EW Hollywood has DIV A/ DIV B string instruments. What is the proper way to route, say, 1st violins. Let’s assume 1st violins are on one staff, 4 bars unison where I’d want the non-divisi instrument (say, midi ch 1) to play and then, 4 bars divisi where I’d want DIV A (midi ch 2) to play the top and DIV B (midi ch 3) to play the bottom.
Is such routing possible?
I think you can route ensemble strings (unison) to Midi CH1, Div A strings to Midi CH2, Div B to CH3. When you enable the IRV, you can allocate voices from the staves to these channels: for example, on unison staff - Up Stem Voice 1, on divisi staff A - Up Stem Voice 2, on divisi staff B - Up Stem Voice 1. If you decide to add a solo instrument to a divisi staff, you will have to allocate a voice to it the same way and renumber voices/channels.
I wrote down my channel assignments on a Post-It to make them as permanent as possible (since 3 of them are using the same staff, it’s hard to memorize) and I use colors to tell them apart:
Unison= staff 1 = Up Stem Voice 1 = Midi CH1
Solo Instr = staff 1 = Up Stem Voice 2 = Midi CH 2
Div staff A = staff 1 = Up Stem Voice 3 = Midi CH 3
Div staff B = staff 2 = Up Stem Voice 1 = Midi CH 4
It looks a bit like a Christmas tree. If there’s a more efficient way to handle it, I would be very grateful to learn it. This works but it’s extremely cumbersome and it doesn’t save in any endpoint, so it has to be done manually every time divisi is first initialized in a new flow.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that I use loopMIDI to connect Dorico to my VST host, so the Midi channel assignment is specific to that setup (it’s always Ch 1 for me, since I allocate a virtual cable to each Div patch). If you use that or host VSTs inside Dorico, you have to work out the channel assignments in a way that your expression maps still work (EW Strings switch patches by switching channels).
Thanks, I found the IRV, but when I create a divisi point, it adds a second staff and IRV only exposes 2 tracks in play mode, the upper voice and the lower voice. The unison, or original track has no routing capabilities.
Now, if I route Staff (a) to midi channel 2 (DIV A) and Staff (b) to midi channel 3, there is no longer any route to midi channel 1 (unison). So it appears I need to have ‘div @3’ to expose 3 tracks where Staff (a) is routed to midi channel 1 and Staff (b) and (c) are routed to midi channels 2 and 3 respectively. Then in write mode, divisi goes to staff (b) and (c) and unison writing goes to staff (a) – which seems illogical at best.
I guess I don’t understand how you were able to route unison and 2 div (where one is upper voice) to 3 different midi channels.
Thanks
In my set up it looks like this:
If I recall correctly, my result has been that whatever I use in the flow is what shows up in the Play Mode routings. If I don’t use unison in a flow, then it won’t be visible. That’s why the screenshot above shows different number of staves between Violins I and Violins II. That’s also why I had to write down my Voice assignments on a Post-It. These configurations have to be made manually every time. The way the staves are ordered in the routings is also extremely confusing (they jump from staff to staff based on voice number instead of staff letter and they cannot be renamed) - in my example the order is displayed as follows: Unison, Div B, Solo, Div A.
Again, that’s just my own experience, perhaps others have a better way of managing this. Since this library switches the articulations by MIDI channel number, I haven’t found a better way to handle the set up.
Also - you might have to toggle the button at top right corner that activates/de-activates the project to tell Dorico to re-initalize the routings.
If you put the divisi 1 notes in a different voice from your unison notes, IRV gives you…
Which I believe can be routed as you want.
Reading your post again, I think Janus is pointing to the source of confusion. For divisi, it makes more sense to think in voices as the starting point. Voices are what’s routed and there can be many voices on each staff.
@Janus From your screenshot, it looks like you have two voices on divisi 1 and 1 on divisi 2 for a total of 3 voices. Your wite/engrave mode will show something like:
My point / issue is, I want midi channel 1 for unison (when there is no divisi), and midi channel 2 and 3 for the divisi parts 1 and 2. According to you screenshot, I’d need to route Staff (a) 1 to channel 1 (unison patch), Staff (a) 2 to channel 2 (DIV A) and Staff (a) 2 to DIV B.
Nevertheless, I think I need to experiment with adding new voices as the answer is clearly in there somewhere.
Thanks
Actually it looks like this…
As you see from the voice colours, blue is your full section, green is DIV A and pink is DIV B.
I got it, Staff 1 simply adds (changes) voices which creates another track in Play mode. I see why colors for voices and post-it notes for routing could be handy.
Thanks
