Having an issue with playback of soprano sax at end of piece. I have several instruments playing a final cadence. The final note is a half note starting on the third beat of a bar tied to a whole note in the final bar. When I play the piece in Dorico all instruments stop sounding when they should except for the soprano sax. The soprano sax continues sounding for a brief period after the piece ends.
I’ve tried to change the final note on all instruments to a whole note - i.e., half note in the second to last bar tied to a half note in the last bar. But the same issue occurs. The soprano sax continues sounding briefly after all other instruments stopped sounding.
This is annoying. I did not change anything in the Play tab.
Hi, here’s the cut down project – just two bars of a sax section. When you play it in Dorico 3.5 Pro the soprano sax continues sounding after the other three instruments stop. All four instruments have the same duration written – i.e., a half note in bar 1 tied to a half note in bar 2. So we would expect them all to end together.
Hm. That’s odd I didn’t set any delay on. In fact what I sent to you was a totally new project in which I added the four sax instances and the two bar cadence.
Perhaps the delay is your default setting for the soprano sax.
That’s the default setting when you load “Soulful Soprano Sax.” It will always have the delay unless you turn it off. If you don’t like it, try another soprano sample, use another VST library, or turn it off and save a new preset. It’s not a Dorico issue though, but rather an issue with the soprano sound you have chosen.
Here are the default “Soulful Soprano Sax” settings below. Any time you load that sample you’re going to have to change it if you don’t want the delay. I don’t think you can save over it in SE although you could modify it then create a new preset.
It’s a Dorico issue in that “Soulful Soprano Sax” is the sample assigned to Dorico’s Soprano Saxophone instrument in the factory HSSE/HSO Playback Templates.
Ah, ok. Maybe not the best choice for that then. There are a few other Soprano sounds in the default installation. They might want to consider switching that one to something that doesn’t already have an effect like that applied.
After turning the delay off it sounds fine for what I am using it for.
I imagine whoever created the “Soulful Soprano Saxophone” was mimicking the sound Kenny G made famous. Do you know of a sample that mimics more of a John Coltrane soprano sax sound?
Nope, not really. As a saxophone player myself, I sorta hate most saxophone VSTs. Here are a few I have if you wanted to compare though. Music is the head and first couple of choruses of Trane’s Untitled Original 11383 (take 1).
VSL
Garritan Jazz & Big Band uses aftertouch vibrato which Dorico doesn’t support, but here are the 2 sopranos that come with it.
Soprano 1
Soprano 2
NotePerformer articulates everything unless marked with a slur, and I’m too lazy to go back and put slurs into a transcription I did a while ago, but here 'tis anyway.
Fred, thanks for the samples. I know what you mean about not being very satisfied with artificial instruments. But I am just an old guy having a bit of fun doing some composing and arranging during this lockdown - just a hobby for me now that I’m retired from my day gig.
Many years ago (in what seems like another life now) I had the pleasure of playing with some excellent musicians including playing in a band with a sax guy who went on to record a few albums with Miles Davis. So I can appreciate the vast difference between what a plug-in can do versus an excellent live musician.
But for me these days it is just me, my instruments, and things like Dorico, Cubase, etc.
Cool, late period Miles? Was it Kenny, Bob Berg, or Margitza? I studied with Jimmy Heath and played in his big band. Jimmy and Percy had lots of Miles stories, and of course Miles talks about Jimmy in his autobiography. Just curious who you knew that played with Miles, and wondering if I know them too.
Actually, this reminded me how much I hated all my soprano VSTs so I pulled the trigger and bought SWAM. I definitely like this one better and will probably spend some time making a decent Expression Map this afternoon. Here’s the same Coltrane example straight out of Dorico:
It was Rick Margitza when he was just out of high school. A few of us met in a summer jazz studies program at a local college while Rick was still in high school. I think it was his first year out of high school when we had a gig together for a while at a local bar/restaurant. We all knew he was very talented back then. I didn’t have that kind of talent. So I went back to school and got a computer degree and worked in that field for around 30 years. Now that I’m retired I have more time to spend on my music. But of course at this point it is just a hobby for me.
Margitza is great! If you’re Facebook friends with him, did you follow his “lick a day” project he was posting in 2020? Really great stuff! I included (credited of course) a few of his augmented scale and major 3rd tonal center ideas in handouts I gave to my improv class last year. I’m sure someone must be working with him to get that project published as it was a pile of great information.
