Babylonwaves "Art Conductor 6 for Cakewalk" Articulation Maps - Intro Price (€68.80)

[Batwaffel]

https://www.babylonwaves.com/cakewalk/

Really happy these guys were quick to jump in on this.

[Matthew Sorrels]

If you subscribe to the mailing list you will get a 5% off coupon.  Still kind of pricey after adding in PayPal (or credit card) fees and sales tax.  Plus they don't seem to offer both the Cubase and Cakewalk versions together.

 

[Steve Harder]

Art Conductor is worth the investment.  I can immediately apply the power and flexibility of articulation maps to libraries I own.  I'm a ComposerCloud subscriber.  Art Conductor's support for EastWest is extensive and articulation maps will improve the users experience in CCloud.

[Matthew Sorrels]

Played around with the EastWest Hollywood articulation maps.  I don't think I'd use the word extensive to describe it.  Looks like just maps for the keyswitched instruments, which for Hollywood Strings is kind of weak: Long, Detache, Detache Ub, Long Ub, Tremolo, Trill 2Maj, Trill HT.  To do the EW libraries right you need to setup multis and route notes to the right MIDI channel.  Maybe Cubase/Logic version are better?

 

[Matthew Sorrels]

Looks like the snapshot based presets aren't quite right.  In a nutshell they have you setup a specific kind of Kontakt multi for say, Ark 3's High String Artics.  So you load in three instances with the snapshots they provide and then you use a combined (they call them CB) articulation map that lets you pick from all the articulations (which is more than you can map in a single Kontakt instrument instance).  But when they setup the Cakewalk articulation map they didn't include the parts to direct the MIDI to channels 1, 2, 3 depending on which of the three instruments the articulation you are using is located.  So everything goes to the first instrument and only the articulations on it work.

Here's how it looks when you load the Repetition 1/16 articulation:

 

But that doesn't direct the keyswitches to MIDI 3 and it doesn't redirect the notes to MIDI 3 either.  Like this:

The articulation map most likely should redirect the CC stuff as well.  I think the Multi Script they include for Kontakt is supposed to do, though I'm not really sure, the documentation is kind of weak on what it does and the script is locked so I can't actually look at it.  It looks like all it does is echo the CC on every (maybe only 3) MIDI channel.  Rather than send it to the "right" instrument.  I think Cakewalk can direct the CCs to the right MIDI channel to start with and thus doesn't need the multi-script.  Maybe like this:

I've sent them an email.  The day I'm having I'm sure they will tell me I'm wrong or something.

[Batwaffel]

3 hours ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

I've sent them an email.  The day I'm having I'm sure they will tell me I'm wrong or something.

Let us know what you find out. I have them for Cubase and was about to buy the ones for Cakewalk but I think I'll wait. The whole articulation mapping in Cakewalk is pretty new so I assume there will be some things that need to be fixed with it. I've not even updated to it yet.

[Matthew Sorrels]

It is a pretty impressive collection though.  I think perhaps this whole snapshots and multi approach is a great idea, but getting it to work right may require a bit more work.  For the EW Hollywood Orchestra though I think just mapping the keymapped instruments isn't what most users are going to want.  But to do it requires picking which instruments to include and making a bunch of .ewi files for each instrument/articulation set.  It kind of crosses over into building a full on template, since you can't really load everything.

[msmcleod]

12 hours ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

Looks like the snapshot based presets aren't quite right.  In a nutshell they have you setup a specific kind of Kontakt multi for say, Ark 3's High String Artics.  So you load in three instances with the snapshots they provide and then you use a combined (they call them CB) articulation map that lets you pick from all the articulations (which is more than you can map in a single Kontakt instrument instance).  But when they setup the Cakewalk articulation map they didn't include the parts to direct the MIDI to channels 1, 2, 3 depending on which of the three instruments the articulation you are using is located.  So everything goes to the first instrument and only the articulations on it work.

Here's how it looks when you load the Repetition 1/16 articulation:

 

But that doesn't direct the keyswitches to MIDI 3 and it doesn't redirect the notes to MIDI 3 either.  Like this:

The articulation map most likely should redirect the CC stuff as well.  I think the Multi Script they include for Kontakt is supposed to do, though I'm not really sure, the documentation is kind of weak on what it does and the script is locked so I can't actually look at it.  It looks like all it does is echo the CC on every (maybe only 3) MIDI channel.  Rather than send it to the "right" instrument.  I think Cakewalk can direct the CCs to the right MIDI channel to start with and thus doesn't need the multi-script.  Maybe like this:

I've sent them an email.  The day I'm having I'm sure they will tell me I'm wrong or something.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your issue here, but if the MIDI Channel is set to "Follow", you can just right click on the articulation section and set it's MIDI Channel.

[Matthew Sorrels]

2 hours ago, msmcleod said:

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your issue here, but if the MIDI Channel is set to "Follow", you can just right click on the articulation section and set it's MIDI Channel.

The way they setup Kontakt for this, the instruments have fixed MIDI channels.  This is because the instrument only lets you setup a certain number of switchable articulations.  So they load it 3 times, each with different articulations.  So when you pick an articulation it has a specific destination instrument.  You'd have to know which channel/instrument each articulation was on in order to hand set it.  Which kind of ruins the usefulness of the articulations.  The map needs to direct the keyswitch MIDI event and the notes and the CC events to the correct instrument.  Follow doesn't do that, I don't think.  This is also true when setting up any multi-instrument articulation map, the map needs to know the MIDI channel destination.

[msmcleod]

3 minutes ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

The way they setup Kontakt for this, the instruments have fixed MIDI channels.  This is because the instrument only lets you setup a certain number of switchable articulations.  So they load it 3 times, each with different articulations.  So when you pick an articulation it has a specific destination instrument.  You'd have to know which channel/instrument each articulation was on in order to hand set it.  Which kind of ruins the usefulness of the articulations.  The map needs to direct the keyswitch MIDI event and the notes and the CC events to the correct instrument.  Follow doesn't do that, I don't think.  This is also true when setting up any multi-instrument articulation map, the map needs to know the MIDI channel destination.

Follow will use the MIDI Channel of the articulation itself, rather than being fixed to a specific MIDI channel, so you just set it on the articulation itself:



 

[Matthew Sorrels]

BabylonWaves shipped out Art Conductor 6.6.1 for Cakewalk that fixes my problems with the snapshot articulation maps and it looks like a bunch of other problems too.  Very nice.  I tested the Ark 3 stuff and it looks good.  Given the crazy number of instruments this supports keeping it all straight is always going to be tough.  But I have to admit everything I've tried has worked.

[Matthew Sorrels]

May have spoke too soon on the quality.  Just tried the settings for Albion One and they don't appear correct at all, at least for me.  Not exactly a surprise really.  I'm not even sure how anyone could maintain the quality for the number of articulations they are listing.  If something looks impossible, it may actually be.