Do all individual instruments in a percussion kit need to be routed to the same VST, with the same expression and percussion map? I have dug deep through the forum, the manual, and watched the relevant tutorials on YouTube but I’m still stuck. Here’s what I’m trying to do:
I’ve created several custom percussion kits, one for each player. They include some custom intsruments and some default instruments. For all of my custom instruments, I have created percussion maps that successfully map the correct sounds to the correct instruments when played-back individually (held by a player, not in a kit). The problem arises when I try to incorporate those instruments into a kit with default instruments.
Here is an example: I’ve created a kit I’ve called “Cymbals, Kenken” with Crash Cymbals (default), Suspended Cymbals (default), and Kenken 1 (custom instrument). I would like the Crash Cymbals and Suspended Cymbals to play back with the Iconica Sketch sounds, using the Iconica Sketch Expression Map and Iconica Sketch Percussion Map. I apply an Iconica Sketch factory playback template, and this populates those two default instruments appropriately, and leaves the custom instrument blank (presumably because Dorico cannot find an appropriate match).
To populate sounds for my custom Kenken 1, I manually edit the instance of HALion Sonic to add “Sonic Sounds Ambient Kit” to a new channel, apply that channel to “Kenken 1” in the Track Inspector, and then apply a custom percussion map I’ve made to link Kenken 1’s natural playback technique to “G3,” the desired pitch in Ambient Kit.
The problem arises with the actual kit’s routing. It appears to override any custom edits I make to instruments within the kit, so that my Kenken 1’s custom percussion map is removed once I deselect the instrument within play mode. If I try to assign no sound to the kit (—), it removes the routing of all instruments within.
This creates much bigger problems down the line. My ultimate goal is to have a complete playback template that applies my custom routing to my custom percussion instruments, Iconica Sketch sounds to all other percussion, and then routes all other wind and string instruments in my project to Note Performer.
I assume the correct way to do this is to create a file just for the purposes of making a custom endpoint configuration by copying my project file and deleting all instruments except percussion. Then, I’ll apply an Iconica Sketch playback template so that default percussion instruments use Iconica Sketch sounds, and then I’ll create manual routing for my custom instruments within those kits. The problem again occurs when I’m forced to assign routing to the kits themselves, which Dorico appears to view as instruments (my custom kits appear in the Instrument Editor, for example). Once I figure out this “kits” hurdle, I’ll save my endpoint configuration, and create a new playback template that first loads my custom endpoint configuration, then Iconica Sketch (with a filter on to include only pitched and unpitched percussion families), and THEN Note Performer. Is this correct?