SOLVED: how to sample-switch articulations in Spitfire?

[mhschmieder]

I've wasted two hours unsuccessfully trying to figure out how to sample-switch the articulations in various Spitfire products, and even watched a few of their videos on-line (since they don't produce user manuals), and there is zero information on how to do this.

Has anyone figured it out? Is it an undocumented CC that is used for this?

In the videos, they use the mouse, which is a non-starter -- especially for fast switching.

I don't want separate tracks for each articulation, as that would be like multiple players, in terms of note transitions not existing, thus making it harder to tell when unintentional overlap is happening (e.g. polyphony on a monophonic instrument).

In case it isn't clear, I am referring to the bar at the bottom of many of their libraries, for staccato vs. legato vs. long vs. artisan vs. trills vs. flutter etc.

Who on earth would only use one at a time? I guess this is how soundtrack people operate as they frequently use instruments for atmosphere vs. realistic playing?

I am struggling with the Quena in Andy Finton's Kitbag Volume 2, as I need to go back and forth between Longs and Staccato as it is for a Cumbia song and this is the closest flute I can find to what is actually used in Colombia (100% unavailable in sample libraries, like most Colombian instruments).

A fipple-type flute is preferred, but no one has sampled a Kuisi (sometimes known as Colombian Gaita, but that is confusing as Gaita is usually a Galician bagpipe). The Quena comes the closest, and can similarly get that percussive kind of sound that is so important in Cumbia music.

I'm too tired at this hour to check, but I think other projects where I have used Spitfire's ethnic winds (Panpipe, Ocarina, Bansuri, etc.), I think I did give up and use multiple tracks, but I'm trying to get away from that approach (which I also used for awhile with VSL).

If no one has figured out -- or, more likely, it isn't possible -- I guess I'm stuck having separate tracks for alternating notes, which won't sound as organic. In Cumbia, often there are alternating long and short notes.

It really amazes me that Spitfire thinks their products don't need user manuals, or even that it is OK to launch a browser during a session to watch a long video that may or may not have useful information at some unknown timestamp therein.

[reedster]

Likely different with your libraries...

With Spitfire Solo Strings: press Keyb in the Kontakt interface to open a virtual keyboard where keyswitched articulations are color coded.

[mhschmieder]

Yes, that is true of their orchestral libraries, but not for these specialty libraries, unfortunately.

There is no universal key switch range for articulation switching. There are key switches, but they are strictly for accessing a specific sample from amongst eight round robins, and each articulation has its own (some only have two round robin key switches).

My cynical side says that this sample developer -- like most -- is dismissive towards ethnic instruments as just a "unique colour" to add to background spots in film music, as opposed to being serious composing or playing tools. So they probably saw no need for phrasing-oriented switches.

Some of their "older" (from their point of view, meaning 1.5 years or more) libraries are getting overhauls and re-thinks of late, so maybe these will as well, given the excellent upgrade they just did to the amazing mallet percussion work of Frank Ricotti.

Andy Findon's Kitbag Volumes 1 & 2 are by far the most deeply sampled and well-miked libraries for the instruments that they cover (primarily ethnic flutes) -- even better than the old material from Eduardo Tarilonte -- but I also have to raise them by +12 dB even with all four mics on, to even get close to -20 dB Averages during recording! No idea why they're so low in volume.

Of course I turn the Reverb all the way off. I'll never understand why people love reverb so much; it's unnatural! I like the intimacy of dry sounds, and only at mix time do I even consider a small amount of ambience -- the mics have already taken care of that anyway for the most part. But Spitfire's Reverb is the worst I've ever heard, and completely unmusical as it muddies everything up. But then, they typically only do Legato demos anyway, which always sound like synths to me; no space to breathe.

[mhschmieder]

Thanks to PMortise in an unrelated topic in the main Mac users forum for DP, I learned that you can press the CMD key while clicking an articulation on that bottom row in most of the Spitfire libraries, and it brings up a small window of choices for how to map the articulation-switching.

Unbelievable that something this hidden and non-intuitive not only wouldn't be documented, but wouldn't be shown in their EXTREMELY LONG on-line so-called "tutorials", which they consider an adequate substitution for real user manuals (per product) and which they seem to think is OK during a working session. I guess they live in a bubble and don't realize what should be documented.

You would think that since most of their tutorials are around 20 minutes long or so (and they aren't really tutorials, but rather are ads for the product for the most part), that they would have had time to show how to use the articulations in a real-world project instead of using the mouse as-needed to click on one articulation or another.

At least now, after many years, I finally know how to do this! I have probably invested dozens of hours trying to figure this out over time.

[mhschmieder]

Well, I feel stupid now, as I mentioned in the other thread: If you octave-down a few times beyond the "round robin" key switches, there are additional key switches at the very bottom for the articulations, ready to go even if you don't choose to re-map anything or how the triggering is done (there are many options, such as speed).

This is more of a Kontakt GUI design flaw than anything else, as it doesn't label its keyboard and it is hard to tell where you are on it or whether there is any more "there" to go at either end.

Even so, it's weird that Spitfire chooses to use the mouse to switch articulations in their demos, as no one would ever do that in real production work or even more real-time playing situations.