# Pros/cons: keyswitches vs separate patches for every articulation?



## Coriolis

What are the pros and cons of having a single instrument with keyswitches for articulations, compared to having separate patches for every articulation?


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## babylonwaves

key switches itself never did it for me. so i used separate tracks for each art for a long time. but then, articulation sets and expression maps changed the game because you can write a line and then decide on a note level which articulation plays. and, you don't clutter your score with low notes.

yes, i'm biased and i develop products for that purpose-


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## Dewdman42

Because of articulation sets, expression maps and re articulate, the days of having to use a separate midi track for each articulation or littering your track with key switch events, are mostly a thing of the past. Using the mechanisms that are available today, you can mostly write to a single midi track and avoid embedding key switches directly into your score.

There are pros and cons to both types of sample libraries....singular key switchable vs one patch per articulation.

I think with separate patches for each articulation you sometimes get a little more ability to adjust the level of each articulation, and in some cases you can play around with the latency of each articulation easily too. When its all in a self contained key switch driven patch, then you're a bit at the mercy of the library developer to hope the articulation levels are consistent, and latency between articulations almost certainly will not be. So separate patches has some real advantage. But its also a little more involved to figure out how to write to that. You can use channelizing methods with articulation sets and expression maps to still write to a single midi track and have the midi channelized to each separate patch, which still gives you the ability to easily adjust levels and not quite as easily, but still doable, adjust latency of each articulation too. But you have to set that up yourself, there is a little more work to do that, versus key switched patches.

Keyswitch patches are a lot easier to to call up and just play, hit the key switches and hear the articulations change, and its very easy to use, and you don't have to know anything about which patch has which articulation, etc.. And sometimes the library developers do clever things with key switching that would be difficult or impossible with separate articulations on separate patches. But you just lose some control over the details that way. Depends a lot on the library.


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## Zero&One

Also when looping a region, the previous keyswitch not getting triggered was always a pain.


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## Satorious

Keyswitches aren't super-intuitive to me as they differ depending on which library is being used. I tend to split articulations up into separate patches. That said if you are scoring and have to keep re-timing things - key-switches can help make that process easier to manage (it depends how much you want to isolate some of the individual flourishes really).


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## Jeremy Spencer

I never use key switches, unless it's for something like Sonokinetic libraries. I prefer each articulation to be its own instance, on its own track. I might see this differently if I were a composer who wrote using notation software, or I were preparing a score for an orchestra.


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## mscp

Wolfie2112 said:


> I never use key switches, unless it's for something like Sonokinetic libraries. I prefer each articulation to be its own instance, on its own track. I might see this differently if I were a composer who wrote using notation software, or I were preparing a score for an orchestra.



Cubase comes in pretty handy when working several midi tracks (one for each articulation) since it lets you see all notes at once. There's also the possibility of merging them into one MIDI file.


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## shawnsingh

I like the ability to "microswitch" between articulations as a way of trying different note attacks and tuning the performance of each instrument. E.g. what happens if we use sustain instead of portato, or marcato... Each one can work as a semi short articulation like a quarter note, but with a different performance character. Or another example, what happens when you want a phrase to have short and long notes together... It becomes a nightmare to keep moving notes across tracks.

It's totally reasonable if people compose differently and don't care to microswitch articulations like I do. But for people who do switch all the time between articulations, do any of you still prefer separate tracks instead of keyswitches? I'm curious to hear how it's not a frustrating nightmare for you folks


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## Ben

This would also interest me. This is also one of the reasons I use keyswitches instead of expression maps.


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## Jeremy Spencer

Ben said:


> This would also interest me. This is also one of the reasons I use keyswitches instead of expression maps.



Isn't using Expression Maps the huge advantage of using key switch patches?


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## Ben

If I want to create Expression maps, I have to create way to many to make it work with my template. But maybe I did not understand the concept of exp. maps correctly.


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## MartinH.

shawnsingh said:


> I like the ability to "microswitch" between articulations as a way of trying different note attacks and tuning the performance of each instrument. E.g. what happens if we use sustain instead of portato, or marcato... Each one can work as a semi short articulation like a quarter note, but with a different performance character. Or another example, what happens when you want a phrase to have short and long notes together... It becomes a nightmare to keep moving notes across tracks.
> 
> It's totally reasonable if people compose differently and don't care to microswitch articulations like I do. But for people who do switch all the time between articulations, do any of you still prefer separate tracks instead of keyswitches? I'm curious to hear how it's not a frustrating nightmare for you folks



For now with MetArk1 I use different single articulation patches per instrument section and use the midi channels to set per-note articulation switching. I have standardized the most common ones, so sustain is channel 1, legato channel 2, then increasingly shorter notes on channel 3 to 5. That way I can even move midi data between different sections without making changes to keyswitches. Becomes annoying though when you need to edit CC1 data on channels other than ch1, but that's still less annoying than having to scroll to reach keyswitch notes and move them together with played notes etc.. One drawback of my method: past channel 5 I can't remember what the channels do and have to open Kontakt to check. That probably could be solved better (maybe with reaticulate), but I didn't bother to really look into it yet.


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## Saxer

Meanwhile I like to use key switches (since Logic's articulation system). Though I still like to have CC driven articulations like legatos/sustains/trems on a different track than one shot velocity controlled articulations.

But the instruments I like most doesn't need key switches at all. Performance Samples, Musicalsampling, Samplemodeling, Audiomodeling.


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## Henu

shawnsingh said:


> It becomes a nightmare to keep moving notes across tracks.



This is exactly why I cannot use separate articulations on separate tracks. For any sort of realism, this microshifting is _crucial_ in order to actually use the library in it's full capacity. I do it like @MartinH. , having single articulations within one Kontakt instance on separate midi channels and use the same channels for the common articulations as well. The articulation map in Cubase is just using midi channel instead of a keyswitch, but otherwise it's doing what articulation map is supposed to do.


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## Dex

One thing I haven’t figured out how to do yet is how to do everything on grid on one midi track (either via keyswitching or different midi channels) when different articulations need different timing offsets. There are tons of libraries where the legato patches need 80 ms of predelay while the shorts don’t need any, for instance.


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## Dewdman42

That's one of the reasons to NOT embed actual keyswitches on your tracks and rather use an articulation management solution that generates the key switches on the fly as the actual notes are sent.


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## Per Boysen

When I play KS patches I like to use a MIDI pedalboard with eight pedal switches to jump between articulations while playing melody notes with hands. The pedalboard also has an expression pedal, but I prefer using breath control for dynamics.


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## Dex

Dewdman42 said:


> That's one of the reasons to NOT embed actual keyswitches on your tracks and rather use an articulation management solution that generates the key switches on the fly as the actual notes are sent.



So a proper articulation manager would delay the midi for each articulation appropriately? I admit I haven't looked into articulation managers much yet. I'm using Reaper and all we have is reaticulate, which is still in alpha and which I've only done a little bit of reading about.


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## Dewdman42

I don’t know if any of them yet handle the latency per articulation or not. You asked about how to make sure the keyswitches will always be in front of the notes. 

But what they generally do is insert keyswitches right in front of the notes at the time the note is being sent.

Theoretically if you had some other mechanism which is delaying the notes of each articulation according to known latency then the articulation management would still make sure to insert the keyswitches right in front of each note.

Maybe someday we will have improved articulation management systems that also can be configured to delay the notes in addition to inserting keyswitches right in front of the notes.


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## JohannesR

Dewdman42 said:


> Maybe someday we will have improved articulation management systems that also can be configured to delay the notes in addition to inserting keyswitches right in front of the notes.



This! If key switches could work in the time domain as well.


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## Dewdman42

I’m working on it


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## handz

Keyswitches are pure hell and I never got why is this system used. It is extremely chaotic (each library uses a different system) And making your own for each lib is crazy. 

What I like is to have velocity controlled articulations like in Cinesamples - for shorts, this is the best thing ever, 10000x better, faster, easier. For all other stuff, separate tracks in groups are win.


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## DANIELE

Saxer said:


> Meanwhile I like to use key switches (since Logic's articulation system). Though I still like to have CC driven articulations like legatos/sustains/trems on a different track than one shot velocity controlled articulations.
> 
> But the instruments I like most doesn't need key switches at all. Performance Samples, Musicalsampling, Samplemodeling, Audiomodeling.



For me this kind of instruments are the future, I think KS it becaming an old way of using libraries, the future it is completely dynamic realistic libraries. No KS and no limit in articulations.


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## Dewdman42

It’s already a combination of both.


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## Dex

handz said:


> For all other stuff, separate tracks in groups are win.



For you (or anyone else who uses one track per articulation), how on earth do you ever manage to write anything? I switch back and forth between articulations a lot, and I can’t see myself jumping back and forth between different midi tracks every couple of notes, and if you want to see how different articulation combinations would sound for a phrase...forget about it! 

I dunno. I’m using reaper. Maybe other daws have an easier way of moving back and forth between different midi tracks.


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## babylonwaves

DANIELE said:


> I think KS it becaming an old way of using libraries, the future it is completely dynamic realistic libraries. No KS and no limit in articulations.


there are situations where something more intelligent can determine for you which articulation might be right for the line you're playing. but there are also stylistic decisions: like using con sort or not. or col legno vs. bartok pizz vs pizz. - or if you decide to have a fraction of the notes in a chord play trems whereas the rest plays normal longs. in other words, the more micro editing you do, the more important KS become.
i'm biased, i know


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## Dewdman42

I think there will always be a place for composers to explicitly specify one way or another what articulation to apply to a certain note or phrase. Whether that is handled with keyswitches or channelizing or perhaps some kind of universal articulation ID system someday is yet to be determined. For now both methods are out there. At least with keyswitching libraries you still have the option to put separate instances in different channels and work that way if you like, as opposed to PLAY which is mostly all channel based and you have not choice but use that method.

Articulation management systems can blur the distinction so that you use articulation ID’s or cc based indicators, expression maps , pc messages, etc to indicate what you want to happen and the articulation management solution will either channelize or send keyswitches for you and you don’t have to worry about it.


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## Tice

I like articulation switching that messes up notation/the sheet music as little as possible. If a glisando requires one note to overlap another to activate, you need to correct that for the sheet music. Keyswitch notations tend to be easier to get rid of on your sheet music. I hope future daws make it easier to convert your daw file into proper sheet music. Separate channels for articulations is a step in the wrong direction imho because of this.


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## Dewdman42

With channel based you can still have a single source midi track that will translate to notation just fine, as long as you’re using an articulation management system to channelize during playback.

The overlapping legato note problem is real and I personally think the right solution for that is to also have an articulation management system that overlaps the needed transitions on the fly during playback, based on other indicators such as articulation ID. Then notation can be proper easily.


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## Tice

Dewdman42 said:


> With channel based you can still have a single source midi track that will translate to notation just fine, as long as you’re using an articulation management system to channelize during playback.
> 
> The overlapping legato note problem is real and I personally think the right solution for that is to also have an articulation management system that overlaps the needed transitions on the fly during playback, based on other indicators such as articulation ID. Then notation can be proper easily.


Hmm, I need to look into this some more...
Thanks!


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## Dewdman42

Note that as of right now I’m not aware of any articulation management system that will overlap transitions on the fly. But maybe someday.


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## chimuelo

Physis K4 rules for articulations. Even beats custom iPad systems.

I use 4 x banks of buttons x 9 on the fly in real-time.
I’d hate it if somebody decided to fix something that already works.

Chris Hein is my favorite developer for making Arctic’s a walk in the park.
The Harmonica is sweet but the Horns are brilliant.
Especially hot keys where I can hit Section shakes then default back to my choice of sustains or swells.

I can’t even imagine using sampled instruments without KS.
Assign them to notes, Pedals, anything you want, even a SysEx string for sequential triggering.


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## handz

Dex said:


> For you (or anyone else who uses one track per articulation), how on earth do you ever manage to write anything? I switch back and forth between articulations a lot, and I can’t see myself jumping back and forth between different midi tracks every couple of notes, and if you want to see how different articulation combinations would sound for a phrase...forget about it!
> 
> I dunno. I’m using Cubase. Maybe other daws have an easier way of moving back and forth between different midi tracks.



Reaper - that may be a problem, I have tried almost all the Daws on the market and sorry, Cubase is the only usable, user friendly midi editor with a good looking piano roll. Logic, reaper, FL loops - HELP!!! You don't have to exit piano roll, just select the midi track at the drop-down menu. Once you write couple of bars you just click the notes you already have there and the channel select automatically. But how, when you write phrase using KS you know what key switch you are currently on? When you need to replay a passage, you sometimes cant as you have differetn keyswitch triggered... its so annoying


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## Kony

Prefer expression maps as it's easier to experiment on-the-fly. Earlier in this thread, someone made a point about it taking too long to set up expression maps. The thing is, you only need to do it once per library and that's it. Regarding pre-delays and whether shorter artics get affected with larger pre-delays for legatos etc - if that is a problem for a specific library, either drag notes forward instead of using pre-delay, or separate the artics into different channels afterwards.


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## chocobitz825

With studio one I used to prefer separate tracks, but since I gradually switched to Keyswitches. Not that I’ve found a workaround for Keyswitches, it’s a lot easier to see why Keyswitches can be good for creativity.


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## Tfis

I use key switches to control expression maps which send key switches (or midi CC). Expression maps are just a layer, to archive a compatibility between different libraries.


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## Henu

Tfis said:


> I use key switches to control expression maps which send key switches (or midi CC). Expression maps are just a layer, to archive a compatibility between different libraries.



I would like to hear a bir more of this. Are you implementing a keyswitch (say, C0) to your piano roll just like you would do it without expression maps? And that will somehow tell the expression map to change it into something else which can be universally used?


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## shawnsingh

Henu said:


> I would like to hear a bir more of this. Are you implementing a keyswitch (say, C0) to your piano roll just like you would do it without expression maps? And that will somehow tell the expression map to change it into something else which can be universally used?



I suspect I'm doing the same thing as @Tfis, which is the opposite of what you just asked. I define a MIDI note range to control the expression map itself. So it's possible to define a consistent set of keyswitches for all libraries, no matter whether they use keyswitching or not. And the expression maps will show up in the midi editor in their own expression map lane - it won't be extra notes in the piano roll.

For example, for EWQL Hollywood brass, I've loaded different articulations and combi patches to different midi channels. Then the expression map is defined so that C0 will trigger to send notes to midi channel 1, C#0 well send to midi channel 2, etc.

For other libraries that do have keyswitching features, then you can define a different expression map that receives C0-C1 and maps that to send the right signal to the library for keyswitching. So if the articulation you want required sending C7 + value 127 for CC1 to e library, you can program the expression map to send that when you press C0.

So that way you can make C0-C1 (or whatever range you want) have the same articulations for every library.


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## chocobitz825

I would definitely agree that once you find a way to automate or simplify the keyswitch method, it becomes far easier to understand and use with positive feelings toward the system. Some libraries are dabbling now in more advanced programming to avoid using keyswitches, and this is great too, but again becomes a problem when every library you have requires different playing methods to get through the articulation types. Automating keyswitches for me has definitely taken a lot of the stress out of the whole thing.


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## VinRice

Articulation ID's/Expression Maps


Dewdman42 said:


> I don’t know if any of them yet handle the latency per articulation or not. You asked about how to make sure the keyswitches will always be in front of the notes.
> 
> But what they generally do is insert keyswitches right in front of the notes at the time the note is being sent.
> 
> Theoretically if you had some other mechanism which is delaying the notes of each articulation according to known latency then the articulation management would still make sure to insert the keyswitches right in front of each note.
> 
> Maybe someday we will have improved articulation management systems that also can be configured to delay the notes in addition to inserting keyswitches right in front of the notes.



Articulation ID's are embedded in the note data so there's no way of compensating for legato delay without the program time travelling to the future. However it's possible in Cubase to write a macro that looks at the Articulation ID's after the fact and move the notes to compensate.


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## onmadegringo

i use keyswitches to switch the articulation's and it works quite well. Sometimes, depending on the library i have to use another system but for the most part my keyswitches change the articulaton no worries i do like. The only problem i had with them was forgetting to reset and my entire string section played the wrong articulation. But this is easily fixed by inserting the correct keyswitch right before the note's.


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## robgb

Key switching is the only thing that ever made any sense to me. I like having all the articulations on one track. And now that @tack has created Reaticulate for Reaper, I can trigger key switches and CCs and all kinds of information without having to think much about it, and without having to deal with extra notes at the bottom of the track.


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## Tim_Wells

Keyswitches are all I can get my primitive brain wrapped around. But I'm open to learning other techniques.


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## JohnG

VinRice said:


> Articulation ID's/Expression Maps
> 
> 
> Articulation ID's are embedded in the note data so there's no way of compensating for legato delay without the program time travelling to the future. However it's possible in Cubase to write a macro that looks at the Articulation ID's after the fact and move the notes to compensate.



That's interesting, Vin. I use separate tracks for a lot of patches so I can have a midi offset to make the notes land where I want. But I do use some keyswitches; pretty hard to be entirely consistent. 

I have quite a few midi tracks as a result.


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