Expression Maps in Cubase 10 for Session Horns Pro by NI

[gregorym]

Does anyone have expression maps in Cubase 10 for the following libraries from NI:

Session Horns Pro
Session Strings Pro 2

I couldn't find them anywhere. I've looked on Steinberg's site. I googled. Nothing. I have to figure someone made expression maps for these libraries. If not, I guess I'll make them. Of course, I'll have to learn how to make them (expression maps), and I noticed that the keyswitches can be changed in the instrument. For example, C-1 is Sustain for Session Horns, and that C-1 can be changed from its default value of Sustain to any other articulation. Which leads me to believe expression maps for Session Horns Pro and Session Strings Pro 2 might not be the way to do it, nowadays. There is a way to use CC (continuous controller) to change articulations. Is that the better way?

Any help in this matter would be appreciated.

Thanks

[stevebarden]

Cubase Expression Maps are very powerful. It's worth your time to learn how to create them. It's actually very easy and flexible. You can assign a specific keyswitch for a patch even though the instrument responds to a different keyswitch. You could also create custom keyswitches for related instruments that don't use keyswitches!

There are numerous YouTube videos explaining how to create them. Groove3 has some excellent videos in their Cubase series and Junkie XL talks about them in-depth in one of his Studio Time videos.

[gregorym]

Thanks Steve!

I'm going to learn how to make expression maps. By the way, I read your book. It was AWESOME! You rock!

I'll tell you a little about me. I'm just getting started in writing production music. I like it a lot.


Thanks again,
Greg

[gregorym]

Progress. I've made progress in learning how expression maps work, but I'm trying to figure out the best way to put ALL the articulations for Session Horns Pro. Perhaps the image below will highlight the problem.

I hope the image shows up.

all-articulations.jpg (48.2 KiB) Viewed 3294 times

There are 15 articulations and only 9 slots to put them in so that they would work as keyswitches. Is there a way to get all 15 in the 9 slots? Perhaps double up some of the slots? If not, my option is probably to load two instances of the same instrument in kontakt and use one map to control the articulations. For example, if the first Sax is midi channel 1 and the second Sax is midi channel 2, I could switch channels to get the left over articulations.

Any thoughts?

Thank you,
Greg

[stevebarden]

You are correct. They allow you to select your nine favorite articulations. So if you want to have all 15 available you'll have to do it with two instances of each instrument.

One good thing to know is that loading two instances will not double the memory footprint as they will share the same samples in memory.

[gregorym]

That's awesome to know. They really know what they are doing at Native Instruments, saving memory and all.

Thanks Steve!
Greg