Hi, it is possible to use ensemble patches in Dorico and also to change from a "VSL Horn 1" tone in a "VSL Horn 2" tone by using different voices in one instrument.

First the way to use ensemble patches.

The steps in Dorico are:

• In Write mode: make a second voice in for example horn 1 (you can make an upstem-voice or a down-stem voice)
• In Play mode: select horn 1 and enable Independent Voice Playback
• In Play mode: assign the "6 horns VSTI" to the new track (track 2) of horn 1 by choosing the right VST (VEPro instance) and the right midi channel (of course make an instance of Synchron Player with the 6-horns VSTI)
• In Play mode: In the Endpoint Setup of the 6-horns track (track 2) choose the right Expression map for the 6-horns VSTI.
• In Write mode: the moment all horns play unison, do 2 things:
  1. use the second voice of horn 1
  2. select the unison notes of the other instruments and switch to "Suppress playback" in the properties panel in the "common" tab

In case of unison of e.g. horn 1 and horn 3, as you descibed above.

In the same way you can make a second voice in horn 3, and assign a separate Synchron Player instance with "VSL horn 2" to that second voice. If the different place in the venue of "VSL horn 1" and "VSL horn 2" is audible you can adapt the place of this "VSL Horn 2" instance a little in the Synchron Player. You can do the same with horn 5 (also a dedicated Synchron Player "VSL horn 2" instance).
If you have unison notes with e.g. horn 1 and horn 3, you can switch in horn 3 to the "VSL Horn 2" patch by using the second voice.

I hope this helps.

It probably would for most people, but actually I've already thought of this way of doing it. Putting the 6 horns on its own track and using a second voice to access it for instance so that it doesn't show up in the score.

A potential issue here is that this could mess with the condensing feature if I have two horn parts that are identical.

The other issue is that I also want to be able to load up a score for 6 horns sent to me by someone else, hit play, and have it sound OK without me having to do any pre-editing just to be able to hear it properly without possibility of phasing. The problem with these techniques is they may require substantial adjustments to horn parts before even being able to hear what they sound like, and that's what I'm trying to avoid.

Again, I might do this sort of thing as a second step, I was also looking at potentially using hidden articulations to change in Dorico and making my own "combined presets", to switch between solo and unison horns with a keyswitch like how the Duality Strings combined regular and sordino works, but this would require edits to the score. Alternatively, I could use hidden articulations to change channel offset, but this would also require edits to a score. I also want to be able to load up a score sent to me by somebody else with 6 individual horns without knowing who is doubling whom and with a minimum of fuss be able to hear what it sounds like without having to make these sort of edits.

Something I might do in the future is get Synchron-ized Dimension Brass too and use that for horns 2-6 and Synchron Brass for Horns 1-2 or something like that, but that becomes potentially more complicated, and I'm more worried about whether they will balance correctly with each other. I also don't like the sound of the silent stage brass as much as the fantastic Synchron Brass recordings.

In summary, I would still like to be able to do the transposition trick, and so would like the information regarding how far I will need to transpose to make this work, and the best way to go about it. The tuning adjustments in the Synchron player don't quite work the way I would expect. It usually lets me enter a cents value between -100 and 100, but the semitones and octaves values appear to sometimes be locked to 0 and sometimes allow changes. And I'm also not sure whether the library is chromatically sampled or not so I'm not sure how far I would have to transpose (again just a semitone would be ideal if the library is chromatically sampled).

I could avoid most of these issues if there were only a few more solo horns included in Synchron Brass, as chances of phasing would be low (even just one more solo horn would make a big difference, as in the repertoire, horn 1 often ends up doubling either horn 2 or horn 3, with about equal frequency).

@MMKA said:

I hope this helps.

I have the Synchron-ized Dimension Brass and Synchron Brass. They do work very well together - I just adjust the Dimension Brass to match the level, space an postion of the Syncrhon Brass instrument and you can blend them together very well. It's a great way to build a section if you don't want to use the ensemble patches. I think the ensemble patches in Synchron Brass are great though - and are very useful if you decide to work them into your mix.

That's good to know, thank you. I have been considering getting Dimension Brass too at some point, but I generally prefer the Synchron recordings to the silent stage ones (with the exception of woodwinds), and so I wouldn't be getting that right away. I'm kind of hoping that VSL might expand their Synchron Brass later with another library with additional soloists so that I wouldn't have to use Dimension Brass at all. I have Synchron-ized SE as well, but the horn and trumpet there, even placed in Synchron stage with MIR, don't sound nearly as good as the horn and trumpet in Synchron Brass. Dimension Brass seems to sound better than the classic VI brass included in Synchron-ized SE, but I'm still worried I might not like it that much. Most of the demos of Dimension Brass seem to be of the old VI version and not really updated for Synchron-ized, which doesn't help as those demos often don't sound very good to me.

@Mikecomp said:

I have the Synchron-ized Dimension Brass and Synchron Brass. They do work very well together - I just adjust the Dimension Brass to match the level, space an postion of the Syncrhon Brass instrument and you can blend them together very well. It's a great way to build a section if you don't want to use the ensemble patches. I think the ensemble patches in Synchron Brass are great though - and are very useful if you decide to work them into your mix.

Yes - in my opinion, Synchron Brass is the ultimate in sampled brass. By far the best sounding, most deeply sampled and most versatile of anything currently available.

…and then, if we had SYzd Classic Brass, we would have some more choices to add to the mix!

Paolo

@PaoloT said:

…and then, if we had SYzd Classic Brass, we would have some more choices to add to the mix!

Paolo

Most definitely. It seems VSL has foregone Synchron-izing VI Brass and Orchestral Strings. Why I don't know.

For those of us who own the VI versions, these two would round out the conversion of the VI libraries to the Synchron Player.

@DaddyO said:

Most definitely. It seems VSL has foregone Synchron-izing VI Brass and Orchestral Strings. Why I don't know...

In my eyes, the Orchestral Strings are definitely a library from the very beginning. If you owned the company VSL and now had far better string libraries, would you go to the huge effort of reorganizing the old Orchestral library?
I understand that VSL also has to think in business terms to survive in a highly competitive market. Synchron Strings, Elite Strings, Duality Strings, Chamber Strings, Dimension Strings, Appassionata Strings ... and then there are the ZODIAC strings with 112 strings. That's why I understand VSL's decision to use its resources more for newer products rather than reinvesting them in the age-old Orchestral Strings.

The VI Brass instruments are more open to debate. There is not as much choice as with the strings. But from the business point of view, there is only one direction (not always easy for us old guys): forwards. That doesn't necessarily mean "better", but it certainly means different. In this respect, I believe we can be happy that VSL has given us "old guys" a large part of the old libraries once more - repackaged ("Synchron-ized").

Beat

A question mducharme are you using 6 separate instances of the synchron player in Dorico with the 6 horn players?

I always use 1 instance for each player with up to4 horns, so 2 instances with horn 1 and 2 with horn 2 but have never had phasing issues. I also have a playback template using a well balanced BBCSO horn as horn 2 and 4 which is especially useful if there are muted phrases.

Having no muted samples and only 1 tenor trombone really limits Synchron Brass usage. An additional tenor trombone and muted samples for basic articulations would be a very welcome extension.

Beat , regarding strings, con sordino samples for Synchron Strings Pro would be very welcome. Alternatively a preset combining SY Strings Pro with Duality Strings CS.

In the mean time I bought dimension brass during the brass festival. So now I have 6 VSL horns plus the BBCSO . Still one short for Sacre du Printemps but perfect for typical orchestral setups.

I am still experimenting with the volume balance of the Synchron and Dimension instruments. I am using the 4 horn piece Hogwarts Forever by. J.W. for reference. The Dimension brass does seem to be a lot quieter at deflault settings and I did change the VSL provided Dimension Brass expression map for the accented notes. It activates what VSL called Blare it sounds like whatbis often called Cuivré which is a bit too much for a simple accent.