I enjoy working with Organteq 2 in Dorico but found the process confusing and cumbersome when I began and recently prepared the attached ‘how-to’ summary to help clarify my personal understanding and hopefully help others. I send a huge thank you to JesterMusician who prepared playback templates for both versions of Organteq and has repeatedly provided generous help to myself and others.
Using Organteq 2 in Dorico
Required first step:
-all that follows presumes you have already downloaded the Dorico playback template and Organteq midimap attached to JesterMusician’s post immediately above this one. This step is necessary even if you previously downloaded the template for the original version of Organteq—although the new playback template will still show in Dorico as simply ‘Organteq’ it has been revised for the later version of the virtual instrument. Also, JesterMusician’s generously included BWV 542 project file not only provides a useful example of Dorico and Organteq 2 working together but can also be helpful in identifying functional differences between it and other early projects in which Dorico and Organteq 2 may be working less effectively together.
A. In Dorico:
-add a 3-stave organ player to your Dorico project. (Opening and closing organ stops always requires the bottom, pedal staff).
-in Playback Templates, select ‘Organteq’ and click Apply.
-after entering at least one note of each voice of your organ notation into Dorico, go to the left zone in Play Mode and activate Independent Voice Playback. This will generate unwanted extra instances of Organteq which can be removed by switching from the ‘Track Inspector’ to the ‘VST and Midi’ rack and deleting the extra instances, leaving just one.
-in the Track Inspector, route each voice of each staff of Organteq to a separate channel of port 1. The VST name and expression map should now show ‘Organteq 2’ for each channel.
-in Write Mode use the Playing Techniques popup (shift P) to identify the manual to which each of the two upper project staves relate. There may be some initial confusion re names that is traceable to Organteq’s shift in focus from only French Romantic era stops in the original version to the inclusion of German Baroque era stops in Organteq 2. For example, for the middle manual enter ‘go’ (short for the French name, Grand Orgue) to display HW (for Hauptwerk, the comparable German name); for the lower manual enter ‘pos’ (short for the French name, Positif) to display RP (for Rückpositiv, the comparable German name); and for the upper manual enter ‘rec’ (short for the French name, Récit) to display SW (for Schwellwerk, the comparable German name). The bottom stave is reserved for the pedalboard and doesn’t need to be expressly identified.
B. In the Organteq 2 plugin:
-open the Organteq 2 plugin window and select the desired organ (for example, Romantic: Church, or Baroque Cathedral I) by clicking the preset button. This will allow you to view the available stops for your project on the Organteq window. Then, click the button to the immediate right and set the Organteq midi mapping to ‘Dorico’.
C. In Dorico:
-we next need to arrange for the opening and closing of organ stops. For our purposes each stop is identified by a letter representing the manual or pedalboard to which it relates (starting with ‘a’ for the topmost manual through ‘d’ for the pedalboard), followed by a number representing its relative position on the Organteq interface starting from the left. Thus, ‘b4’ identifies the fourth stop from the left on the middle manual and ‘d7’ identifies the seventh stop from the left on the pedalboard. The number of stops for each keyboard varies according to the Organteq preset selected but ranges up to 20 for the Hauptwerk or middle manual and up to 10 for the other manuals and pedalboard.
-Playing Techniques to open and close stops are comprised of parentheses enclosing these stop identifications, preceded by a ‘+’ or ‘-’ depending on whether the stop is being opened or closed. Thus, enter (+a4) in the popup to open the fourth stop on the top manual or (-a4) to later close the same stop.
-all Playing Techniques to open or close stops must be entered on the pedalboard staff regardless of the keyboard or pedalboard to which they relate.
-I recommend entering Playing Techniques using the popup activated with shift P, but stops can also be opened and closed via the Playing Techniques tool box under the Keyboard heading. However, the entries there are in somewhat haphazard order and more importantly, result in the stops being displayed above the pedal staff rather than atop the staff of the upper manual (visually preferable) when entries are made using the popup.
D. Additional Playing Techniques:
-the chart below (prepared by JesterMusician) includes additional playing techniques for combinations, banks and expression pedals.
A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 Swell / Récit / Schwellwerk A6 A7 A8 A9 A10
B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 Great / Grand Orgue / Hauptwerk B6 B7 B8 B9 B10
B11 B12 B13 B14 B15 B16 B17 B18 B19 B20
C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 Choir / Positif / Rückpositiv C6 C7 C8 C9 C10
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (combinations) (banks) X7 X8 X9 X10 -
(6) (7) (8) (9) (10) X1 X2 X3 (exp. pedals) X4 X5 X6 - - - - C
D1 D2 D3 D4 D5 (pedalboard) D6 D7 D8 D9 D10
