Triangle Open & Mute (closed)

Dorico
1

I am trying to write a latin percussion triangle pattern but the default triangle sound only uses the open (natural) sound and the roll.

I need to add the closed triangle (MIDI note 80) and the open triangle (MIDI note 81)

In the triangle player part it just gives me regular triangle (MIDI note 84) and triangle roll (MIDI note 91).

I tried adding the notes in the Percussion Maps window and I can add and name the notes but they don’t play back using keyboard entry.

I also tried creating a new percussion map but when I added the notes to the percussion map I didn’t get any sounds to play. I went into the Endpoint Setup window and changed my Percussion Map to my new name. To get any triangle sound I had to change it back to HSO Triangle Combi Key. That doesn’t give me a muted triangle sound.

When I look at the HALion instrument for the Triangle Combi Key it only gives me the option for the Normal and Roll. The playing range for the instrument is C5 to B5. The open and closed triangle parts are G#4 and A4. Both are greyed out. They are not available in the Expressions list in the HALion player either.

I did a search of this forum on triangle and can’t find this discussed anywhere else.

2

The Triangle Combi Key patch only includes the open and roll sounds – if you open the HALion Sonic SE interface and select the Triangle Combi Key channel, you’ll see there’s a single octave of sounds mapped, and the lower half of the octave provides a normal hit, while the upper half of the octave provides a roll. No muted sound is provided.

However, if you use the standard drum kit, you can use MIDI notes 80 and 81 for muted and open sounds respectively, but you’ll get no roll in that case. To use these sounds:

  1. In the channel that currently has Triangle Combi Key loaded in HSSE, load [GM 129] Stereo GM Kit (or another compatible kit of your choice).
  2. In the track header for the triangle instrument in Play mode, click the cog button to open the Endpoint Setup dialog, and set the Percussion Map column for the channel with your triangle loaded to Yamaha XG (instead of HSO Triangle Combi Key).
  3. In Setup mode, expand the player card for the player assigned the triangle instrument, and hover over the instrument label in the expanded card so that the chevron > appears. Click the label and from the context menu that appears choose Edit Percussion Playing Techniques.
  4. In the Edit Percussion Playing Techniques dialog, add a new mapping by clicking the + button. Add a mapping for the Muted playback technique, and choose an appropriate notehead: I chose X Notehead.

That should be it: now, for an open triangle note, use a normal notehead, and for a muted one, type Alt+up/down during note input to choose the Muted technique, which will produce the notehead of your choice (e.g. in my case, the X notehead) as well as the expected playback sound.

1 Like
3

Hi Daniel,
Has this issue been “fixed” in Dorico Pro 4.2, or do we still have to do this workaround you describe?

4

I don’t think this is a fixable issue. Any playback is contingent on the capabilities of the sample libraries, not Dorico. Dorico has no control over the patches available in sample libraries (even those from the Steinberg stable)

5

To be clear: I’m talking about using e.g., a triangle from Halion’s library, not from other third party VSTs.

6

So far as Dorico is concerned, Halion is 3rd party.

7

Oh, OK. My bad. I thought it was a Steinberg product, just like I understand Dorico is.
Thanks.

8

It is a Steinberg product, but it existed prior to the development of Dorico and is managed by a separate team. AFAIK the Dorico team was allowed to bundle it with Dorico to provide a decent playback capability.

9

OK. Thank you.