Ah, I think this explains what’s going on. By definition an add-on technique is used just to add extra MIDI messages to the current set of MIDI events. It’s not allowed to modify the note by transposing it (otherwise what would happen if you have two add-ons with different transpositions? Will one ‘win’? Should they be cumulative?)
I haven’t had any experience using CSS, but from the screenshot above, it seems to me that the harmonics is just a regular keyswitch, which isn’t what add-on techniques were intended for.
The harmonic articulation is a normal entry in the expression map with a keyswitch and -12 transpose. But for some reason, it won’t transpose anymore after an add-on playing technique is triggered in the score. This add-on technique just sends midi CC messages, so it shouldn’t interact with the harmonic -technique in any way. I also checked that they are not in the same mutual exclusion group.
I investigated this a bit further: It’s not only harmonics, but it seems that the transpose -function in general does not work if a playback technique with articulation type “direction” is triggered.
Steps to reproduce:
in your expression map (for any library), assign arbitary transposition value to for example pizzicato -technique
in the score, place any playing technique with articulation type “direction” before it. It may be listed as an add-on technique in the expression map, but that doesn’t actually matter.
Pizzicatos are not transposed anymore (but are still triggered)
I hope I’m right with this, since I don’t want to waste your time… But this seems how it behaves on my computer.
Thanks for the repro case. It does seem that the presence of an add-on technique prevents the transposition of a base switch. I don’t think there’s any workaround for this at the moment, but I’ll log this.
Thank you - it’s not a big problem for me, because I scripted a workaround in kontakt. But the same thing seems to happen even if the added playing technique with “direction” is not mapped at all in the expression map. So perhaps the problem is somewhere else?
Spitfire has the philosophy that (see point 4) to compensate for how people play longs versus shorts differently is that it needs they need to have a different reverb to compensate for this natural niente. This is a filthy hack which requires separate VI’s on different reverb busses, but it does accomplish the task. Having done so many samples Spitfire should be intimately knowledgeable about this probably, and it’s probably fruitless to try to get players to “play long but end short” (I’m not sure how I would do that on the clarinet, or if I’d even be inclined).
Dorico takes my favorite approach of having one keyswitched VI so the reverb trick wouldn’t work anyhow, but if the playback system could have a “Niente” switch, with say a percentage amount & time or something, that would neatly solve the problem. This way you could tell your long samples to hurry up and finish, or conversely your short samples to take a bit more time.
I, too, have a problem with transposing harmonics in an expression map.
My impression is that Dorico ignores any octave transposition in the expression map, when playing the harmonics.
So, if you have the harmonics mapped one or two octaves lower in the preset, and try to compensate by adding transposition to the corresponding expression map entry, Dorico continues to play the real MIDI note, and not the transposed one.
After a few tests, it seems to me that Dorico plays a MIDI note one octave below the expected one. For example, if I write the fourth harmonic (4th interval over the fundamental note) on the lowest Violin note (a G3), I would expect a G5 to be played as the harmonic. On the contrary, I get a G4.
If I write the third harmonic (5th interval over the fundamental), I would expect a D5, but get a D4.
No transposition in the expression map is considered.
I’m not sure what’s the logic. Also, I would like there was a way to automatically transpose the resulting note, since the only alternative would be to edit all the presets.
Have you checked how the harmonics are mapped in you library that is playing back? I think Dorico does the right transposition (when in works) and at least noteperformer plays them back correctly.
Yea, it’s not a matter of mapping in the sample library. The problem is in the MIDI note that is played by Dorico.
But since I’m seeing that the right note seems to be played with NotePerformer, I’m investigating though the forum to see which other parameters may influence the target note.
An update: I’ve tried with a new document, using just the Default expression map. Dorico is sending the correct target notes. So, it’s something in the expression map, maybe some sort of conflict between concurrent articulations.
I have no experience with VSL so unfortunately I don’t know how to help with this… But I would check also what is happening in play mode, if there are any hints
It is sending a “Natural harmonics long” technique (corresponding to Natural harmonic 1). I can’t understand why, since the Properties are very explicit in saying they are Artificial Harmonics.
And I’ve just switched to the NotePerformer playback template: that technique is now "Natural harmonic "1! (But it plays the harmonics as if they were artificial ones).
As for transposition: Dorico takes it from the expression map. It’s just that I was looking after the wrong technique (artificial instead of natural).
I’m having this issue in Dorico 4 with @Bollen 's expression map for Sample Modeling (Expression Maps for Sample Modeling). It appears to be a similar issue - it looks like Dorico is playing the note two octaves above the touch fourth which is correct, but Sample Modeling has mapped the harmonics so they sound an octave above the regular note. This means that Dorico tries to play the pitch three octaves above the touch fourth, which is often out of range of the instrument and cannot play at all. The solution of some multi-script for CSS does not help me as the issue is with Sample Modeling strings. I tried to add the transpose property to natural harmonic 1 under the expression map and it didn’t do anything, I could see in Kontakt the same pitches were being triggered.
As i said in my message, I tried changing the transpose setting for the “Natural harmonic I” articulation, since according to the articulation lane in Play mode, that is the one being triggered instead of the “Artificial harmonic” articulation you have defined. I don’t think Dorico has the capability yet of separately triggering artificial harmonic samples from natural harmonic samples. However, it did not help.
But this seems how it behaves on my computer.
