New Dorico Expression Maps for Vienna Symphonic Library

Dorico
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Lyrical legatos released early in the year were available but lyrical legatos for the alto flute, English horn, bassoon etc weren’t available yet in Dorico. This is what I had been told on the VSL forums and that I would have to wait a while so I’ve been checking back for news regularly and haven’t seen anything.

I wasn’t lying - when I said “new” lyrical legato woodwinds it was to differentiate them from the older lyrical legato woodwinds that came out at the beginning of this year (the flute 1, oboe 2 and clarinet 1) which were supported in Dorico since the release day.

And I haven’t only been checking on the VSL forums (every day or two) for news - every few weeks or so I’ve also been redownloading the zip from VSL to see what maps have changed looking at timestamps and using file compare tools. I had to resort to that in the absence of a change log. Unless a change log has come out since and it is somewhere now.

It is very challenging at the moment to determine: 1) when there is a new release of the maps and 2) what has changed from the previous maps. It bothers me a bit to be accused of spreading “fake news” as though I am either lying or ignorant by insinuating that I’m not keeping up on things that should be obvious. At the moment it is not apparent when VSL has done a new release of the maps to begin with, and also not apparent what has changed from the previous version, so I’m already having to jump through slightly unreasonable hoops to find these things out. Thankfully VSL support said on the forums that they would look at finding a solution for this issue as well and have some kind of change log for the Dorico expression maps.

I say this as someone who recommends VSL products all the time and feels they are the best solution for Dorico playback when people want to do a more polished final product in Dorico.

EDIT: For Synchron Woodwinds, I can see from downloading the ZIP file that the lyrical legato Alto Flute, English Horn, etc are now in there, they were not before. So I’m not sure when this changed. Last time I checked was just before I went on vacation, in mid-September (I just got home this evening).

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@Mike_Philcox The number of velocity layers differs between instruments and articulations. With Velocity XFade the layers are crossfaded anyway. So the number is not so important.

@mducharme I didn’t accuse you of lying. I’m sorry if it came across that way. I just want to ask you to not spread news as facts, that you are not sure about - especially on a channel that is not usually monitored by us.
For the following Synchron Woodwinds instruments lyrical legato has been added to the Dorico expression maps in July.
Piccolo flute; Flute 1; Alto flute; Oboe 1-2; English horn; Clarinet Bb 1
I admit that updates in the expression maps are not always clear. As you have written, we are looking for a better solution

Best regards,
Andreas

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@mducharme I sympathize with your concern and would have liked to see a sincere apology. Like you, I think VSL libraries are particularly well-suited to use in Dorico and I have found @Andreas_Olszewski to be very helpful in the past so suspect you simply caught him on a bad day. After all, who should take responsibility if updates on VSL’s expression maps are “not always clear” and they are “looking for a better solution”?

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