Wrong percussion playing technique activated by the percussion score for some instruments

Unfortunately I have a weird issue with the percussion map and playing techniques entries.

I have my huge addictive drum 2 (ADD2) map nearly ready. Some instruments with 8 techniques work perfectly but I have an issue with the 4 toms. They have only two techniques natural and rim shot. All mapped in subsequent mdi notes 65-72 in the percussion map. So 65 is tom 4 natural. 66 tom 4 rim shot. For each I have added the rim shot to the default natural in the playing techniques in there drum kit.

Rim shot plays correctly when I press note 66 on the Dorico keyboard and also when I put the note (F#4) in a normal non percussion score connected to the ADD2 instrument. However when I put the rim shot technique in the score the natural hit, note 65 for tom 4, sounds instead of 66 and that for all 4 toms. What is wrong here?

Can you please attach the project itself? You can make a copy of the project, delete all the flows, then create a new flow containing only your tom-toms, and then input a couple of notes sufficient to reproduce the problem, then attach that project here with a description of how to reproduce the problem, and we can take a look.

Thanks for the help Daniel. I managed to get the toms to play the notes correctly. So when I e.g. press p in write mode it plays a rim shot. However when I press the rim shot note in the score with my pointer, it still plays the natural instead. None of the other instruments in the complete drum kit have this behaviour only the toms. All other instruments play the note mapped in the percussion map…

In a second post I have attached a project file as well as the exported expression map for a very simple project withe only one ADD2 tom which I mapped to Dorico, Tom (low).

Tom (low) is giving me real issues as the percussion map entries keep clearing in the precision map although it does seem to keep working. See the attached screen shot where there is an entry in the list but the text in the edit window is empty. You also see a second entry for rim shot at midi note 107. I remapped the rim shot temporarily to see if it made a difference with the official note 66. There is none. After the test I cleared note 107 but as you see it did not work. It remains in the note list although the entry below has cleared.

The very weird thing is that the actual doricolib file exported from the map in the screenshot, does contain the correct entries including the one for note 107 which I tried to clear. You just do not see them in the editing window. I also attach a screenshot of the relavant lines in the doricolib file.

And here the files
Add2 Tom.zip (823.0 KB)

Thanks for the files. There are two changes you need to make in Library > Percussion Maps.

Firstly, change the option Map defines sounds for to Multiple instruments. It’s a bit hard to explain what this option really does, but basically the idea is that when it’s set to Single instruments, Dorico is only looking for the specific playback technique to be defined for the instrument rather than for the instrument itself to be defined.

Secondly, your drum kit uses the instrument Tom-tom (low) while your percussion map uses the instrument Tom (low). These are actually (and admittedly confusingly) distinct instruments, so Dorico is failing to put two and two together and work out that it can use the rim shot technique specified for the Tom (low) instrument with the Tom-tom (low) instrument.

So if you change the Instrument to Tom-tom (low) for each of the entries in the percussion map, that should take care of the problem.

(Dorico uses a slightly different code path for note input and playback, which is why this behaviour differs between input and playback.)

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I’ve been bitten by this in a recent project where I went from NotePerformer’s drum set to a Superior Drummer 3 drum set… all the toms had different names and it’s been painful to make this work! Is it possible to change an instrument inside a kit ? I couldn’t use the Change instrument feature (and still don’t know how it’s supposed to work (the double arrow). I could have used a change instrument feature to, say, change from tom (medium-high) to tom (high) or the other way round…
TIA

I think you’d have to do this in a couple of stages, i.e. first remove the instrument from the kit, which leaves it held ā€œlooseā€ by the player, then change the instrument, then re-combine the newly-changed instrument into the kit.

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Hi Daniel, that is strange where do you see this?

In my setup of the kit as well in the percussion map I use the Tom low. Maybe there is confusion as in the percussion file doricolib, all toms are actually defined as tomtom with as alias the tom name. Like this:
instrument.band.unpitched.tomtom.low.alias.tom-low. This is how toms are setup by Steinberg.

I am sorry but the issue is unfortunately also not the multiple instruments tab as.in my complete ADD2 map I use the multiple instruments tab but I did not cross it in my text file as I have only one instrument this tom.

Hi Marc, I also have this issue that more or less randomly you cannot change the instrument using the two arrow button in th drum kit editor. Sometimes it works and sometimes is does not.

I agree a copy paste and then a functioning change instrument would be welcome. I also had to reproduce the techniques in the drum set for my toms (4) and cymbals (6) each time. Fortunately just two per instrument whereas the snare has 18 (9 with brushes) but there is only one.

I am still working on all technique notations to reflect the best possible drum notation standard I could find on the www. Things like open hit, shallow hit, closed hit, accent or no-accent, sticks or brushes etc. I might have to improvise a bit as not all can be covered with the dorico techniques yet. Like the little o above the note which is sometimes used for the open HH. It is available in the articulations for unpitched percussion but not in the instrument percussion techniques. So you can show it in the score but I don’t think it can activate the correct midi note. I use the circle X instead. What is also not available is a horizontal line which ia sometimes used for brush technique combined with a slur.

I’m quite confident I’ve used those playing techniques successfully — although I think I remember there were two or three different ā€œopenā€ circles and only one did work (maybe open 2? I’m in bed so I can’t check that out)

Hi Marc You can of course combine the percussion map with an expression map and define the note with the little o above there… Not officially supported as Daniel mentioned several times but it does work. I also tried to use it for chokes. The trouble is always that you cannot make a choke of. a ringing cymbal (a raised comma) work without adding it to a note. If you put it on the note you want to choke that not does not sound. So you have to add a note.

I did note another small issue… You cannot switch percussion techniques with a dots, accents or tenutos above using the shift+option down or up arrow. That only works for main techniques. You have to add them manually which is no big issue but when you drag and drop notes from a drum package sequence such notes will play correctly but they are shown with default note heads. So some editing to do.

On the other hand when you define such notes ā€œcreativelyā€ , not per established percussion standard, as main technique with for example a triangle left notehead that is taken over correctly when you drag and drop a sequence. So it is a compromise a bit of editing or a none standard score needing a legend.

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Thanks to this post, I’ve been able to achieve what I was aiming for, which is a proper import of ā€œallā€ the music that’s in a Superior Drummer 3 groove. You were right, there’s a need for a main technique for every technique, which has led me to create something like 20 different playing and playback techniques to be able to stick to Toontracks’ nomenclatura. Of course, this won’t be used as a notated visible track, but it’s soooo cool to be able to import nice grooves. Same workflow should work with Groove Agent SE. It’s kinda painful and long (one day to have a fully working Roots: Brushes library), I’m quite confident I will be able to reuse a good part of those new techniques to build up the perc maps for SD3 (the default one) and all the other libraries I’ve bought them. :pray:

Glad to hear it also worked for you. It might probably be the first time that such grooves are shown as full score. The actual player who registered them probably never saw them as such. It helped me a lot to get an idea how they play the basic rythms including accents for each style and how many percussion instruments are actual used in. a groove. A kit might have 6 cymbals but I seldom see more than 2 plus the hihat used in one groove even in the ā€šmetalā€˜ package.

Here’s what my Core detailed set looks like :
Superior Drummer 3 Core revised - Full score - 2023-09-15 - 13-18.pdf (142.9 KB)

It sounds… just as I wanted. Perfect :wink:
I suppose those grooves will be hidden, and I will write some kind of sketch that will trigger no vst on scores needing a drum set notation.
I’m going to share this on the expression maps thread — so far, I’ve done Core and Roots: Brushes.
For those who don’t know Superior Drummer 3 and how deep is the sampling, check out how many different techniques are available for the hi-hat or the snare (26 and 14) !!!

Not easy to share. You need the percussion map, the technique list, the percussion kit and in my case even the instrument list as I added some cymbals to get to 6. The percussion kit and percussion map you can export and subsequently import but the two lists might be difficult as you cannot export them. They might be included in a playback template file. but people who want to use them have to merge with their own lists which seems challengin if they also added techniques or instrument.s

By the way did you ever manage to delete an instrument from your list in Dorico.? The ones you added manually you can delete. However I for some reason have multiple high toms (default, 1 and 2) and also multiple low and medium toms (default and 1) I don’t know where these came from. I do not want them . Impossible to delete however. Even after reinstalling Dorico 5.0 I still have them, but it is weird as on the iPad version of Dorico they do not exist.

Here a screenshot of an extract from a slightly modified Addictive Drums 2 jazz groove with brushes. The rectangular, and triangular noteheads are different snare sweeps. The rest is standard drum notation with respect to location and notehead… Brushes is just text. It is not available in the articulation popup.

Let’s make this clear: in the current state of affairs with Dorico, this is not really possible without a lot of work. No, what I provide is just what it is. If you have that library and want to use it (without modifying the instruments too much—cymbals can be modified, snare drums too… and it will still work as expected), start with that document or a playback template created with that file, and you will save yourself a day of work.
I know it will be useful for me, but still I share it, because somehow it could benefit others :wink:

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Hi Marc, Can you give a link to the expression map thread?

For Addictive drums I have saved two kits. One using the second level articulations like staccato dots and tenuto dashes and one with all techniques on the top level but some creative noteheads making drag-and-drop of midi possible. I did. not use any expression map entries for now.

What is your opinion of the second level percussion techniques available in the editor? The articulations available there are the ones from the left Dorico menu but most are not used a lot in percussion notation as far as I found in different contributions on the subject. It would in my opinion be better to have some from the unpitched percussion articulations in the right menu like the o, +, comma, snares on and off and the scrape techniques there… You can of course map all those in an additional expression map but that is a bit confusing to enter articulations/techniques in two different maps.

Another wish I would have would be for a working mute or choke character without the need for dummy note below.

I don’t understand what you mean here.

And I agree about what you say about the available articulations
At least, adding the o, a + and whatever makes consensus in usual notation could be interesting, especially if it renders our complete main techniques maps obsolete.
You sometimes refer to expression maps, I suppose you mean percussion maps, right?
I’ve sent my files to John Barron, so that he can share them in the Dorico Resources page. So far, SD3 Core, Roots:Brushes, and Hitmaker (and Hitmaker machines)

In libraries a damping or choke of e.g. a ringing cymbal is often evoked by pressing a dedicated key which does not sound it just stops the note before it from ringing any longer.

So in the score you would need a damping sign (a capital O with a plus) or choke sign (a raised comma) a certain space after the ringing note but with no visible note below the sign. The damping or choke sign should be allocated to the dedicated key in the library to evoke the damping midi event. I don’t think that is possible in Dorico. You always have to put the sign above a ā€œdummyā€ note to make the articulation work.

It is different of course if you have a library with dampened or chokes samples. In those at least the choke comma can be directly associated with the choked note but for a dampened note the notation would still not be correct as, if I understand the notation rules correctly, the damping sign is a stand alone after a note.

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Thanks for the detailed explanation, now I see what you mean!