Tags and families
The five canonical tag categories DawForge uses — length, technique, style, pattern, dynamic — and how they drive search, matching, and map building.
DawForge normalises every articulation under five canonical categories. The same vocabulary drives the search facets, the map editor's tag column, and template-side matching when you link a track to a library patch. Cross-library consistency is the point — "staccato" means the same thing whether it's Spitfire, Vienna, or Orchestral Tools.
The five families
| Family | What it captures | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| length | Note duration class | short, medium, long, sustain |
| technique | How the note is produced | staccato, marcato, tremolo, pizzicato, col legno, flautando |
| style | Tonal modifier | muted / con sordino, open, sul ponticello, sul tasto, harmonics |
| pattern | Multi-note shape | legato, ostinato, trill, repetition, run |
| dynamic | Dynamic intent at attack | forte, pianissimo, sforzando, crescendo |
A single articulation typically carries one tag per family, but not every family is mandatory — pizzicato is technique:pizzicato with no style or pattern, for instance.
Why canonical, why five
Every library vendor uses different names: Spitfire's "Long CS" is Vienna's "Sustain" is Orchestral Tools' "Sustain Vibrato". A tag-based vocabulary lets DawForge:
- Search across libraries by what an articulation is, not by what one vendor named it.
- Match template tracks to library patches automatically — if a track is tagged
strings · long · molto vibrato, the editor can suggest which patches in your library fit. - Compare apples to apples when you're choosing which library to use for a passage.
Five families is the smallest set that survives the orchestral repertoire without collapsing distinctions composers actually care about (you need both length and technique to distinguish short staccato from short pizzicato).
How tags get applied
- From the knowledge base. When DawForge curates a library, every articulation is tagged by hand. Bootstrap a map from a KB patch and the tags arrive pre-applied.
- Imported maps. When you import a
.expressionmap, DawForge tries to infer tags from the articulation name. Anything it can't classify is left blank — fix it in the editor. - Manual. Click the tag chips on any row in the map editor to add or remove.
How the editor uses tags
- Search across your maps — find every articulation tagged
tremoloregardless of which map it lives in. - Group suggestions — the editor suggests a Cubase articulation group (0–3) based on which families a row carries.
- Default short names — the score-view display name is derived from the tags when you haven't set one explicitly.