I’m using the Dorico Elements evaluation version at the moment. I was wondering if there is any way to export seamless looping audio?
I’d like to use Dorico to compose video game background music for levels, so the music needs to loop seamlessly. Instead of traditional music which you listen to from start to end, the ending must blend seamlessly back into the first bar so that the loop is unoticable if the track is played in an endless looping mode. Other music programs will have a noticeable pause in the music as the piece ends and then starts back up again.
FLStudio has a special export setting that will automatically synchronize the ending of the piece to the start. I was wondering if Dorico did anything similar?
kitfox, do you really mean export to a file (an export usually means export to file)?
To me it sounds as if you would need a constant audio stream. Is this possible at all in a file?
How can a file be infinite?
If one opens the file in an audio editor, there will be an end somewhere. It might then need a special command in the target application to repeat (loop) the sound.
“Loop” implies a beginning and end before it endlessly loops. Then, can you compose in Dorico for the first section before the loop begins (again), export audio, import into FLStudio and export as you are used to?
Let’s say I compose a piece in Dorico and add a repeat to the last bar. This will play all the bars in my piece twice. I then export it as a .mp3 file. Now the very middle of the mp3 will contain my final bar blending seamlessly back into the first bar. I’d like the very start and end of the mp3 to do that too. The idea is that if I load this into an audio player and set it to loop, the start and end of the audio file will blend together as seamlessly as the repeat in the middle of the piece.
I think I understand your question, you are asking if there is any additional audio gap (like a reverb tail) (and assuming you do not have a fermata, pause etc. on the last note (etc.)) so it will loop without any gaps, with the beats all lining up at each loop. Do you have Dorico yet to test this in FLStudio? Or can you import into a DAW and line up the audio after itself to check?
Or is this what you are asking, because you do not have Dorico yet to test …
i have the evaluation version of Dorico elements - it seems to be fully featured. I could export to FLStudio, but would FLStudio use the same instruments as Dorico? I suppose they’re both VST, but I had assumed that things would change by switching to a different program.
My thought is to just export the audio of Dorico, then you do not need to worry about it sounding different (otherwise it would be a midi export, or musicxml file export, where you can map each track to your sounds in FLStudio … you might want to do this anyway as a test?) but if you are happy with Dorico sounds, then try exporting an audio file and see what happens. If that fails (for some reason, like extra time at the end of the audio export from Dorico) then try exporting midi/musicXML and into FLStudio so that should all work as you are used to.
(in theory)
My very crude test was to create a few bars in Dorico, File > Export audio, set the reverb tail to 0.00 then import into Logic, and drag to create loops of it. It seems to time without problems as it crosses the loops, at least as far as I could hear.
(hehe)