Multiple instruments 5-line drum set

The manual says the following about multiple instruments on a single line of a Drum kit:

“Multiple instruments can share the same staff position, but we recommend that they use different noteheads so that the player can tell them apart.”

I read this to mean that given two different instruments with different note heads and different percussion map assignments, each instrument on the single line would play their differently assigned Instruments.

To give an example, I have built a percussion map for the Invasion drum set from Get Good Drums. The map works perfectly because in Write mode if I choose the piano keyboard, and I click a piano key all the correct instruments play. Moreover, in the kit I defined for the Invasion drum set all instruments occupying a single line play correctly in both the notation and the drum editor. The invasion drum set is large, so it has two main crash cymbals defined in the set as Main Crash L and Main Crash R.

I assigned both cymbals to a single line in the percussion notation with different note heads, but when I enter the appropriate note on the staff or the drum editor, both notes play the same cymbal, even though they are defined differently in the percussion map.

Is there a way to assign two instruments on a single line in the drum kit to actually play differently assigned instruments in the drum map?

Thanks, any insights would be appreciated.

Can you attach a simple project including your percussion map and your drum kit, so I can take a look?

Sure, if you mean the Dorico file. Here it is.
Invasion Notation copy.dorico (2.6 MB)

OK, so I solved the problem, and post what I found in case it helps anyone else. Multiple instruments can share the same staff position, but they have to be multiple instruments of a different type. Changing the note head type assigned to the instrument simply helps the player; it does not change which note (instrument) responds in the percussion map. So, in my kit, if the kit contains a Main Crash Cymbal R and a Main Crash Cymbal L, you cannot assign two instance of Crash Cymbal, which are automatically numbered as 1 and 2, to the same line (or space) in the kit and have each instance play a different note in the percussion map. Side note, this is true even if the kit instruments are on different lines or spaces.

I had to add two different instruments to the kit on the same line (or different lines or spaces), such as crash symbol and cowbell (low). I then rename each instrument, in this case, Main Crash L and Main Crash R, respectively, so they appear with the correct names in the drum editor in Write mode. I also changed the note heads associated with the second instrument, so they look different in the notation, when the instrument uses a single line or space.

Next, I make sure that my percussion map has the correct instrument assigned to it so the map responds correctly an instrument note in the kit. So even though the instrument assigned to the instrument I renamed Main Crash Cymbal L is a cowbell, the percussion map triggers the note assigned to cowbell but plays the Main Crash Cymbal L sample in the Get Good Drums associated with that midi note, which happens to be Main Crash Cymbal L.

Just for clarity, I am using the Get Good Drums Invasion and Modern & Massive kits in Kontakt. The real challenge is finding instruments in Dorico that when added to the kit and percussion map that communicate correctly, so the kit triggers the correct note in the percussion map. For the cases where the Get Good Drums kit contains multiple instances of the same instrument, such as Crash Cymbal L and Crash Cymbal R, I had to find by trail and error a Dorico instrument that would map correctly. This was rather tedious considering that the Invasion drum set contains about 42 assignments that need to be made.

The end product of this work is I have available two great kits of Get Good Drums available in Dorico that are now extremely easy and fast to add to any project file.
Thanks.

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This is one reason why I think it’s really important that we can create our own instruments. Creating such kits and the corresponding percussion map would be more straightforward, and probably easier.

I completely agree. The process was almost exactly the same creating these kits in Logic Pro, except for creating the instruments that appear in the drum editor to trigger the samples. While the process is not completely intuitive or transparent in Logic, once you understand it, the assignments go very quickly. I had to spend many hours finding the instruments that work by trail and error. To say the least, it was at times really frustrating. I really hope that Steinberg adds the ability to define/create our own instruments because that would bring Dorico even closer to what I am looking for as a composer, an advanced notation program that also functions as an advanced DAW.

Yes, we know it’s important to be able to edit and create instrument definitions, and it’s definitely something that we will allow in future versions of the software. In the meantime, I’m glad you were able to resolve this before I had a chance to come back around and look at your project more closely, @Ciro_Scotto.

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