Standard Articulations

All Single Articulation patches in all Orchestral Tools collections share a set of common UI elements and features that work across articulation types. This section describes these common elements.

Performance View

Single Articulation patches in their Performance View contain the Main Knob for velocity layer control, as well as other commonly used features. Below the Main Knob you will see the patch name, the version of the collection it belongs to as well as the Capsule version.

For Strings, you will find a Con Sordino switch here which controls the Con Sordino emulation. All Berlin Percussion Collections control the True Damping in this view. Select Metropolis Ark Patches let you control the Auto Sustain here, as well. If a patch does not support a particular feature, its controls are not shown in this view.

Info View

The Info View panel at the bottom of the Performance View shows the patch name, the version of this particular collection and the version of Capsule used by this collection.

When any keyswitch feature is triggered (like the Round Robin Reset, Soft Release, etc...), the InfoView shows the triggered feature by its name.

Main Knob

The Main Knob is a key component of using any collection. It allows you to select one of two ways to control the velocity of played notes:

1) Velocity (how hard you press the keys on your MIDI keyboard)

2) X-Fade (lets you control the volume via the modwheel)

All "longs" articulation (legato, sustains, ...) are set to X-Fade (modwheel) by default. Portato and similar also use X-Fade. All "shorts" articulations use Velocity by default because they are much more easily playable this way. Click on the Main Knob to toggle between these two settings. Note that some articulations are fixed to the X-Fade mode and can not be changed.

You can re-assign the CC used for the X-Fade setting by Alt/Opt-Clicking on the Main Knob. This will open the Controller Table where you can assign a new CC by moving your corresponding fader/encoder or whatever input source you are using.

In the middle of the Main Knob, the current velocity layer is displayed. As you morph through the layers, this value will change to reflect the active layer. If no text is visible, you are in the middle of two layers. Note that this display represents the actual recorded samples. So if you have p / mf / f in the display, that not only tells you that there are three actual layers per note, but also which one is currently active. This is a huge help when creating realistic mockups because you are told by the library “right now those violas are playing mf”. When the display says mf, what you are hearing is the actual sound of the violas playing mf, not just a random sample lowered or raised in volume!

If an articulation has only a single velocity layer, the Main Knob will show "Single Layer" in the lower portion.

Mute Instrument Keyswitch

Every Single Articulation Patch can be assigned a custom Mute Instrument keyswitch in the Controller Table that mutes/unmutes all sound from that patch. This is useful when stacking patches to switch off elements of the stack while playing, as well as when using multiple patches on the same MIDI channel to have all articulations of an instrument on the same track while still being able to use the benefits of the Single Articulation patches.

While a patch is muted, the UI will show a message telling you to unmute the patch by either triggering the keyswitch again or by clicking on the message window.

Dynamic Switch

With percussive instruments, quite often it is useful to not crossfade between different velocity layers (thereby having multiple samples sound at any time) but rather use the recorded dynamic layers in their correct place and switch between them.

When Dynamic Switch is enabled, all velocity-mapped keys in the current articulation will not crossfade between dynamic layers but rather switch between them at breakpoints. Note that this setting does not influence X-Fade-controlled keys like for example Rolls. This setting is available in all short notes, but it makes most sense to use it with percussion instruments.

Berlin Percussion Series

True Damping

A lot of percussive instruments have a very unique damping sound. Wherever worthwhile, these sounds were extensively sampled for Berlin Percussion and BPC A - The Timpani. If enabled, this option will make the instrument play True Damping samples when CC64 is not active. CC64 will let the samples ring out.

Berlin Strings Series and Nocturne Series

Con Sordino

We integrated a sophisticated Con Sordino simulation into all strings patches from the Berlin Series as well as the Nocturne Series. The CS switch switches the con sordino effect on and off. You can assign it to any CC in the Controller Table.