I’m using the Spitfire Eric Whitacre Choirs expression map supplied by Steinberg, and it’s a great help.
However, when I add slurs to any notes on the alto staff, the volume decreases enormously. Is there any way to equalise the volume of the different patches in the expression map? Or somewhere else (other than adjusting the dynamic lanes) ?
Hi, it’s funny because I was literally just running into this yesterday with the EW Choir (for me it happens with all sections actually) and also posted about it! I have noticed it with other playback templates too but specifically with EW Choir the volume difference between slurred and unslurred notes is so large that it makes it sadly un-useable for me.
I tried adding small immediate dynamics which I could then hide from view, and with the dynamics editor, I was getting it slightly closer, but it was becoming a lot more work than worth it to sound good.
I discovered these settings under the expression map (for legato):
It seems that if you change the minimum value for volume and secondary dynamic full (127) it sounds much closer to the normal notes, however I’d still say it sounds a tad quieter.
Not sure but I think when maxing out the dynamic range there, I will assume that means louder dynamic markings won’t have any effect. So if it’s set to max at mp I don’t think it will sound any louder in a passage marked f. When looking at the actual EW Choir plugin window while playing back, the actual dynamic control (CC11) indeed gets set to max every time there is a slurred note:
I’m wondering if this has something to do with the library itself, are the legatos recorded quieter, and can this be compensated elsewhere on the backend rather than maxing out potential dynamics? I’ve also noticed this with BBCSO Legatos, so maybe it’s a Spitfire thing…
I had the same issue with slurs on the Embertone Walker Steinway yesterday. I ended up having to suppress playback so I could hear it.
I’m also having this problem with the EW choir… very annoying…
I found that the volume of the soprano “legato” patch is roughly 20% of the “long” patch (in terms of CC11 value),
So what I did is fix the CC11 range for the “natural” technique on the soprano to 25. (20% * 127 = 25)
For other voices (alto, tenor, bass) the % seem to be different so they will need different adjustment values.
This method seems to work as long as the transitions from natural to legato or vice versa are not immediately following each other in a staff. In my experiments I found that a half note of rest is required between the techniques to avoid any transient artefacts. In other words this solution has limited use, but I don’t see another way.
I guess in a DAW you would use a different track for each technique instead of using keyswitches, then it would suffice to adjust the track volume.
