Articulate alternative? Key switches for orchestral vsts as note colors

[Deanodirector]

Hello, I was wondering if there was an alternative to https://www.syntheticorchestra.com/tools/articulate/

for tracktion waveform. I've been trialing FL studio but the pattern systems is too confusing and I was hoping waveform might have some method for managing keyswitches.

Is anyone here writing orchestral music in waveform?

[Watchful]

For keyswitches, Waveform does help.

There's a plugin called MIDI Note Names, which is under the Waveform > Utility menus under the plugin lists.

Drag this onto your track(s) as needed. It's a text-based editor--you need to create the text files yourself, but it's pretty easy to figure out--that lets you provide a "name" that shows alongside the piano scroll. The plugin looks like this, for example:

Clipboard01.jpg

Waveform has some templates you can reuse to get you started on creating the text file. Just look up the note name/number and type what the desired keyswitch does next to it and save the text file with the other text files. I've got them for a mess of different instruments.

When you open your piano roll for editing a MIDI clip, and you have to zoom in, you'll see this puts the name of the keyswitch right on the piano key as a guide.

Clipboard02.jpg

Hope this is what you were looking for.

[Watchful]

Forgot to add one thing:

1. Drag your instrument plugin onto the track.
2. Then drag your MIDI note name plugin onto the same track--it can be before or after the instrument in question. No problem.
3. In the plugin, you can use the left and right arrow to cycle through your instrument text files until you find the right one.

I saved mine as presets to save myself time when working with a lot of different instruments. That way I can pull the sucker I want right from the browser window and onto the track.

[Deanodirector]

That's a good idea, thanks. will this automatically pick the right articulation if i move the cursor to a note after the change? Is there any way I can use note colours for this functionality?

[Watchful]

What happens next is entirely up to the plugin. Different plugins do things often exceedingly differently.

All Waveform gives you is a handy guide--for example, in the example I provided in that snippet earlier, the C#1 key causes a note to play staccato. I need to place whatever that note is above the C#1. In some plugins it only works for the duration of the note(s) I draw in at C#1; other plugins treat that as a toggle until I place another note there to "turn off staccato." That's totally up to the plugin, not Waveform.

Also, the use of note colors in Waveform is purely cosmetic: they don't do anything besides add visual clarity. What you're asking for, I think, is unique to FL Studio where a note color can be assigned to channels and events.