Articulations, etc., and playback.

Dorico
1

I have searched the forum for answers to my questions, but I can’t find any, so I’m afraid I’ll have to ask by starting a topic. Sorry.
Dynamics (pp p f ff) are playing back fine, as is staccato, etc… However, slurs (legato) do not seem to play back, neither do cresc, dim hairpins. I can see them in the score extending over the notes where I want them to be, but I hear no difference in playback. Is this normal for Dorico at the moment, or it there something wrong?

Also, “con sord” (in brass) does not seem to have any effect in play back. I know how to get a muted trumpet sound, but that then seems to apply to the entire score. Is there any way I can get a muted sound for a few notes and then switch back to natural sound?

Once again, my apologies for the questions.

2

Unfortunately we discovered a bug in slur playback in 1.0.20 though this should be fixed for the next update.

Currently there isn’t a playback mapping for con sord, and I don’t think there is a mute layer in the brass instruments. In due course we intend to add the ability to switch between sounds in multiple channels from a single stave, which will allow for mute and non-mute.

3

Slurs do work (i.e trigger the playing techniqe “Legato” if present in the expresion map), but you have to make sure that Expression Maps are correctly set up for the library you are using. If you are using the bundled Halion sounds, there is no sampled/scripted legato, so sustain is simply called legato, which is the default patch handled by the technique “Natural” in the default expression maps.

The playing techniques “mute” and “straight mute” do trigger, but there is no corresponding technqiues in the Halion Expresssion maps (since the lib. has no muted samples either), and hence no effect there. It works when set up for e.g. VSL libraries. However, there seems to be no way to cancel a mute(d) instruction … open, ord., no mute, senza sord etc. have no effect.

Hairpins do work provided the expression map techniques are correctly configured for the library in use. For sustain patches the “Volume Dynamic” setting must be set to control change (usually 1 “Modwheel”).

4

Sorry, I should clarify: the broken behaviour we discovered was that the setting of note durations under slurs wasn’t working correctly (it was lengthening the notes, but only after they had been shortened by the ‘natural’ length, so you end up with a note length of 105% x 85% = 89%, which still sounds shortened). So you would notice this if you were playing back with a patch that doesn’t have an explicit legato switch.

5

Ah, thanks for confirming this Playback Options bug! (and explaining the math :slight_smile: )

6

I have marked violas pizzicato in the middle of the score, when I start playback from the beginning they are still pizzicato. What articulation should I put into the score to restore them to normal?

7

There is a bug with playing techniques not being reset at the start of the score which we’ll look at shortly.

8

Do you mean “at the start of the flow”, not “at the start of the score”?

Techniques like “pizz.” or “con sord.” were often assumed to apply only to the end of a movement, not for the remainder of the whole work.

9

I’m not sure what the exact symptoms of the current issues are - I haven’t reviewed this bug yet. I recall there was one about ‘nat’ not resetting harmonics and key switches don’t get reset when playback ends.

I have just tried to reproduce this bug: create a new violin score and add a pizz after a few beats. Play back from the start of the score, and then play again. It’s working fine for me. Do you have a score that you can attach here? Are you running 1.0.20? (I know that this was broken in 1.0.10)

10

If you stop playback in the pizz section, then start from the beginning, at least the first note will play pizz before switching to arco…

11

Ah yes - it seems that stopping playback before the end is the critical part to reproducing this. If you let it run to the end then it’s fine. I’ve logged the bug.