Now I see what you mean. I was being fooled by the name in the ExMap entry. Apparently when I made the entry without realizing it I had changed the name rather than make the appropriate selection from the list. That explains why most work and this one doesn’t.
I definitely had used a duplication of the Tremolo technique, now that I think about it.
THANK YOU dko22 and also Fratveno for your help! This is an easy fix, and something to put on my troubleshooting list for when ExMaps don’t seem to be working right.
Glad to hear it! As I said from personal experience, it’s very easy to duplicate an entry and then forget to edit the p.t in the duplicated version.
By the way, on your question about playback offset, I was referring to the screenshot below. Most of the time, you shouldn’t need it but if you’re planning to use portamenti in VSL and they don’t play back, this should probably be one of your first ports of call.
Based on the screenshot playback offset is not a setting. It appears to be a matter of nudging the PT in engraving?
And yes, forgetting is easy, especially for me. The Beatles missed by one on the title of their endearing song, “When I’m 64,” although I must admit I forgot things just as much a year ago.
A have added the bolded item below to my articulation switching checklist:
Instrument correctly assigned to VST instance, midi port and channel
ExMap correctly assigned to instrument
VI Pro Matrix cell active and correct
PT tied to correct PPT
ExMap entry for Articulation exists ExMap entry selected from list rather than accidently just named properly
ExMap keyswitches correct
PPT in question showing in Mutual Exclusion Group
PPT showing correctly in ExMap lane in Play
Playback passes test…or not
Everything working fine now. I just finished testing and reviewing all my wind and string Expression Maps by entering a series of whole notes in a test flow. One instrument for each of the four ExMaps involved is assigned the note series with a PT in the order of my VI Pro matrix. As it plays back I can then watch it “walk” through each cell, and troubleshoot until it works perfectly. This is much better than trying to figure things out ad hoc.
Thought I’d mention all this in case there’s any other Dorico users who can learn from my mistakes.
I really appreciate this forum, and all of you who go out of your way to help those who need it.
in the screenshot, the actual note is shown highlighted in orange and the nudging applies to the note and not the p.t. The idea is to ensure that Dorico immediately applies the new p.t and not with a delay (or possibly not at all). The Beatles comment is perhaps getting a little close to home…
Your to do list is based on the assumption that combined p.t’s are not to be used. This makes a certain amount of sense to me as a lot of the problems with EM’s seem to be in not correctly programming the combinations. However, many want to use combinations and if you look at how for instance the “official” Sibelius soundsets have been programmed by VSL, they tend to include a large number of combinations which are purely for notation as they duplicate the actually available patches which are insufficient for all the combinations offered and can lead to contentious substitution decisions. In something like the Dimension Strings (I use the SE vol 5), this would make for a huge number from actually existing patches alone as everything would have to be spelled out for all the player combinations. They chose not to support the player combinations in the soundset at all! I’m interested in how they will approach their Dorico offerings.
WIth your approach (and indeed mine in the Dimension strings) if you do need two p.t’s to run at once, you can separate the two by putting the second between the first and second notes so Dorico will be able to read both. It gets a bit more complicated for obvious reasons such as then making careful considerations as to how to design the mutual exclusions. Eventually you’ll probably find situations where combinations are needed but I’m all for keeping things simple where possible.
I have so far purposely avoided combinations not so much because I don’t want to go there but because I first wanted to get base PT’s working smoothly for a core set of “as is” patches in for Wind (WW and Brass) and String articulations available in the VSL VI series. After yesterday I now have a completely functional template set up for both Dorico and VE Pro with all such articulation switches working.
From here I can begin to branch out into percussion maps and combinations. Today I will be working on percussion maps for VSL percussion. Once I get those functional as well, then I plan to branch out into combinations and also adding customized VI matrix cells to my available articulations. These can be added gradually.
I guess what I’m saying is I do see the value of combinations, I just don’t want to complicate the process until the basics are down.
Thanks for your encouragement to include combinations.
to be honest, I think your approach is pretty sound. It’s better to start with something that can be mastered and then branch out. I use far fewer combinations than many, I get the impression.
Okay, started on my first PercMap, a simple snare drum setup with three PT’s, Hit Left, Hit Right, and Roll. None of them is working. Figures.
The PT lane in Play shows the correct Active Playing Technique, but the Base Switch shows Natural.
If I was working in ExMaps I would know how to address this, but I see no way in PercMaps to fiddle with assignments other than what I have already done. Clearly I’m missing something again, I just don’t know what.
there are a couple of things which immediately strike me as odd but perhaps there’s an innocent explanation. I copied the screen after loading your PercMap. There is no roll in that map and also the two entries are mapped to C3 and D3 whereas they are mapped to C4 and D4 in both my VI and Synchron libraries. Perhaps you are using a different library with different mappings?
I was fiddling around with both C3 and C4 octave assignments because C4 wasn’t working. I figured it had to do with the fact that my VI Pro is set for C3 as middle C. I tried each, and each had the same resulting evidence of not working. The file I uploaded was the second one using C3.
Also as part of my fiddling and in an effort to streamline the test to two entries I removed the Roll. If I can get the hits to work I can get the roll to work. But I forgot to remove the roll’s PT assignment in Write mode.
This test is for the VI Standard version drums that share a common mapping, C3 and D3 (for my VI Pro octave setting) as basic hits L and R.
the octave associations can be confusing… Using Midi note numbers (0-127) is foolproof. I agree (although from memory) that what you’re after is midi notes 60 and 62 (middle C and D) and NOT midi notes 48 and 50…
Still in the middle of testing things, not working still, but I’ve noticed that somehow when I originally created the Snare player I must have duplicated a Timpani player by mistake. I usually change the name immediately on creation, so I didn’t realize what I had done. I had been wondering why a Snare instrument was giving me a bass clef staff. That explains it. So when I change the instrument to a Snare Drum I still get Naturals in the PT lane in Play, but at least I get one for each PT iteration I’ve assigned.
That’s progress, still not working though.
I’ve created two PercMaps and two players, each player assigned to one of the PercMaps so I can easily switch back and forth for testing.
Okay, seems fixed now. The C4-mapped player is working fine. The reason it wasn’t working before for me was not a problem with the mapping, but with the instrument profile. Once that was fixed, using C4 as a base to work with my C3 in VI Pro solves things.
So to sum up the thread, two problems up, two problems down. Thanks guys.
MIDI 60 is definitely correct. That’s why I knew things couldn’t be right when I saw 48! I’m still not 100% sure why you are having a problem but I replicated this in my own test project and it works fine. As I don’t think there’s a predefined p.t for unpitched percussion tremolo, you should use the tremolo articulation which is how it’s defined by VSL. Perhaps there’s something you can spot in my project that’s different?
By the way, don’t worry about the “natural”. My guess is the lane refers to the "natural p.t in the Expression Map, not the Percussion Map.
JUST SPOTTED UPDATE that you’ve fixed. You’re welcome to check out my project anyway! percussion test.zip (363 KB)
Looked at your project andI see your point about Tremolo for rolls. I’ll use it. Also, what you say about the Natural PT pulling from the ExMap makes all sorts of sense and would explain what I’m seeing. Maybe someone who knows for sure can chip in and confirm.
Re: PTs and PPTs, last time I attempted to implement VSL and Dorico it was after 3.0. At that time I found it tedious to wade through all the listed techniques, most of which I would never use, and many of which were buried way down in the alphabetical list. (I know we can go directly to a letter in the alphabet, but it’s still a carpal tunnel alert.) So I decided I’d create my own techniques, duplicating stock techniques when identifiable, and use a system of numbered prefixes so that the techniques I use are easily found at the top of the list. I haven’t done that yet in this 3.5 effort, but I need to consider whether I’m going to do that again or stick with the stock ones as much as possible.
