I’m trying to trigger arco playback for Vibraphone assigned to NotePerformer. NP Support has confirmed that two ways should work: 1) add a second Vibraphone instrument for bowed version and use instrument changes in the score and the sound override in the NP mixer to assign the bowed sound, or 2) assign controller 18 a value of 30 (and 0 to cancel) in the Key Editor. I’ve confirmed that #1 will work but I much prefer to treat arco as a playing technique. However I’m so far unable to implement that solution.
My steps to attempt #2 were as follows:
Added a playback technique for arco (attribute).
Added a base key switch for arco playback technique to the NotePerformer expression map (since no arco or bowed technique existed yet in it) and specified CC18 at value 30 for it. Also added secondary dynamic with control change 7 to enable crescendos while bowing.
Created playing technique for arco using arco playback technique. Applied playing technique to the notes in question.
Did I miss something in these steps?
When I look at Playing Techniques regions in Key Editor the technique is not recognized. Base switch and active techniques are still natural for that note. And I am unable to enter a CC value of 30 for controller 18 in lower panel. The selector box for controller value is inactive and the mouse-controlled cursor skips right over 30, going from 29 to 31.
Playing techniques regions are shown correctly for other VSTs in my project. Does this feature not work with NP? Any suggestions for obtaining vib. arco playback using playing techniques with NP? Ideally, I would hope that applying the playing technique to the note in Write mode would automatically send the right controller message to NP, but apparently not.
I do this all the time and it’s actually much simpler to do this using two voices on one staff, and then enable separate voice playback. All I do is select the note I wish to be bowed, right click, voices > new up stem voice. Set the playing technique to bowed as well. Then under the play tab: enable independent voice playback. This will automatically split and parse it into two vibraphones in the NP plugin. Open the plugin and change the second one to the bowed option from the instrument list. Now NP will play the articulations separately for you in the background from the same staff. So now Voice 1 is always arco, Voice 2 is always bowed. But it stays hidden from view, so this won’t affect how it is prepared and presented for an actual player (this is why I choose both to be up stem voices so they will appear exactly the same and I won’t have unnecessary extra rests).
Note with the separate instruments per voice you technically don’t have to use playing technique labels such as bowed or nat./arco, but I like to do it anyway so my score is complete.
Not sure if you have the latest Dorico but I attached a quick project file where I’ve set this up how I always do it. If you observe under the play tab you can see the individual voices in action.
Wow! A third solution that NP support didn’t even know about! Thank you @Derrek for the tip and @wing for the detailed description of this approach and the example. This does sound like the best workaround since it seems that NP doesn’t play well with the Playing Techniques aspect of Key Editor. I will give it a try as soon as I can get back to work on the piece.
