Walkthrough video of Expression Maps with 3rd party VST

Dorico
#1

Still having terrible luck with expression maps playing back using Spitfire Audio samples. Even in today’s update, the first note of a piece doesn’t seem to playback with the proper technique, it waits till the 2nd bar.

Testing using a simple line that includes nat. set up for normal arco (non legato) samples. Legato triggers the legato patch (and I have slurs on the notes so as to properly have the lengthened note value. Spiccato notes, Staccato 8ths, then back to legato on an eighth note line (slurred in groups of 2), with the final group slurring to a whole note.

The first note plays as Spiccato, natural arco), the 2nd note finally picks up the arco. The first set of legatos work fine, except that the final note under the slur reverts back nat arco. The spiccato’s work fine, however the 2 following staccatos play spiccato samples. These should be triggered as staccato by using the staccato dot - that should override the spiccato, should it not? That’s how my expression map is played. The final legatos, slurred in groups of two, the last (second) notes of the slur revert back to spiccato, including the last slur that ends on a whole note. (gets played spiccato). And hence, when I play from the beginning, that is why the first note gets played spiccato, even through nat. is on the first note.

Could someone explain this odd behavior? Could someone also explain the “Has Exclusion Group” settings? Currently they are all check to have inclusion group 1. Also, do I need to set up off events in the expression map options? Maybe a video walk through could help.

#2

If you try a similar set of playing techniques with the HALion Symphonic Orchestra sounds, do you find the same sort of problems occur? Try doing File > Save As to save your project under a new name, then choose Play > Apply Default Playback Template, which should reset things back to HSO. If you’re able to reproduce the problems using HSO, please attach the project here so we can take a look.

An “exclusion group” means that the chosen playing technique is mutually exclusive with other techniques in the same group, e.g. you would typically make pizzicato and spiccato members of the same exclusion group as you would not want both to be applied at the same time.

We do plan to produce some tutorial videos for using third-party VST instruments with Dorico, but it’ll probably be a little while before we get to it, I’m afraid.

#3

After resetting to default, the behavior is a bit different than I was experiencing, but still not correct. Especially after the first time playing. It seems spiccato gets stuck “on” once it hits those notes, and stays on ignoring the other instruction. On on 2nd playback, the whole thing from the beginning plays back spiccato. This file was freshly made today using a template after applying the .20 update. Also, the template by default is using the solo violin (it’s the trio template), in hopes that perhaps using the violins combi might follow the expression map better, I did swap to that - with the same results.

Thanks for the reply and the time to look at this.
new update legato test reset to default.zip (1.17 MB)

#4

It looks to me like there is an issue specifically with the ‘spicc.’ technique. nat. and ord. and legato seemingly do not work to cancel the spicc., neither does a slur. However, it looks like putting an ‘arco’ indication works to cancel spicc.

#5

Look who the cat dragged in! :slight_smile: It seems you’re completely right, I changed all my nat.'s to arco and as long as I put the arco on the 2 staccato’s after after the spiccato’s, everything plays correctly - even with Spitfire’s “Locked to UACC KS” option that changes arts by the velocity you hit the single keyswitch.

I believe this may have been the same problem I was running into with Flautando, it seemed to not be cancelled.

Also, I can find the list of currently usable symbols and expressions that are recognized for expression maps - I think this was a thread linked from the .10 release. FOUND IT Though are there any new symbols and text recognized in .20?

  • edit * Also having trouble with snap/Bartok Pizz and Col Legno (battuto) playback - though it might be related to me not finding a way to turn Flautando off.
#6

I can confirm that there is no apparent way of disabling ‘flautando’ once it has been activated. Any change from pizz. back to arco after such a marking returns to flautando instead, and ord. does nothing. I believe this is a bug in Dorico.