I’m writing some organ music and I’d like to be able to have the playback switch patches back and forth between two organs to simulate different stop presets. I tried to create an expression map to do this, but 1) the patches in HALion don’t seem to expose any bank or patch numbers, and 2) “Add Program Change” did not change the patch when I just guessed and put in “1” or “5”. Is there a way to do this?
Why don’t you assign the controllers in 1 organ with CC numbers (which is very easy) and you put CC changes in your score? Then you can easily change the stop parameters of 1 organ…
HALion Sonic SE doesn’t respond to program change messages in the way you describe here. You will have better luck with a dedicated organ virtual instrument that allows you to change stops using keyswitches or MIDI controller messages.
The organ in NotePerformer is small, but you can control the registration with MIDI CC messages, and create Playback Techniques to link them to text in the score.
The biggest limitation is that to play the manuals and pedal independently you have to create three single-staff instruments, but you can make the score look correct using the custom bracket options in Engrave mode.
But to be honest, until there is more control over playback in Dorico (and until you can create your own playing techniques libraries, or score templates, or however Dorico implements it) this is all a bit of a pain and restrictive - for example the manuals have to correspond exactly to the staves in the score.
I had a look at driving Hautwerk or Grande Orgue from Dorico 2.2.10 and you can “get it to work”, but I decided to wait for more playback functionality before I tried doing anything serious. Trying to use the organ samples in something like Garritan Personal Orchestra or the Garritan Organ instrument, which have their own idiosyncratic MIDI control methods, would be equally “making a dog dance on its hind legs” IMO.