Hello. I have been struggling for 6 days, 3 hours a day, to find a way to enter percussion parts in Dorico. I don’t need a perfect score, but I want to hear back the notes that I played.
I set up a new project with ‘conga’. Chose three instruments to combine into one three line grid. Noticed that in play mode, the highest conga opens in Yamaha XG, the other ones in Iconica sketch.
To input a rhytm using the caret, arrows and Y (computer keyboard) is no problem at all. Notes are played by the right conga.
When using my midi keyboard, strange things happen. If I enter notes one by one using the G, B and D key, I see the three different notes in my grid, but only the highest note is played in audio.
When using the record option, I only hear the highest notes. When I stop recording, all the notes I played appear on the lowest bar of the grid. When I play this back, all the notes are played on the lowest conga. Weird stuff!
I couldn’t find an answer in the manual (changing preferences for percussion input to “use percussion map” does not help).
So two questions: how do I input a simple rhythm for a three tone unpitched instrument using my midi keyboard. And how can I avoid a setting where two of the three tones are played by a different VST?
A video would help!
I think the easiest way to reason about percussion input from a MIDI keyboard is probably to use the five-line staff appearance type. In the Edit Percussion Kit dialog, go to the Five-line Staff tab, and make sure that you have your three conga instruments in appropriate spots, for example, on three adjacent lines or spaces. In Layout Options, on the Players page, set the player holding the congas kit to use the five-line staff presentation type. Now you should be looking at a five-line staff in your layout. (You can of course change this back to Grid later on if that’s what you prefer your eventual players to see.)
Now you should check the settings on the Note Input and Editing page of Preferences. Under Input onto kit or grid, choose Use staff position. You can now choose whether the five-line staff should be interpreted as a treble or bass staff, whichever you prefer. Apply any changes you’ve made, and close the dialog.
When you next start input on your conga staff, you should find that you can input onto each of three conga instruments simply by playing the appropriate note on your MIDI keyboard relative to a treble or bass staff, per your choice.
Thank you for your quick response. Sadly, I had tried all those things before. It doen´t help. If I play one note at a time, it does recognize the key and puts the note on the right line.
Recording another instrument. eg flute is never a problem. But recording drums or percussion does not work at all. I have a Dexibell keyboard. Could this be the cause of the problem? I have an old Yamaha set too, should I try that?
No, I don’t think the keyboard will be at fault. Can you attach a simple project with your conga instruments set up?
Hi Daniel, I have attached the file that I use to try out my settings. I use a Dexibell S3 keyboard± https://www.dexibell.com/content/uploads/2023/12/S7S3_OM_e4_w.pdf
Hope you can help me.
To repeat my question:
Note entry using caret, arrows and Y: no problem. Every entry gives the right sound when I push the y-key. Appearance is good
Note entry using midi keyboard: some notes make a sound when I play the key, some are silent. But all notes appear in the staff.
Note entry using record: no problem for melodic instruments. Big problems in all drum and percussion kit:
- While playing, I do not hear all the notes
- After pushing the stop key, different problems:
- Guica: I hear what I play when I play it, but no notes appear in the staff and there seems to be no recording.
- Drum kit: half of the instruments do not appear in the staff. Those that do appear are not always on the line where the should be
- Conga: I only hear the highest conga while recording. After ‘stop’ all the notes appear on the line for the lowest conga.
- Percussion kit: everything I play appears in the low bongo line.
I also have trouble importing percussion from Cubase files to Dorico. No problem with other instruments, but the drum parts are incomplete, messy or empty. I do not mind having to copy paste parts from one instrument to another, but now there really are parts missing. When Dorico makes a new player, the staff is sometimes empty.
Maybe this is something for a video.
Thanks for helping me out.
Klaas
(Attachment Drum tryouts Klaas Mulder.dorico is missing)
Hi Daniel, I have attached the file that I use to try out my settings. I use a Dexibell S3 keyboard± https://www.dexibell.com/content/uploads/2023/12/S7S3_OM_e4_w.pdf
Hope you can help me.
To repeat my question:
Note entry using caret, arrows and Y: no problem. Every entry gives the right sound when I push the y-key. Appearance is good
Note entry using midi keyboard: some notes make a sound when I play the key, some are silent. But all notes appear in the staff.
Note entry using record: no problem for melodic instruments. Big problems in all drum and percussion kit:
- While playing, I do not hear all the notes
- After pushing the stop key, different problems:
- Guica: I hear what I play when I play it, but no notes appear in the staff and there seems to be no recording.
- Drum kit: half of the instruments do not appear in the staff. Those that do appear are not always on the line where the should be
- Conga: I only hear the highest conga while recording. After ‘stop’ all the notes appear on the line for the lowest conga.
- Percussion kit: everything I play appears in the low bongo line.
I also have trouble importing percussion from Cubase files to Dorico. No problem with other instruments, but the drum parts are incomplete, messy or empty. I do not mind having to copy paste parts from one instrument to another, but now there really are parts missing. When Dorico makes a new player, the staff is sometimes empty.
Maybe this is something for a video.
Thanks for helping me out.
Klaas
(attachments)
Drum tryouts.dorico (3.56 MB)
Hi Daniel, did you find time to look into my problem. I just tried another midi keyboard, gives the same (bad) effect.
I am still in the trial period for Dorico, but this would be a serious problem for me. Hope you can solve it.
Klaas
Sorry, Klaas, I’ve not had a chance to dig into this yet, but I will do so as soon as I can.
OK, I will try to be patient.
Daniel,
My trial period is ending this week. I feel I have wasted a lot of time. Maybe you can arrange for a longer trial period, or give me access for free. There is a lot of good stuff in Dorico, so it would be very disappointing if this can’t be fixed.
Klaas
I’m really sorry not to have been able to come back to this yet, Klaas, and as you’ve seen from how busy the forum is this week with the arrival of many new Finale refugees, I’m unlikely to have time this week either. Please accept my apologies. I have extended your Elements trial until the end of September, and really will try to get back to this thread soon.
Thank you for your reaction, Daniel.
I will try to be patient.
Klaas
Hi Daniel,
I noticed that I do not have access to the trial version anymore. And I see that you haven’t found the time yet.
At the moment, I am very busy with other things. I think I do not have time to take this up before December. This also gives you ample time.
Do you think it is possible that you look into my issue in a few months and let me know if you could fix it. And than send me the key for a new trial period (or a free Essentials version, to compensate my troubles).
Hope you get it fixed, if it is a bug, it is really a nasty one.
Klaas