If it’s not immediately obvious which one this is then sometimes it may be labelled as ‘sustain’ or ‘long’.Ĭreate a new expression map and add a rule for natural. Load the plug-in and select the most appropriateĭefault articulation for ‘natural’. Modulation wheel (CC1), expression (CC11) and sometimes some other controllers.Ĭreate a new project with a variety of note lengths repeated for different dynamic levels: fff, f, p, ppp. Libraries for non-orchestral instrumentsĪnd keyboard instruments tend to use note velocity, whereas libraries for orchestral and jazz instruments often use a mix of note velocity, Consult the sample library manual to find the best mappings to use.īear in mind that different articulations within the same library may use different mappings. The first priority is to get the correct mappings for dynamics. If you have a ‘combinatorial’ EM that has every combination of techniques in it (eg for VSL libraries) then consider whether the Add-on Switch method could be used to represent it more effectively. I was able to create the set of most Spitfire BBC SO keyswitches in under an hour. In many cases it can be much quicker to create a new one. Dorico applies some heuristics, but you always need to check it’s done what you expect.

There’s no standard naming convention for keyswitches, especially if you have ‘longs’, ‘shorts’, ‘sustains’, etc. The previous EM thread can be found hereĪ note on importing Cubase Expression Maps: this is possible, but it doesn’t always give good results. This thread will be locked to keep it concise and useful as a reference. We’ll try to keep this post updated with a curated list of user-contributed Expression Maps too. I’ll provide some sample EMs which are not complete, but should show you how to access some of the key features of each library. Bear in mind that there can be many different ways of creating an EM for any specific library depending on your requirements and personal preferences. I’ve worked through the creation of Expression Maps for a few popular libraries and I’ll describe some of the strategies for working with these libraries. Some of the following may also be applicable to earlier versions of Dorico, but 3.5 has a number of new Expression Map features that won’t work in earlier versions.

In this post I’ll give an overview of the process of creating Expression Maps for Dorico 3.5.

Download dorico 3.5