Simple guide for making a drumkits work in Dorico ?

Thanks !

I have to look at this later !

I have spent hours and hours on Dorico while i should be practising !

You have been very helpful !
Thank You so very much Sir !

You’re welcome! Let me know if you need any further help!

Robby

Hi again !

I still can’t understand how this works !

I find it overly convoluted to work with and can’t see any logic in how to easy set up a drumkit to work with Dorico

On the Edit Percussion Kit page there are no information on what MIDI note number an instrument are mapped to.

To me everything would be much easier if you could assign the MIDI note numbers for the drums on the Edit Percussion Kit page instead of working with several different pages to make it work but I am not a programmer :smiley: !

I am trying to use a different Drum VSTi ( Superior Drummer 3 ) ( see attached Percussion Map that I made )

After making a Percussion Map from scratch ( see attached file for Superior Drummer 3 ) I have got everything working except for some instruments:

Tom Hi - Works
Tom Med - Plays Tom Lo
Tom Low - No Sound
Floor Tom Hi - Works
Floor Tom Lo - Works
Snare - Plays Snare Sidestick
Kick - Works
Hi-Hat - Works
Hi-Hat Pedal - Works
Ride Cymbal - Works
Crash - Works
China - No Sound
Splash - No Sound


PS

On some drums there are a number at the end on the Staff ( and “Edit Percussion Kit” Page )
and I can’t seem to remove them when editing names !

DS
Exported SD3 Percussion Kit.rar (4.34 KB)
SD3 Percussion Map.rar (1.94 KB)

I got it working… and now I see the problem…

Here is a little background to help you understand.

Dorico uses a “2 point” percussion map. meaning that you don’t assign a MIDI note to a specific instrument. But rather you assign an instrument and a playing technique in the percussion map and in the the drum kit editor. This has many advantages, for starters you can easily switch between drum sound library’s very easily, provided that you have appropriate Percussion Maps set up. Dorico doesn’t play F#3, but rather Dorico matches the instrument and playing technique in the kit editor to the instrument and playing technique in the percussion map to play that sound.

In your percussion map for SD3, every snare drum sound has the playing technique of natural, except for the rim shot. And you have the same tom instrument used twice. These 2 issues have potential to send the wrong sounds from your sound library.

You need to edit your percussion map to show specific techniques for each specific instrument. Such as have snare side stick, use the side stick technique.

There is 1 draw back when using a sound library like yours… Dorico doesn’t have 5 different cymbals in the instrument library to choose from. So you might be limited there on what you can do. You might have use a different instrument to get the cymbal sound for now.

I will add some pictures here in a minute, but I think there is enough information to get you going.

Robby

Here is the percussion kit editor:


A couple of things, the number next to the name means nothing… except for the order that the instrument was added to the kit. As long as you have the correct instrument, you will be fine. And even at that, the instrument name doesn’t have to match the sound. You can add a triangle instrument and in the mapping under the MIDI note that would be for gong drum, you could put the triangle instrument. As long as you know for your own record keeping purposes that you did that, you would get the gong drum sound any time you add a note in the “triangle” on the staff.

Here is the “Edit Percussion Playing Techniques” Dialog for the snare drum:


As you can see the snare drum has numerous “techniques” already set up. Natural is the basic sound, then you have rim shot, side stick, rim, etc. You can add your own technique from here, change the note head for techniques from here, etc. This is where the 2nd point of the configuration comes into play. Dorico will look for the Snare drum (Instrument) + Cross Stick (Playing Technique) in the percussion mapping and play that sound. If you are to switch from SD3 to Abbey Road Modern Drummer, you would have to do nothing (provided your percussion map is set up with the correct instruments and playing techniques).

And lastly here is your SD3 percussion map:


As you can see for your snare drum for instance, you have all the techniques assigned to natural (which should only be the basic snare sound). Start changing the techniques to what is more appropriate, and you should start to see instant results.

Sadly not all playing techniques are in Dorico at the moment. You can add some yourself, which is another issue in itself because it requires as many steps in some cases. If you get to that point, I can help you there too if you need it. But I think you might be able to by without too much work in that department.

Let me know if you need any further help or questions.

Robby

Seems you are in the same conundrum I was a few days ago. It’s not hard, it’s just all over the place. Midi mapping is done in play mode, play->percussion maps.

PS: we should start some kind of repo for sharing these!! I have the basics for the West Africa drums done

I still have no sound for 3 instruments and 2 are playing the wrong instruments :slight_smile:
I have no clue what to do next !

I’ve worked a lot with drum-maps in Cubase but this seems a 1000 times more complicated !

So things improved a little doing what I said? If so great! We are making progress.

What instruments do no sound now?

Robby

Can you send me a screen shot of your kit editor window, and a shot of the playing techniques for the instruments that are not sounding?


Robby

Tom Hi - Works
Tom Med - Plays Tom Lo
Tom Low - No Sound
Floor Tom Hi - Works
Floor Tom Lo - Works
Snare - Plays Snare Sidestick
Kick - Works
Hi-Hat - Works
Hi-Hat Pedal - Works
Ride Cymbal - Works
Crash - Works
China - No Sound
Splash - No Sound



These two plays the wrong instrument


I happen to have the modern drummer. If you share what you’ve done so far with me, I can take a look.

What do you want me to share ?

You need to change some things in your percussion mapping.

Change these 2 items:


For “Side Stick” choose side stick in the playing techniques column.

For 'Snare ruff" change it to tremolo for the moment.

After doing that, are you getting the correct snare drum sounds?

Robby

For the drum map to work there are 2 sides to the equation: 1) The Percussion Map, and 2) The Kit setup

For each side of the equation you need 2 things: Instrument + Technique

The Kit setup fist:


Click on the snare drum instrument, and look in the “Edit Percussion Playing Techniques” you should see something similar to this:

If yours doesn’t look like this, please send me a screen shot.

And your percussion map needs to match instrument + technique:


If you are doing all of the above and still having issues, please send me screen shots from your computer of all 3 of these windows and I can help figure out what is going on.

Robby

Yes now I hear a correct snare sound but the open hi-hat plays a normal closed even if I put a ring on top using playing techniques on the staff !

For the drum map to work there are 2 sides to the equation: 1) The Percussion Map, and 2) The Kit setup

For each side of the equation you need 2 things: Instrument + Technique

The Kit setup fist:

Screen Shot 2020-07-21 at 1.13.23 PM.png

Click on the snare drum instrument, and look in the “Edit Percussion Playing Techniques” you should see something similar to this:

Screen Shot 2020-07-21 at 1.13.41 PM.png

If yours doesn’t look like this, please send me a screen shot It looks the same

And your percussion map needs to match instrument + technique:


Screen Shot 2020-07-21 at 1.14.02 PM.png

If you are doing all of the above and still having issues, please send me screen shots from your computer of all 3 of these windows and I can help figure out what is going on.

Robby

I have matched the Percussion map and Kit setup and still having the following issues

Tom Med notation plays Tom Low
Tom Low notation plays nothing
China and Splash notation plays nothing
Hi-Hat Open notation plays Hi-Hat closed

Tell me what screenshots you want !

1.) Send me a pic of your Kit editor (where all the instruments are on the staff.

2.) Send me a screen shot of your Hi-hat “Edit Percussion Playing Techniques” from the Kit editor

3.) Same with Tom Med, Tom Low, China, and Splash.

4.) A copy of your drum mapping.

This will be multiple posts, the forum only allows 3 pics per post. If you want to zip all of them together, I will look at all on my computer.

Robby