Pizzicato combined with articulation - sounds

Hello!

When I try to use pizzicato combined with for example staccato or marcato marks, the soundset (Halion) switches to an arco sound. Is that the intended behaviour? Is there a way to change it?

/Daniel

It is not the intended behaviour, but it’s the inevitable consequence of the lack of proper groups of playing techniques that are exclusive with one another and prioritised against one another. I don’t think there’s really anything practical you can do to improve this at the moment, unfortunately.

I’ve addressed this issue by creating redundant techniques in the expression map.

It works like this…

On an as need basis, if you come across a situation where multiple techniques are falling back to the wrong thing, then add what I’d call a combi technique in your expression map.

While in Play mode, chose “Expression Maps Setup” under the Play Menu. Locate the expression map you wish to edit in the left hand column.

  1. Single click, and then “Duplicate” your pizzicato technique.
  2. Double click the duplicate copy of the technique and a dialog will pop up with a list of techniques.
  3. Hold the control key and add the technique that is causing a conflict. In this case staccato.

Now you should notice the field at the bottom displays “Pizzicato + Staccato”

  1. Click OK.

Now you’ve got a new new technique specifically for any note that ends up with a staccato+pizzicato node combination. It’ll be a perfect match, so Dorico will choose that for a note with both pizzicato and staccato instead of falling back to the plain ‘staccato’ technique.

Add these as you need them for any given score where problems like this pop up. You might even find situations where you’d need to hold control down and select 3 or more techniques to get your desired translation from the score.

Also be aware that you can use some of the ‘sticky’ techniques to create a kind of exclusion system. I.E. You could use things like 'snares on" to create a set of playback techniques that’ll only kick in if you’ve placed that on the score somewhere. I’m not sure how helpful this would be with HSO instruments out of the box…but it does come in handy if you like craft some of your own custom articulations using the various dials and settings available in HALion. As an example, you could craft two different interpretations for staccato. If your snares on node is set, it would chose staccato+snares on. If not, it would choose your straight ‘staccato’ technique. Etc…

Thank you Brian - Sigh of relief! I actually made combi techniques and my world is right again. :slight_smile: