Solo Woodwinds SWAM SAXOPHONES in Dorico

Dorico
1

Is there anyone here who has experience with the software player Solo Woodwinds, SWAM SAXOPHONES? I despair of setting up a saxophone quartet in Dorico alone with the VST instruments…

2

Can you say a bit more about what you’re struggling with, Damian? Is your problem in the area of loading the plug-ins themselves, or creating expression maps, or something else?

3

Thanks for the reply. No, the loading is perfect. I can create 4 VST instruments and see the 4 saxophones. But there is no sound. What expression maps should I use? What other settings should I use?

4

What parameter are you using to send expression data from Dorico to the plugin?

5

Just confirming, under VST and MIDI, you’ve added a SWAM Saxophone instrument:

vst
vst817×265 53.8 KB

… then under Track Inspector, you’ve clicked on a saxophone player and actually assigned it to the player:

track
track820×363 28.6 KB

You should be hearing something at this point regardless of whether you are using the CC11 or Default expression map for playback.

6

Thank you very much. Yes, it works to a certain extent. But when you open the software, there is no sound. So you have to click into the routings again.
That’s the answer from the developer:
The expression maps for Dorico will be available soon, as I need to check and adjust them before sharing. I’ll keep you updated. Andrea Giacomo Parazzoli Audio Modeling

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7

Have you saved a Playback Template with the SWAM Saxes? If not, read this section of the manual about them. Once you’ve saved a Playback Template you can apply it to an existing file, or specify what your default Playback Template should be in Preferences / Play / Playback Template. If you’ve specified it as your default, then the SWAM Saxes should load automatically with any new Dorico project.

I’m curious to see what the SWAM developers do with the expression maps. I use VEPro, so I now have all my edits to the SWAM Saxes saved in my VEPro template, not in the Dorico expression maps. SWAM can get decent results, but you really have to tweak each instrument so they are all different. If you have an AATTB sax section and you use the same alto and tenor for both 1 & 2 it sounds pretty bad IMO. With 5 quite different settings you can get decent results though. I wonder if the SWAM devs will account for that in the maps with CCs or they’ll just assume the user will any customizing.

8

It’s great to hear from you with your good ideas. If you have a playback template with the SWAM Saxes, please let me/us know! I have no pt. Thank you very much!

9

You have to save it yourself. Mine links to my VEPro instances (as I host the SWAM Saxes there instead of in Dorico) and all my other libraries which you obviously won’t have so it won’t be any use to you. Load the SWAM Saxes manually, then save the endpoint configurations, then create a Playback Template. Relevant pages from the manual linked below:

Saving custom endpoint configurations
Creating Custom Playback Templates

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10

Thanks.

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