So sorry Michael, I’m afraid I don’t really use EM so not really familiar with them. I usually use an extra staff below to control aspects of a library without interfering with the notated part. So if I use EMs at all it will only be for things like pizz, mutes, etc. Everything else, including dynamics, I control manually.
I did find another unrelated issue with your maps btw - regular pizzicato uses velocity for dynamic, not CC11, I had to change that in your map. You did have that set correctly for bartok pizz, just not regular pizz.
this is correct - if you use the Dorico harmonic symbol, this is mapped to “natural harmonic 1”. Dorico does not have a separate p.t for artificial harmonics as artificial is just a property of natural at present. Which is fine as far as I’m concerned as long as you’re aware of it. However changing the transposition setting for that articulation in the EM to -12 should certainly work so I don’t understand where the problem is. I’ve found it’s not uncommon that libraries’ artificial harmonic pitch is not notationally correct (CSS is one example) so have had to make the correction myself.
If I remember correctly, for me the transposing did not work in some specific conditions:
-when add on is present (?)
-when playing technique is direction (?)
-for add ons (?)
But I had these problems long time ago, they might be fixed already…
natural harmonic 1 is an attribute and the switch is Base here (as would normally be the case for harmonics). My own maps include add-ons and yet the transposition does work. Would be interested to get to the bottom of this!
( … and it was recently discovered, and confirmed, that transposition does not work when Note Length Conditions apply… for add-on techniques themselves, transposition is not available … )
yes, however it’s not as simple as that. If the transposition applies to the whole map or for instance to all the NoteLength switches, then it does work as witnessed in my Chris Hein solo strings where the lower strings have to be transposed for playback as the keyswitches are the same for all the instruments. Digging a little deeper, it seems that the automation transposition for all NoteLength patches is determined by the longest note length automation setting. In other words, you cannot have more than one setting within the automation patches. This does look to me like something worthy of further investigation by the team (unless it’s already been done and I missed the update).
This problem has been discussed elsewhere e.g. Mapping Note Length to Velocity in Custom Expression Maps - #36 by Richard_Lanyon
We hope to release a fix in a future version, but I don’t know when that will be likely to be.
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I saw the beginning of that thread which was mainly about velocity but not the post when it was suggested that transposition was also affected. If a fix is at hand then that’s fine.
I had a go at the EM during the weekend and I can’t use them at all! It’s not just the harmonics that don’t work, the pizzicato, if they are meant to play longer than a bar switch back to arco! Despite Dorico saying (in the articulation lane) that they are still in pizz. I experimented changing the velocity of the keyswitch (in SM KS below 64 have to be held and above 64 is an ON/OFF toggle), but got no better results. Also tried the Length feature, nope… After 2 bars it reverts to arco!
This reminds of Sibelius, sigh…! Manual seems to be the only reliable way to get playback, but it’s so cumbersome!
How are you guys making them work?
If you create the pizz. marking over a selected range, Dorico will be creating it with the duration of that range, and thus it will revert back to the natural sound at the end of that range. If you select your pizz. marking, you’ll see it has a circular handle two bars later, which shows you its duration. Reduce its duration to zero (or just delete it and recreate it with a single note selected), and it will behave the way you expect it to.
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Will test next weekend, thank you!
it can be confusing because Dorico 3 behaved differently and so if you test with projects created in that version, you need to check, as Daniel says, that a range was not selected. In the old version it didn’t matter, in v4 it does.
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Ah! that’s useful info, thank you!
OK I tried every combination, but none of them work:
- If the pizz KS is set to 64 or less (meaning it needs to be held during the note attack), then Dorico plays and release it too early.
- If the pizz KS is set to 64 or higher (meaning it needs to be triggered only once, a 2nd time will disable it) then Dorico disables it on the next note.
Whether “range” is selected or it’s placed only above the 1st note seems to make no difference:
In any combination (KS velocity 1 or 127, range or only above 1st note) the 1st and 2nd notes play correctly, by bar 9 it reverts to arco.
I know this is an issue with SampleModeling and how their KS work. That’s why I wonder how other people are getting them to work?
I’m not clear on how the Sample Modeling key switches are supposed to work, so I’m afraid I can’t make a lot of sense of your report here, Claude. Perhaps if I understand a bit more about what you need to get the Sample Modeling plug-in to do I might be able to suggest something clever (though perhaps not!).
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For me it’s really not that important, perhaps someone else can chip in. In any case, Sample Modeling’s Keyswitches don’t behave like most, they have two modes:
- Hold down while using it, or
- Press really hard and it will toggle it i.e. if you press it again at all it will be disabled. Same if you press another key
Therefore, it appears there isn’t a way to tell Dorico to use one system or the other. For example:
- If I tell Dorico to press the KS softly, it would need to hold it down before and during the articulation (or at least during the attack of the note).
- If I tell it to play it hard, then it would need to press it only once, when encountering the articulation. Because if it presses it again it will disable it.
That’s what’s happening in the example above: if Dorico play the KS softly, it needs to do it at least during the attack of the note (due to humanisation this isn’t always triggering). Or if it plays it hard, it needs to not play it again at bar 8, 9, etc.
Again, not important, I don’t even use Expression Maps. But if you can think of a workaround, EM are always useful to take some of the load off e.g. mutes, pizz, etc.
Right, so it’s whether or not the key switch needs to latch. That is something we have talked about adding, but haven’t yet done so.
Or be held down during the attack of the note.