Possible to stack / layer different articulations simultaneously with expression maps?

Hello-

With Logic articulation settings and for instance Spitfire kontakt libraries, I am able to assign two notes in the same vertical structure to two different articulations (ie bottom note pizz, and top note spiccato). Every note can have a unique articulation assigned to it. Is this possible with expression maps in Cubase 10.5? I see expression maps have more of a horizontal / linear approach so it seems that this may not be possible but maybe there is a way. Thanks for any insight.

You should look at the differences between Direction and Attribute Articulations. A Direction says to apply the Articulation until the next change. While an Attribute only applies the Articulation to a single note. It is attached to the note and if you move the note the Articulation moves with it. Of course the underlying VSTi needs to support what you’re trying to do.

Thank you! I’ll give that a try.

This sort of works yes. Although editing it is very problematic/ difficult due to the linear nature of the articulation/dynamics lane. Steinberg should simply add place where one can select the desired articulation when a note or notes are selected. Also I hope that more “remote” options have been added in recent updates… Cubase 9 only allows for Keyswitch and Program Change. Thanks for help!

As an example: recently I was doing a brass part in Logic, and I wanted to layer a second note of the same pitch using the marcato articulation on top of a standard Long articulation. this was fairly simple even though both notes had the exact same start times. In Cubase, it seems when notes have the same start time it is difficult to give each a unique attribute articulation. I’m finding the behavior is unpredictable when penciling in an attribute articulation this way. As soon as they have even slightly different start times it is a bit simpler although still cumbersome. Perhaps I am missing something though.

I tried to create a separate MIDI track pointing to the Kontakt instance holding the spitfire setup, gave it the same expression map, and alas I can not get a second articulation to fire simultaneously on the same note (ie marcato attack with long sustain). There is something unique to the Logic architecture of articulation settings that allows this, where Cubase falls short. I think my only recourse is to just load an additional instance of the instrument. I’d hate to see Cubase give up the top on honor on this feature since they were on it so long ago!

Yeah, the whole Expression Map structure needs some serious changes. If a VSTi has say 5 articulations & the instrument responds to them in any combination for only 1 to all 5. In order to set that up now you’d need 3,125 slots (5⁵), which is kinda crazy. Except you can’t do that because there are only 4 columns, so you can only combine 4 at a time. Good news that’s a mere 625 slots!

In some respect starting from scratch and rethinking the entire architecture of Expression Maps makes sense. But then you have the legacy problem of not want to break the thousands of maps folks are using now. I suppose they could do and Expressions Map2 and folks could use one or the other but they’d function entirely different. Or perhaps a utility to convert an old map into the new structure.

Now it’s 2024, Cubase 13, and this problem still do not solve.

But now there is a tool that lets you easily build the maps.