Hi, I’m using BBCSO Pro. Why is there a drop in cc1/cc11 when the articulation changes from natural to legato (for cello). As far as I can see, this behaviour is not defined in the expression map? Thanks, Antoine
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we need a bit more detail. BBCSO Pro native or running through NPPE? If the former, which expression map? I just tried both approaches and find that, as expected, the levels of CC1 and CC11 change after just about every note simply due to the humanize settings including pitch contour emphasis and beat stress settings. If these are all disabled, there is no difference between the “long” and “legato” patches which is what I assume you mean (in my own map, “natural” and “legato” are the same because the “long” patch is best restricted to polyphonic slow moving chordal writing due to its inflexibility and I find the legato patch works much better as “normal”)
If you could supply the project for the screenshot, we can probably get to the bottom of it.
Your questions solved my problem. Thanks. Turns out to be a setting the in expression map (min value for volume/secondary dynamic for long set to 30). Don’t understand why this was done? Is legato supposed to have lower volume?
For completeness:
Not sure what NPPE is, thus I guess I run BBCSO native (I just insert the plugin in the VST instrument racks).
I am using the expression map from Spitfire BBC Symphony Orchestra Templates – Dorico
In this example I use the expression map for Strings Leaders.
I am aware that humanize settings do change the expression due to pitch, but when disabling this feature there is still a difference between legato and natural (long).
Figure 1: long and legato of same pitch. Legato gives a drop in CC1 and CC11.
Figure 2: I use the Celli Leader (Long and Legato)
Figure 3: Legato
Figure 4: Long (playback overrides are the same as for legato)
FYI: NPPE (which I assume means Note Performer Playback Engines) is a set of add-on’s Arne has created to apply Note Performer’s look-ahead equivalent of Expression Maps to a variety of outside VST sound sets.
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Glad you’ve sorted it – I just checked out the original John Barron EM and indeed the “natural” mapped to “long” in the BBC SO has indeed a higher minimum than all the other articulations which naturally would translate to overall higher values. On testing this, I think he has a point as “long” seems slightly underpowered otherwise. Sometimes it can indeed be useful to change max and/or min values because different patches have different dynamics and I do so myself in some maps.
Nowadays, I normally use my BBC SO with NPPE. Apologies I forgot to explain this – there have been so many threads discussing this relatively new NotePerformer extension that I sometimes forget that there are those who’ve never used NotePerformer and never follow these discussions. If you’re perfectly happy with using the BBC Pro with the supplied Expression Maps then there’s no need to say more but it might well be worth investigating the NP plug-in as many of us have found with this library (and others) that it gives better results with less effort. It’s possible to get free trials of both NP and the BBC Pro performance Engine if you’ve time to give it a whirl. Only be aware it can be rather taxing on system resources but you’ve nothing to lose by trying it out.
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