Surprising Playback Sounds in Elements 3.5

No problem.

I’ll see if I can’t throw together some example projects to help you get started.

Brass is pretty tough to do…period. Something about all the overtones and the way they bounce around a room is just harder to do than say…a more sinusoidal flute or clarinet sound.

More to come :slight_smile:

Thank you - I look forward.

Wow,

I just loaded a big and easy version of the Star Spangled Banner into Dorico using the Elements 3.5 template.

badbone1

I can see right off the bat why your Trombone sounds so bad! (assuming you are using it with the defaults).

To begin with, they have it using the wrong settings for dynamics! It’s showing Modulation Wheel Dynamics as the default expression map but this Trombone instrument does NOT WORK THAT WAY!

CC1 (Mod. Wheel) for the “Solo Trombone” in the Artist library???
CC1 does ‘lfo vibrato’ for this trombone, not dynamics!

So, first thing I did was change to the ‘default’ expression map which uses ‘velocity’ controlled dynamics. Already improved.

I personally prefer using the “Velocity + CC11” expression map to start out with (keeps the expression volume CC11 separate but relative to the master volume CC7 on MIDI export), but either will work fine, and the ‘Default’ map will sound sound ‘louder’ without having to make any tweaks to boost the main levels if you prefer a louder mix.

Really, very few if any of these HALion Basic or Artist library sounds should be using Mod Wheel (CC1) Dynamics!

For the most part the standard of these two libraries (Basic and Artist) are:

Note On Velocity = Filter adjustments and/or sample layer changes and/or attack dynamic/envelope choices/manipulation.

CC1 = Vibrato (usually LFO based)
CC7 = Main channel volume
CC10 = Pan
CC11 = Expression volume

CC71 - 78 = HALion’s Quick Controls (knobs across the bottom of the plugin)

CC91 = Reverb (FX 1 on the AUX bus).
CC92 = FX2 on the AUX bus
CC93 = Chorus (FX3 on the AUX bus)
CC94 = FX4 on the AUX bus

So, just by changing ALL of the expression maps in this project to “Default”:

I went from this (Dorico’s defaults after choosing the Elements sound template):

To this (After simply changing all expression maps to “Default” so Dorico interprets dynamics to use Velocity and CC7):

Next thing I want to do is go for a band sound that’s all staged out and set in a nice ambient context instead of just having one player per part. I’ll have to come back later to explain some ways to get that effect.

The quick and dirty version simply uses some chorus effects, while yet another approach is to start splitting sections or family groups off into fresh HSSE instances, cloning instruments and setting them to like channels, detuning some of them a bit and applying some other tricks to prevent losing much of it to wave-canceling issues (can happen when stacking the same samples again and again), panning them out, etc.

In short, using what comes in the box, one can build some pretty rich and nice sounding ensembles! At first it can take a little time, but you do get to save them, and use them again and again as a base template for future projects.

Thank you so much for all your work. It is so illuminating and so very encouraging. I certainly am prepared to spend time trying to tailor sounds to my taste and to do it in such a way that I can reuse them.
I have much now to study and work out based on your example.

Also I am relieved that I was not going mad in regard to the trombone sound. The two versions of the star spangled banner are quite revealing.

Just a quick example of one of many methods to expand that National Anthem mix to a larger ensemble using HSSE and sounds that ship with Dorico Elements.

Here is the project so you can have a look at what I’ve done in HSSE to stage and shape the sound.
JH Star Spangled Banner HSSE Mix.dorico (1.5 MB)

Basically all I did was start new instances of HSSE for each instrument family. I went into ‘options’ inside HSSE and disabled General MIDI, thus unlocking the Channel settings in the MIDI tab, and also freeing up channel 10 for things other than drum sets. Effectively, I set it up to ‘layer’ multiple instrument slots over like MIDI channels.

Using the play tab, I changed the end points for each stave accordingly to use my new Instruments as I built them.

From there I just built out sections by cloning instruments and tweaking them all a bit (detune, pan, some filter and dynamic attack tweaks so each slot sounds a little different, etc).

You’ll notice on the Saxes I used a notch filter insert on the Dorico mixer, as to ‘my ears’ there were some buzz-like overtones that I personally found a bit too much for this ‘school wind band’ sound (would probably sound great in a Jazz or R&B mix though).

I felt the flutes were a bit ‘breathy’ on the attack phase. Again, it’s something you might want in a jazz mix, or something where a flute would be ‘closer to the mic’. I was able to tone that down using the filter settings in HSSE (Cutoff, Resonance, Attack).

For the heck of it I added a couple of Tenor Saxes on the Trombone part, as it might be pretty common in a school band situation to transpose and print that part out for the Tenors and Baritone/Euphonium as well.

On the surface it looks like a lot of work, but once you’ve played with HSSE a bit and gotten the hang of how the Basic and Artist HALion libraries are put together it goes pretty fast. It won’t be long before you understand how to get rid of things you hear that your ears don’t like, or layer up stuff and supplement/add effects you desire but aren’t quite there.

In time you’ll even find yourself shaping up actual ‘articulations’ with the dials and buttons of HSSE, and using expression maps to channel bounce among them.

You’ll be able to save individual slot presets for HSSE, or entire “Multi-Programs” where all 16 slots and any effects you’ve set up on the 4 AUX busses can be saved. You’ll even be able to establish instrument templates where Dorico can load and use your sounds by default.

It all just takes a little practice, and trips to the forum here can often be helpful and inspirational. There are also forums specifically for the HALion plugins, and the user-base for that is pretty significant since HSSE also ships with Cubase and Nuendo. You might even find some users sharing new sounds for HSSE.

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I have decided that I would like to use this source for a Theorbo and renaissance percussion. I will continue with Dorico Elements 3.5 and would need to install the Kontakt player in order to use the VST.

Looking back on other peoples’ discussions I see that there have been problems in using Kontakt with Dorico Elements 2. Do you think I will have a problem with version 3.5?

Many Dorico users are using Kontakt with Dorico with no problems, so you should be fine.