Note for BBCSO legato players

Dorico
#1

If you’re using the BBCSO templates, note that you should change the “Length %” on the Legato switches to some number greater than 100%, to make sure the scripting triggers legato because of overlapping notes. Out of the box it’s left at the default of 100%, and with humanization jitter you get some odd jumpy results. This should be done with all the instruments which have legato - woodwinds, brass and strings.

Note there’s also an override in Playback Options Overrides which specifies a default legato length to use.

#2

I’m afraid I don’t entirely agree – for the strings if you want a real legato, then use a slur which defaults to 105 anyway. It’s important to retain the option of the legato patch without a slur for the faster legato passages. As I’ve said before, there are two legato patches In this library – one for real legato playing and one for smooth but faster music. The keyswitch is the same but the character without and with a slur quite different. The long patch should mainly be used for slowish sustained chordal writing or occasions where legato simply does weird things which does happen. The string default must be set to “legato” and not “long” for this to work as envisaged

The horns can be a bit problematical with a legato default and the woodwinds seem easier to handle either way so there’s room for experimentation here.

#3

Agggg, all my keyswitch maps silently got lost from the Spitfire plugin, so what I’ve been saying is moot. I got them reset and am going through this again. Thanks for your comment though, am considering.

#4

Keep us posted with your findings – it’s not such a simple library to programme and I’m sure there are still some things I could improve on

#5

Will do, I’m using it as my main library for a major project so am digging in deep. Overall it’s a good library I think, with a good amount of natural reverb and the addition of the leaders is a great addition I wish others did. Only complaint is the percussion section is pretty basic. One thing nobody does for understandable reasons is record the solos (leaders, woodwinds, etc) with a filled studio. You can clearly hear a difference in reverb between the string section, with lots of sound absorbing bodies, and a solo with one (and maybe a few support staff).

I have it set up in Cubase over a virtual MIDI port, but I’m about to try a VEP 7 connection.