Only the first note of each diddle is getting played back accented. It doesn’t appear that I can manually edit the velocities of the 2nd note within each 8th. Is there a workaround for this? Or could it get fixed soon? It’s a huge issue for percussion writing.
Hi @Bradley_Sampson you could create a second extra perc. in the kit, that sits in the same position, then visualize the kit as Single line temporarily in Layout options, and write the desired 16th in the extra instrument, then hide it, and suppress playback from the other (in this case “snare drum” and “snare drum extra”). So you can edit your velocities of the “extra” instrument in key editor, but maintaining the visualization of the “tremolo” marking. But keep in mind that the note spacing will be based on the 16th.
(It is only a suggestion, It takes some time and maybe is not worth the effort. Alternatively just write only the sixteenth for the required passages without using the “tremolo” marking, if you need the personalized playback, or make a copy of the project for playback only…)
Yeah I suppose that would work. But having to create separate instruments for notation and layout is so Sibelius and I’d love to avoid that with Dorico as much as possible.
Well you can of course put the setting for accent increasing to 0, an then you don’t have the TA-ta-TA-ta effect. An you can edit the dynamic like cresc. or dim. with the line tool…
What are you trying exactly to achieve? Which dynamic/velocity you would like for the 8 sixteenth?
(and again, if you need detailed dynamic, don’t use the “tremolo” but write all 16th down, because a real player would need to see what you intend to have, on each note.)
I’d like the accent volume for all of the notes in the double stroke roll. I already have my accent settings where I need them for 2-height percussion writing.
In tried creating the accent as a Playing technique, and it seems that it is less influenced by the humanization settings as the “real” accent. (and sounds as the invisible-but-playing-back second and fourth 16th also are less unaccented in comparison with the real accent+tremolo)
accents as PT.dorico (2.2 MB)
Actually I would have expected this notation to sound as Dorico plays it. What is the practical difference between all-notes-accented and slightly louder?
In percussion notation, accented diddles would never be played with the first note accented and the second unaccented. The accent applies to both notes in the diddle.
For 2-height percussion writing, it’s not going to be slightly louder, it will be significantly louder- often 2-3 times the volume depending on dynamics. This is very common percussion notation and every other major piece of notation software interprets this correctly.
Okay, but whatever the amount – what is the difference in execution between writing accents and writing a higher dynamic level?
For the player: In most battery percussion situations, taps (non-accents) are played at piano, regardless of the dynamic marking. Dynamic markings signify the dynamic level of the accents, not the taps. So fortissimo without accents is played at piano. Hence the need for accented diddles.
Ah, marching percussion. Now I get it. Quite a different acoustic situation from a concert hall! Thank you for the info.
The current behaviour is indeed the expected behaviour. At the moment there’s no way to specify that an accent should apply to all of the notes in a single-note tremolo. I suppose we will need to add an option for this in a future version. I’ve made a note of it.
I know it’s different for other instruments, but I can’t imagine a situation for:
Where you would want only the first note to play back accented. In many ways, the single slash for percussion is disconnected from how a tremolo behaves for strings et al, and I can’t imagine a situation where you’d want anything other than the same accent volume played back twice.
This is very important to us as marching arrangers; in some cases the second note of the double is so quiet that I cannot hear it at all.
