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Hello Paolo!
The Cubase Expression Map "VSL Strings - Violins, Violas, Celli" contains legato and "non legato" in various combinations with other articulations. Every combination is included one time only. The map isn't 100% compatible with Dorico though.
Best regards,
Andi
Actually Andi, the comment that the Cubase VSL Strings is not 100% compatible with Dorico seems rather flattering š. I have found the compatibility to be nearer zero but I'm just trying out Dorico 3 and am maybe doing something wrong. If there is a way to get even 90% compatibility, then please let me know how best to set up a simple string quartet using the solo strings in Dorico using that Expression Map. If it's really not worth the effort (far too complicated to do manually) then any updates on progress towards a native Dorico version would be most welcomed.
Incidentally, the SE Expression map does seem to work quite well with the SE solo strings but of course having bought the full Solo Strings package, I want to use it!
David
Actually Andi, the comment that the Cubase VSL Strings is not 100% compatible with Dorico seems rather flattering š.
I'm inclined to agree. Having worked out over the summer how to implement keyswitches in Finale, I had a bit of a head start working on the Dorico maps. First I looked at an import from the Cubase set, and found things like multiple instances of (say) legato referencing separate keyswitches. Rather than try to figure out why (also, there were combinations of terms that you can't* create or edit in Dorico) I set about making a set of my own.
Once you realize that, for Synchronized Special Edition, most sets are largely the same -- flute, oboe, clarinet, for instance -- it cuts down the time it takes.
*Shouldn't say 'can't'. Should say 'I haven't found a way to'.
Started to work with Dorico on day 1. Since Dorico 2 I switched nearly completely from Sibelius to Dorico. After working 15 years with Sibelius on a daily basis, I now start to forget how to work with Sibelius ...
At the moment I stopped using my VSL libraries, until it will be possible to use them in Dorico. I don't have the time, to create expression maps on my own. So this is a big +1.
I've tried developing my own expression maps for my universal VI presets, and for the VSO-XP library.
It is relatively easy to adapt Cubase xmaps, or create new ones, for Dorico. The basic commands already work, but multiple techniques on the same position are not always recognized. So, for example, accent and staccato may not always be recognized. Also, sending a command to select the Strings instrument and then the violas+pad down the tree doesn't always work.
The problem is that the system doesn't seem to be still complete in Dorico. And maybe there is some adaptment required to VSL and the other manufacturers in view of the use with Dorico. Once they work together, they will be a powerful creative tool, in my view without comparison with the others.
I hope
Hello Gil!
Every collection and most instruments of every collections would need its own Expresion Map. Furthermore it's currently not possible to make complex Expression Maps with combined articulations (like legato AND vibrato). So we can't yet say, for which collections Dorico Expression Maps will be made. We need to evaluate some things first and maybe wait for some further development at Dorico's side.
Best regards,
Andi
I've bought Dorico in the meantime and actually found I can get reasonable results with the articulations just by starting with the Cubase strings map remapping the most important entries to the actual controllers/keyswitches used in the default "VSL Preset Level 2" with the Solo Strings. The most important articulations all seem to work except gliss which is (still) unsupported by Dorico, even in the new v3.1.
One thing which I still can't fully understand is dynamic control. VSL defaults to CC7 volume, CC11 Expression for strings, yes? One would think that the Volume dynamic in Dorico should be set to CC11 as appears to be the case in the Sibelius soundset. But it seems Dorico only transmits dynamics (as written in the score) to VSL through velocity and indeed the Cubase Expression Map is set to Note velocity. Frankly I couldn't care less (leaving aside for the moment questions of possible timbre differences) except of course that velocity naturally does not allow a dynamic change after the note in sounded and will require a doubling through a CC which can be done graphically in Dorico.
I've just seen from a different Dorico thread that Andi advises Velocity as primary dynamic controller together with VelX crossfade as a secondary. In actual fact my own tests led me to also to this but of course as VelX sends all the volume levels at once, you need to somehow compensate for the overall higher dynamic for instance. Any Dorico specific tips for the settings both in Vienna Instruments Pro and in Dorico -- for instance the optimal Dynamic Curve setting in playback settings?
many thanks, David
UPDATE
I realised I'd made a mistake in not changing the dynamics controller for all the articulations individually in the Dorico Expression Map as I'm used to just setting the control once in VI Pro itself for the instrument. So my previous post can be largely dismissed as nonsense and apologies for any confusion caused! In fact now, I get the same results setting Volume to CC7 as Note Velocity with the obvious exception that within-note dynamics work with the CC and not velocity. I'm using Vel.XF as secondary controller
This, though, begs the question why Andi advises in another Dorico post for notation software to use velocity as the primary dynamics controller in notation software (other obviously for percussive and other instruments with no post strike control). If I could understand this, then I might be another step on the way to really taming my VSL libraries!
Dorico 3.5 seems to have greatly improved the management and editing of expression maps. Importing Cubase maps still doesn't produce completely functioning maps for Dorico, but most of the techniques are there. Replacing the wrong ones is easy, even if the high number of them, multiplied for the expression maps, would make editing a long task.
I have a question for @andi: it seems that some advanced techniques have been left out from the dedicated VI presets and the matching maps. I'm thinking to ricochets, unless I'm simply not finding them. Do you confirm that some techniques have been left out?
I guess they can be added to custom presets and maps with ease. But if they are already there, no need to do the additional work!
Paolo
On a second thought: I will probably be better going on with my universal presets and map. They have been working great in Logic, and will work great in Dorico. A single map will select all the techniques in all the pitched instruments, and edits will have to be done on a single map, instead of one hundred.
Paolo
A trick I was thinking about, to control dynamics in Dorico. My recent maps (for BBO and SynSE) all include a CC28 value as the first message of a technique in the expression map. Iām forcing each technique to respond to either velocity or modulation.
This is the easy way, but also the least flexible one. It is true that most of the time it is better to control shorts with velocity and longs with modulation, but you might sometimes prefer something different (for example, when improvising at the piano keyboard, or when wanting to draw curves for shorts).
With notation programs like Dorico, another way could be creating a couple techniques "VelXF On" and "VelXF Off", with different values of CC28, and add them in the score just before the passage to be controlled one way or the other.
I don't know if this might, in the end, become too time-consuming and annoying, but it's an easy-to-use switch if you need to work this way.
Paolo
A trick I was thinking about, to control dynamics in Dorico. My recent maps (for BBO and SynSE) all include a CC28 value as the first message of a technique in the expression map. Iām forcing each technique to respond to either velocity or modulation.
This is the easy way, but also the least flexible one. It is true that most of the time it is better to control shorts with velocity and longs with modulation, but you might sometimes prefer something different (for example, when improvising at the piano keyboard, or when wanting to draw curves for shorts).
With notation programs like Dorico, another way could be creating a couple techniques "VelXF On" and "VelXF Off", with different values of CC28, and add them in the score just before the passage to be controlled one way or the other.
I don't know if this might, in the end, become too time-consuming and annoying, but it's an easy-to-use switch if you need to work this way.
Paolo
I do it exactly in the same way. Works fine!
