The improvements regarding Expression Maps in Dorico 3.5 are great

doesn’t it work if you put a playback start offset in to delay the start of the staccato in your example? I’d be happy to experiment as well if you post a wee project.

Hi Daniel and Bertram,
It seems that the problem takes place mostly, or only, when there is a relative channel switching. I have worked on the same piece of test passages with EM using absolute switches and they seem to be played well. But, to be absolutely sure give me a day or two more. Also, the question to Daniel about functioning of relative switching: which one of the below scenarios is correct:
Scenario 1. base channel = 1, a note using relative channel = 2 pushes final channel to 3. Next note with relative channel on the same staff = 2 pushes new final channel to 5. This is the case where any relative channel is “relative” to the previous number. So how do we go back? I did not see a possibility of having a negative number of relative channel, like (-2) which eventually would put me back to channel 3 or 1 from the above example.
Scenario 2.base channel = 1, relative channel = 2 so final channel is 3. Next relative channel = 3 but new final channel is only 4. This is the case where any relative channel is “relative” to the base channel. Question about getting back is practically solved because every note with such a relative channel would switch it to the required channel, and this option would allow for easy migrating of EMs within a VST instrument. Example would be: in one instance of Play I have trumpet 1 and trumpet 2 using identical EM. Both trumpets have articulations sets as follows:
Base channel - sus-short
Base channel + 1 (so relative switch value is “1”) - legato
Base channel + 2 (so relative switch value is “2”) - effects.
It would suffice to set base channel to 1 for trumpet 1 and to 4 for trumpet 2 to fully reuse the EM and reduce the numer of VST instrument instances. And the reuse of this EM within any VST instance is only limited by the number of “trumpets” that can be loaded into this instance.
With absolute switches every “trumpet” requires its own instance of, in my case, Play or creating multiple EMs only to accommodate different channel assignment.
I would very much appreciate the clarification.
Witold

‘Relative’ changes are relative to the base channel, so base = 1 then relative change of 2 ends on ch3. A further relative change of 2 would still be on ch3. A relative change of 2 resets to the base channel.

:question:

Sorry, I’ll try to explain in more detail. The base channel is the channel that the instrument is routed to in the Play Mode track header. If you use relative channel change switches, then all these switches will be done relative to that channel.
If you have a relative channel switch, then the channel is calculated as the base channel plus this current relative number. It doesn’t add to the ‘current’ channel.

To give a practical example: suppose you want to use the Iconica Sections & Players expression maps listed in the sticky thread at the top of the forum. These have multiple articulations spread over 4 patches (standard, long, short, dynamics). So in HSSE you can load these in channels 1-4 for violin 1, channels 5-8 for violin 2. The expression map uses relative channel switches of 0,1,2,3 to access standard, long, short, dynamics. Violin 1 is routed to channel 1. Violin 2 is routed to channel 5.

Thanks, this clarifies a lot. It was in this way of using the relative channel switches where I encountered the strange behaviour of late switching back. But I suspect I might have made a basic setup error of using the idea of “default” switching back, while it probably should be set up for every key switch used (similarly as it has to be with absolute channel). Just to clarify the “base channel” usage. As you said, the base channel is the one where the instrument is rooted (f.e. “1”) so every key switch that operates on this channel should have the “relative key switch” value equal to “0”, right? The problem I encountered was not in going up in channels, it was with going down, like “nat.” or “staccato” on channel 1 after some effect on channel 3.
Once again, thank you very much, because if what you explained works as I need it, Sibelius just lost 20-year user and customer.
Witold

Yes, if you are using channel switches then every entry in the expression map needs to have one. And you are correct, that everything that is on that base channel needs a relative channel switch of zero.

Also, if you have multiple actions in each switch (eg switch channel, output CC1), you need to ensure that the channel switch is the first action (you can use the up/down arrows to reorder if necessary).

Thanks a lot. Waiting for your confirmation I did a few experiments and came to exactly the same conclusion. So it works.
Now, having the chance to communicate with you I have a few more questions, some probably trivial, but please, cut some slack to a guy who has 20 years of Sibelius habits. All these questions came after hours of preparing my libraries for seamless use when I will begin composing with Dorico. So:

  1. With adding instruments and passages (they are not music, just articulation testing notes) I have noticed a serious slowing down of file saving. From a blink of the eye to several seconds (5-7 secs). I do have a good machine, a Mac Pro 2019 with 16-core processor, 96GB of RAM and 8TB of M2 SSD (all Apple original) running the latest Catalina, so it should not be a system reason (or should it?). Question: is there anything I should/could do inside Dorico to speed it up?
    2.My libraries have a lot of fancy articulations that do not exist on a basic Dorico list, so I have created them. They work, but when I open the right panel they are listed with no particular sense or order (i.e. total mess). Question: is there any way to organize them at least alphabetically? It would spare me time and eyes.
    3.Moving from individual VST per instrument to multitimbral instances I have encountered two following situations: alt-S is not soloing a staff that is one of these multitimbral instruments (it can be done in the Mixer from Play, but that is an extra wasted time),and, only the instrument linked to channel 1 of multitimbral VST instance has a name shown in the Mixer, every other instrument gets only the output number. Question: do I do something wrong here or this is the actual state of the art?
    4.In Sibelius (sorry :slight_smile:) when I want to work on only chosen staves I mark them, hit “focus on staves” and the rest of the score disappears. In Dorico I found the way of doing it by creating the layouts, but it is not dynamic and does not allow for an easy free choice of staves I want to work on. Question: is there a dynamic way of displaying only the chosen staves?
    5.From time to time Dorico hangs on closing and even after force quitting cannot be launched. Sometimes it displays the attached message. Here I have a hint. The probable reason may be the synsopos app that becomes unresponsive (I have done a full maintenance of eLicenser to eventually stop the problem), because when I force quit it Dorico starts normally.
    I will appreciate your answers and your patience.
    Witold
    dorcio error.png

That’s why I did it like this:
Tooltip.JPG
Greeting
Bertram

Hi Bertram,
Tip is cool but will not work for me. My articulations are 2-4 letters long, because sometimes they are “direction” and in this case the length is less important, but sometimes they are “attribute”, so they hang over one note and have very limited space. Adding them the way you show on your tip is effective, but adding with mouse is quite often faster, and there my problem of the messy list lies. I will wait for Paul’s answer.
Witold

OK, but you know that the (sorted) name listed in the Shift + P window and the text or symbol / glyph that appears in the notation can be edited separately?

PS.
In my opinion, the route via the Dorico Popover is always the fastest, especially when there is a large selection. :wink:

  1. If you have a few plugins loaded then that will add to the time taken to load and save, however this does depend on the plugin. Most of the plugins that I’ve used are very fast to save, but you may have one that takes longer. Next time this happens to you, do Help > Create Diagnostic Report straight away and attach the DoricoDiagnostics.zip file from the desktop. This may give some information to help us find which bits are slow.

  2. I’m not sure how the panel is organised, but I would strongly recommend derBertram’s advice. You can set different text to enter them in the popover. So even if the text in the score is short, you can have longer text for the popover. eg you might have a ‘Vb’ playing technique, but you can set the popover text to be ‘vibrato’. If you have a lot of different techniques, then this can be very useful because as you type more letters, the popover shows you only the ones that match. So open the popover and type ‘v’, and you would see all your vibrato-related techniques.

  3. If you have using a multitimbral plugin, then try to ensure that you are using a version that has 16 audio outputs, and assign each MIDI channel to a separate output. Dorico’s mute and solo work on the audio mixer, not the MIDI mixer, and so if you have more than one instrument that is output on the same audio channel then there’s no way of soloing just one instrument and not others.

  4. Currently we don’t have a focus on staves function.

  5. If you have a hang on closing, please create a diagnostic report as described above.

Ad1. Sure, will do. From your experience, are Play 6 and Kontakt 6.2 slow in saving?
Ad2. Bertram’s advise is helpful, but from the perspective of my question it is but a workaround, or patch. The mess in the panel stays. Will this issue be addressed in some future version?
Ad3. My multitimbral instances are organized in dedicated individual pairs 1 MIDI channel to 1 audio channel. No matter what VST I use they always have required number of audio outputs activated. Perhaps the problem lies in linking MIDI channels with audio channels. What I do now is (example):

  • input channel MIDI 1 - trumpets with channels 1-3 for articulations, audio output 1,
  • input channel MIDI 4 - horns with channels 4-6 for articulations, audio output 2
  • input channel MIDI 7 - trombones with channels 7-9 for articulations, audio output 3
    Perhaps I should do the following: MIDI input 1 - audio output 1, MIDI input 4 - audio output 4 and MIDI input 7 - audio output 7?
    Ad4. I see.
    Ad5. Of course, once it happens again I will send you the report.
    Thanks for helping.
    Witold
  1. I haven’t noticed Play or Kontakt to be particularly slow
  2. Can you attach a project that shows the problem?
  3. I would advise MIDI ch1 => audio ch 1, etc

Ad1. Then there must be something else.
Ad2. I tried to attach a zip file where save takes 2-3sec, but it was refused as “too big”. 70-note file is too big? Any other way to send it?
Ad3. I am not sure I understand. In the config I discussed in my previous message the additional MIDI channels (like 2-3 or 5-6) are reserved only for switching purposes and adding an audio channel for every of them would allow for seeing which actually set of articulations is played at the moment, but nothing more. Is that why you suggest it? BTW, it can be a good source of extra info. I will try it. In the meantime I have reassigned audio channels to their corresponding MIDI channels (like MIDI input 1 - audio output 1, MIDI input 4 - audio output 4 and MIDI input 7 - audio output 7), increased the number of visible instrument channels in VST setup and all instruments became visible plus alt-S works correctly. Only these extra unused channels crowd a bit the Mixer. Is there a way to hide them?
I attach the diagnostic report as well.
Witold
Dorico Diagnostics.zip (1.98 MB)

  1. Unfortunately I can’t tell anything from these diagnostic file because you have to create it immediately after experiencing a slow save. The detailed timing data is only kept for a short time. I have noticed though that there are quite a few crashes in there. Quite a few of them are in the EW Play plugin, so I would check that is installed correctly and check to see if you are using the latest version.
  2. If a file is too big you can use a service such as Dropbox or WeTransfer
  3. I see what you mean. If you are using Play then I would recommend using one instance of Play for each instrument. So you can still use channel switching to access different articulations, but you know that you only have one audio output for every instrument. If you do this then mute/solo will work as expected and you will have one channel in the mixer for each instrument and no empty channels. Using multi-timbral plugins and channel switching is difficult because there’s some missing pieces currently. Dorico has no idea what the relationship is between input MIDI channels and output audio channels, and so it can only make an assumption that each MIDI channel has a separate output channel. We hope to improve this in the future, but this adds extra UI and more complexity.

I have one technical question I could not find an answer for in D3.0 manual. How do I export channel changes invoked by articulations like, for example, legato on relative channel 1, runs on relative channel 2, nat, on relative channel 0. I did test MIDI export of a file having all that, opened it under Cubase and found everything but channel changes. Would that mean that I have to do it manually or there is a smart way of transmitting this info to Cubase? Like EM transfer between D and C?
Witold

It appears that channel changes aren’t currently exported into MIDI files - that’s an omission, so I’ll log it and we’ll hope to address that in a future version.

Thank you. With that, even before Dorico will get linked to Cubase as it is planned, my work from composing to final mastering will be 1/3 shorter than with Sibelius. Not to mention that smarter too. In general, Daniel used his knowledge from his time with Sibelius very well and together with all your team did a very good job.
Waiting for “3.6” having channels in MIDI export and then for “4” having at least “export to Cubase” option. My dream would be to export the composition to “*.cpr” and then open it under Cubase and have all my instruments loaded automatically, all dynamics, articulations and switches in place, so I could go directly to creating audio, mixing and mastering.
Thank you for your help and the whole Dorico team for making this application.
Witold