Problems playing back a contrabass tuba

Dorico
1

Using Spitfire Symphony Complete’s contrabass tuba, I cannot get music to play back properly.

The samples that I’m using comprise a “long” sound (this is the equivalent of “Natural” in Dorico) that’s mapped to the proper range on the virtual piano keys in Kontakt, and three articulations (marcato, tenuto, and staccato) that are mapped to a range one octave higher (for whatever reason). That is to say, an articulated contrabass tuba note in Dorico plays back an octave lower than it should.

I can get the articulations to play in the proper range by setting their “Transpose” values to 12 in the Expression Map, but then the “Natural” sound also plays back an octave higher, as though I had set the “Transpose” value on that expression, as well. Subsequently setting it to any value (-12, for example) has no effect; it always plays an octave higher than it should, regardless.

Anyone run into a problem like this? How did you solve it?

dorico_contrabass_tuba_playback
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dorico_contrabass_tuba_xmap
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2

In case anyone wonders, I got around the problem by providing only a single “Natural” expression. Apparently, setting different Transpose values on Natural expressions of different note durations is unsupported.

3

I can confirm this is a problem. All of my slurred Cb-Tuba notes are playing back an octave too high. I haven’t encountered that on any other SF Symphonic instruments, though. Strange.

4

The Spitfire libraries are second-to-none, in my experience, but they have their rare annoying quirks.

The weird contrabass tuba key mapping is one. Late-starting tambourine rolls is another. No trombone ensemble mutes (solo only), no solo stopped horns (a2 only), no support for pitch bend out-of-the-box (has to be set up manually), etc.

Still, my favorite set of samples, by far.