Wrong playback technique being chosen

Dorico
,
#1

Hi all,

I’m using the Spitfire BBCSO Core expression map provided by Dorico (with generally great results).

However, I’ve found it does not trigger the ‘long marcato attack’ switch if I use marcato as a playing technique. Instead it plays the staccato patch. It could be quite important that I’m trying to use the long marcato patch for short marcatos so I’ve taken off the note length dependence on the ‘long marcato attack’ switch.

It does work if I add the marcato articulation to each note.

This is in spite of the switch being linked to the marcato playback technique, and the marcato playback technique being linked to the marcato (text) playing technique.

Am I doing something wrong?

Many thanks

Rich

#2

I’m afraid I don’t use BBC SO, so I really can’t provide any assistance here, but I’ll ask @John_at_Steinberg to pop in and see if he can help.

#3

Many thanks Daniel.

#4

marcato is defined as a dynamic and an “attibute” articulation type which means it applies only to the note to which it applies. There is thus no difference between the articulation mark and text in theory and with my BBC Core setup, in practice - in other words if I write “marcato” it just plays for one note and then reverts to the previous patch, just as I’d expect. If you are getting the staccato patch, does that mean you had staccato immediately beforehand in the score? If not, please attach a relevant section of the score and/or give more details.

If you really want marcato text and articulation to behave differently, then I suggest you create a new separate playing technique for marcato and set the articulation type of that one to “direction”.

#5

Thanks dko22,

I understand what you’re saying. There seems to be a slight mistake with the default configuration in that the same playback playing technique is used for the two marcato playing techniques, which actually need different articulation types.

I agree the best solution is to create a new playback playing technique for the ‘marcato text’ playing technique.

I’ll try that and see if it works.

#6

the marcato is sometimes called “long marcato attack” and sometimes just “marcato”, depending on the instrument but I’m not aware of a case where there are two different marcato types with different articulations within the same instrument family covered by an Expression Map-- do correct me if I’ve missed something!? Creating a new technique will give you the most flexibility in any case.
David

#7

Hi David,

I was simply thinking of the case where the marcato articulation should just belong to the note it’s attached to, and the marcato direction should apply until it’s cancelled. I have a long passage of marcato notes where I’d rather use the direction and not put the articulation on every note.

best, Rich

#8

ok, that’s clear and I entirely sympathise!

PS I’ve just had an email about a new free update to the BBC Core library so it looks like we may all be needing to update our expression maps imminently.

#9

Yes me too. I watched the video for the release and it looks like for brass there may be updates required to the expression map for muted patches, but for the new ‘extended legato’ everything seems to be built into the existing legato patches.

#10

There is more that one way to simulate it in a number of VST - or at least fiddle with the attack settings, etc. I think its more about an artificial electronic consideration than a musical one. One thing I don’t like about the Marcato text option is that it tends to sound robotic when they are all the same, but maybe I need to drop the price of my first car on a new lib, sigh.

#11

well this was specifically referring to how BBC Core organises things but of course as a wider point, how repeated marcatos are dealt with depends on the sophistication of the library. I hope your first car was bought a while ago :grinning:

#12

Very true, I was being careful because as far as Spitfire is concerned. I only have a starter version of BBCSO, and I get confused about which version is which and I don’t know the differences. And I am NOT old, I’m vintage. If I were a pair of jeans, you couldn’t afford me in California. :slight_smile:

1 Like
#13

we’ll find out by tomorrow. The new muted brass is going to be very welcome so I will no longer need to load VSL patches for such a thing. Looks like we’ll need several new entries in both the brass Expression Maps but I assume nothing complicated (famous last words)