying to help out and figure things out. It was an Opus issue, and as soon as I saw David’s message, I went and updated Opus and it’s all fixed.

Thank you all. I can finally use all my Opus Libraries with ease. I plan on doing all the brass as well as the Woodwinds, so once I make some expression maps set up for the Opus engine, I’ll post them for others to use.

Thanks again, all!

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