When I add a new technique in the Expression Map, it takes the actions of the previous added Technique and this first technique now has no Actions at all. Is this a bug?
I think this is just a UI update bug: re-select the newly-added technique and everything should look correct.
No, re-selecting it doesnāt make a difference. It really looks like another Techniqueās actions are being assigned to the newly added technique. Very confusingā¦
Iām unable to reproduce this problem. Are you starting from one of the existing expression maps, or creating a whole new one?
Andre, perhaps you could upload a problem expression map here, and we could try to figure it outā¦?
It seems only to happen when I duplicate another expression map and edit it. When I start a new expression map this doesnāt happen.
I think I figured it out, it only seems to happen when I duplicate and edit another expression map, not when starting a new one.
How to handle reverb the best? Inside the Aria Player or inside the Dorico Mixer and then add Fx Reverb?
What is the best way? It depends really. The built in ARIA reverbs are pretty good, and quite efficient; however, there might be times when you just want to use something else. If you have a huge project with MANY instances of ARIA (and other plugins), it might pay off to use as few Reverb routines as possible (take advantage of the FX Send built into Doricoās Mixer so many plugins can SHARE the same reverb unit) in order to cut down on system resources required for digital processing (Helpful for me because Iām using older/slower hardware). In contrast, if you only are using one or two ARIA Instances and no other VSTi plugins, there is no reason you canāt get fine results using the built in ARIA Reverbs.
If you want to mix all of your ARIA Outputs to the Reverb Fader in the Dorico Mixer then:
- Open your Dorico Mixer and toggle the Sends tab and resize your Dorico Mixer until you can see the Sends controls.
Remember that if youāre using the Multi-Output version of ARIA, all of the audio is mixed to outputs 1 & 2 (The first fader of a given ARIA Instance in the Dorico Mixer). If you want to split each instrument slot off to independent Faders youāll need to change the āoutputā for that instrument in ARIA.
- Iām not sure why, but Iāve found that on my system when using Third Party Plugins like ARIA in Dorico, sometimes the FX Send doesnāt work at first. Fortunately they seem to always start working for me if I redirect the sends to no fader (or ------) and then reset them to the āFx Reverbā fader.
So I go across my mixer and set all the faders of the ARIA instance to ānothingā.
Then I set them all back to Fx Reverb.
At this point youāll hopefully find that playing the score now properly sends an AUX signal to the reverb fader in Dorico, which by default already has an instance of the Steinberg āREVerenceā Convolution Reverb Unit. You can adjust the amount of reverb send per Dorico channel by click-hold-dragging on the blue band(s) in the send slots.
To make adjustments to, or to change the REVerence plugin, Toggle the Inserts Tab so that all of the mixer inserts are visible. Toggle the FX tab so that is also viewable. You might need to resize your window and scroll things around to get to this point. Clicking the e icon by the Reverence slot should bring up the plugin so you can make adjustments to it. If you want to change to a different plugin/effect, click over the plugin Name and choose your new plugin from the drop-down menu. Of course you can control the master level of any inserts assigned to slots on this channel via the large purple fader.
You can also apply plugins directly to a Mixer Channel using his own VST Insert Slot. This can come in handy if youād like to split off different families of instruments in ARIA to use different effect chains.
I.E. Imagine youād like to apply a compressor or envelope shaper plugin to just a percussion channel. In this case, youād need to make sure youāre using the Multi-Output version of ARIA, and be sure to set the output for your ARIA Percussion Instrument slot(s) to the desired Fader in your Dorico Mixer. At this point, the signal will first go through your FX Plugin insert, and then out of the Fx Send (if assigned and levels applied) as well as sending just the compressed/shaped signal through that channel. With insert plugins applied directly to a Dorico Instrument Channel, youāll need to set your wet/dry mix ratio from inside the plugin itself.
Sometimes itās nice to direct all instruments of a given section or family to the same Dorico Mixer Fader for processing. I.E. Putting the entire sax section on the same fader so you can apply a slot plugin to them all together in the same stream. This is why I recommend going ahead and getting used to how the Multiple Output Version of ARIA works.
Note, you might want make sure that the Reverb Effects built into ARIA are disabled at this point.
If you wish to use the built in ARIA reverbs then:
First be aware that each instance of ARIA gets a fresh reverb unit of its own, so if youāre working with many ARIA instances, youāll need to set your Reverbs up, independently, in each ARIA instance accordingly. For this reason, sometimes you can cut down on CPU stress by disabling ARIAās own reverbs, and having them all share a single reverb through Doricoās mixing matrix as described above.
Hereās how ARIAās built in Reverbs work:
You can add them to the mix in ARIAās Effects and Mixer tabs. The reverb output for all channels will always be mixed and come from ARIA outputs 1 & 2 (Multi-Output Version). If you use the internal ARIA Reverbs, disable the FX Send for any ARIA Channels you do NOT want sent to the Dorico FX/Reverb fader.
Be aware that in ARIA, ALL of his ābuilt inā reverb effects are always mixed down to outputs 1 & 2. So if you ever find a need to isolate the reverb mix from everything else, then put all of your instruments on other outputs on the Dorico Mixerā¦then youāll only get the reverb mix from ARIAās outputs 1 & 2.
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Unless you want to use dual effects in parallel (both from inside ARIA, and over Doricoās Mixer FX Send) disable the FX Sends for the ARIA Instance in your Dorico Mixer.
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Now manage your ARIA FX from his own internal Mixer and Effects tabs. (These FX sends are also General MIDI Compliant, so they can be automated with CC91 events).
For a hybrid approach:
Sometimes you might want to use the simple reverb in ARIA in combination with a nice third party Convolution Reverb like REVerence. The regular reverb in ARIA is really efficient in terms of processor usage, so this is a very useful technique! I.E. To give brass a little more stage presence resonance before it gets further ālarger roomā shaping done under a convolution model. In this case you could enable just the regular reverb in ARIA and manage that from ARIAās own controls, while KEEPING your AUX Send to the Fx Reverb channel in Dorico.
Hi Brian,
Thanks for your great and long answer. Sending the reverb of the Aria te output 1&2 is very handy to know.
Iām using COMB2 and JABB with Aria. In Finale it sounds so much better, I will the same sound in Dorico.
Also the VST exoressions is something to learn. More dynamic sound instead of the sound now.
Yes, JABB in particular offers many expressive parameters that youāll need to teach Dorico about using expression maps. Perhaps in some future version of Dorico weāll get full blown controller lanes where we can just draw stuff right into the Play mode in as needed 
This is something Iām really looking forward to seeing in Dorico because it could alleviate needing expression maps at all (and make it much easier to get fine control of instruments when we do have an expression map). Marry the ability to shift events around with the scripting engine and we can get really expressive instruments working with minimal fuss.
Since you also use Sibelius, I recommend grabbing a good XML Editor and studying the soundsets. You can get an idea of what Sibelius sends to make it sound the way it does.
One thing I can advise right off the bat. Start out with ModWheel (CC1) style dynamics rather than key-velocity for your winds, brass, and strings. Percussive sounds, pianos, harps, etc, will often use note on velocity instead. If you donāt set this right from the beginning, you wonāt get much dynamics on Playback, and this little thing alone can make a BIG difference in how good a score sounds.
Iāve a theory that we can get Dorico to send both (velocity and expression volume) for each note, but Iām not exactly sure yet how to master that process.
Some of the Garritan Brass does use both velocity and modwheel dynamicsā¦where velocity can change the attack a bit, while CC1 does the instrument volume (and things like crescendo).
To get a little more punch from things like staccato notes, house tops, etcā¦
Make entries for them in the expression map. Even if youāve not yet added fancy keyswitches and involved slates of CC events for on the fly sound shaping, you can at least do things like alter attack velocity and note durations in the expression map (I.E. Tell Dorico that staccato notes should be half duration with +5% velocity), and thatāll go a LONG way to making a positive impact on score translation.
Iām pretty new to Dorico, so Iāve not yet figured out how Dorico parses the expression map, and where priorities are placed. I.E. What if a note is both staccato and has a housetopā¦which mark gets priority (or does it try to use both?). I do notice that we get exclusion groups, and I think have a basic understanding of them but Iām not positive yet without more building and testing.
Until we users know more about this sort of stuff (via documentation or pure luck in trial and error), it could take a while before you can find (or build your own) expression maps thatāll do equal or better score translations than Sibelius + JABB currently does out of the box.
Iām using COMB the most time, with EZ Drummer 2 and Omnisphere Trilian. I donāt use Sibelius so I canāt grab the XML. But you have notate a lot of information to explore again. Iām switching between Finale and Dorico for now.
One (or two) question(s) I figure Iād better ask.
- When Dorico upgrades arrive, a number of customizations have been overwritten in the past. Is this likely to happen to custom expression maps when future upgrades arrive?
- If so, where does one look for the files to save separately as backups to guard against this?
It looks like every new file opens with a default number of Xmaps. Customized and new Xmaps live only in the current file, unless you also save the revised library to disc. Since itās not possible to save a revised set of Xmap as a new default (as in many other areas of the program) I donāt think thereās any risk of overwriting custom work, as you can name the file when you export the library. Hopefully updates to Dorico will be reflected in updated default xmaps, so personally I hope that that file gets overwritten automaticallyā¦
Oopsā¦Finale. So have a look at āEdit\Preferences\Human Playbackā. This would be Finaleās rendition of expression maps.
I have big problems using Garritan / Aria Player in Dorico. Please see VST instruments disappearing and no sound > 10 instruments - Dorico - Steinberg Forums . Can anybody help me? Iām driving a little bit crazy.
Hereās a bump to inform that Iāve updated my tutorial post earlier in this thread with a new paragraph about making ācombi techniquesā.
Iāve also attached a Demo Score that hope will load up and ājust workā for people who have GPO5 that are interested in seeing an example of a working score.
Hereās a taste of what it sounds like:
Here one can hear a rendering of the above score.
F. Schubert - Scherzo No. 15 (Dorico-GPO5 Rendered to MP3)
I just found this thread - thanks! I now have GPO working, and a functioning harp. Canāt thank you enough - now I just have to get some reverb working, but the big hurdle has been cleared. Really appreciate the time you gave to write this all out.