Up till this one piece I’m doing now, I’ve generally managed to get Dorico to play back in a satisfying way which conveys the piece, even if listening closely would sometimes give away that it’s not real instruments. Yay
Now I have a piece with some fortepianos, meaning that the volume level is changing within the same note - which I think maybe I hadn’t needed before. And I’m struggling with getting them to play back properly.
I can see the shape of the fp in the dynamics editor (this is Dorico 4.3), like a little mountain with the left side straight and the right side sloping. And some of the instruments are doing it. But not all!
From what I’ve read already, I think this is something to do with the choice of instrument and/or the choice of expression map, though I’m open to correction on that.
My questions at the moment:
Instruments, if it is something to do with instruments. Supposing I go into the window of HALion Sonic, and I look at the list of instruments I could choose. Is there a way to figure out in advance, i.e. without trying them all individually, which ones are going to respond to this instruction and which aren’t?
Expression maps, if it is something to do with them. How do I know which expression map is meant to go with which instrument? Is it as simple as “if it has violin in the name, and so does the sound sample, that’ll match”? I feel like not, because the implementation of which samples to use might not be equivalent from one sample set to another. Also, what if there isn’t an expression map for that instrument, like e.g. the saxophones don’t seem to have one? Would I just use “default” then? And when would I use the CC11 expression map?
Playback templates. After many trials of different individual sounds and still not getting there, I thought to myself “wait, what if I’m making it too complicated for myself, and actually if I just choose, say, the template for “HSSE + HSO (Pro)” then it will naturally have lots of nice defaults which work?” But this didn’t seem to do it either. All the strings are fine, but for example the oboe is not responding to the fp - it’s just a loudish note all the way through. Is there something else I need to do besides load the template? Or is it that the defaults in that template actually don’t purport to execute all the dynamics?
You’re using the HALion samples? To be fair, they are ‘a bit basic’, and bundled with Dorico because it’s something that Steinberg had ready to use as a default library. (They weren’t going to give away the Iconica library at Dorico’s price!)
In general, the ‘Combi’ instruments are usually the most capable, as they contain key switches for different styles. Any sustaining instrument should be able to do an fp, as the CC1 data can be adjusted mid-note.
You may need to have a look at the dynamics or CC1 lane to see what’s happening.
Apologies @Derrek, I see from @benwiggy’s post that my original post was more ambiguous than I realised! (And thanks to @benwiggy for explaining.) I either didn’t know about fortepianos as an instrument, or had forgotten.
But yeah, when I said some fortepianos, meaning that the volume level is changing within the same note, I was referring to the dynamic marking.
In general, the ‘Combi’ instruments are usually the most capable, as they contain key switches for different styles. Any sustaining instrument should be able to do an fp,
This is what I would have expected, yeah.
as the CC1 data can be adjusted mid-note. You may need to have a look at the dynamics or CC1 lane to see what’s happening.
Thanks for this clue - I hadn’t looked at CC1. The CC1 level actually doesn’t look weird to me, though - it’s the same shape as the dynamic one, except with steps rather than a line.
So taking two examples for comparison…
Instrument: Oboe Combi / Violins I A Combi
Expression map: HSO Oboe Solo / HSO Violins Combi
Dynamics and CC1 channels: as shown in screenshots below
Any ideas why the violin sound delivers the fp, whereas the oboe sound is just one solid note with no diminuendo? Could it possibly be because the expression map is called “Oboe Solo” whereas the instrument doesn’t specifically say “Solo”? (but that’s the only expression map in the dropdown which has “Oboe” in the name at all.) Anywhere else I can look?
I think the dynamic response of the Oboe Combi patch in HSO is quite different to the Violin Solo Combi patch. You’ll hear a bit more of a contrast in the fp if you change the shape you see in the dynamics editor for the oboe to something like this:
Trying out different kinds of accents with your dynamics (because they often are specifically tied to different samples depending the lib/instrument) can sometimes help even if it seems redundant or a little exaggerated to humans.
