I’ve migrated to Dorico from Finale and have been watching tutorials, employing First Steps guide, online manual, etc, to complete my first project. Still an uphill learning curve, but believe I can do this! My question is whether/how Dorico can reproduce something like the “Human Playback” feature in Finale, whereby certain styles (eg, Baroque, Classical, Jazz, or custom) may be applied to an entire piece–guess that would be “Flow” in Dorico-speak. I’m guessing there is a means to accomplish this end through techno prowess, but would be great if the Dorico folk could create an easy facility (as was available in Finale) for people like me who lack technical skills. Thanks in advance!
Dynamics have various “humanization” playback options:
Things like, for example, swing-feel playback are also handled through playback options and can be added via the tempo popover:
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Thanks! The links you provide are clearly on point. As I’m not technically adept at the various adjustments these facilities appear to require, it will take much effort on my part to try to combine them to create various styles that Finale “Human Playback” simply unified in one-click selections. But I guess, unless the Dorico staff develops an equivalent facility, I will just need to make the effort. Again, truly appreciate your prompt/helpful response!
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Human Playback was pretty good with baroque ornaments, and there’s nothing like that in Dorico. You’ll have to write them out (on a hidden staff perhaps). Except for a trill.
So, I need to roll up my sleeves and cobble in Dorico something in place of the easy Human Playback solutions in Finale, and hope the great development team at Dorico comes up with a more streamlined approach. But I don’t want to leave the wrong impression—I find much extremely attractive in Dorico. For example, the “popover” system is awesome!
Depending on your musical needs in Dorico, NotePerformer also has “humanizing” aspects. Sounds generally pretty darn good, too.
The playback options can do a lot in terms of humanising note start points and dynamics, as well as dynamic curves, beat stress, and the playback effect of articulations. Dorico has also 'pitch contour emphasis ’ which adjusts playback based on the shapes of phrases, and options around polyphonic playback to help with balancing of voices.
Something I find very useful is that it’s possible to override the general values for particular sample libraries, because different libraries definitely respond to dynamics differently.
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Well, NotePerformer sounds intriguing. I’ll likely wait till I gain more experience with Dorico and/or I’m ready to spoil myself with a further piece of software. Something I have found–no doubt no news to you more experienced hands–is that I’m able to access instruments from my GPO5 library via VST (really not something I understand, but was able to fumble through as result of a helpful video someone posted online " Using Dorico 5 with the Garritan Personal Orchestra for newbies!")
I will need to refer to your helpful pointers when–in future–I try to reconstruct humanizing playback on Dorico. Many thanks!
Finale’s HP was tightly integrated with Garritan and the Aria player, effectively functioning as a one-stop set-it-and-forget-it articulation map. HALion has similar preconfigured maps in Dorico. This is quite unlike the VST universe at-large with its bewildering and divergent articulation maps. In some cases, there are articulation maps available for Dorico, and even pre-configured playback templates.
In Finale, if using other VSTs, one also needs to create ‘articulation maps’, ie an HP library, using keyswitches and CC signals; that route is just as complicated.
Understood. I was/am a raving fan of GPO5, so I never ventured into using other instruments or instrument packages. As a beginner with Dorico, at first I created my (as of yet one and only) project with the HALion instruments. Perhaps I needed to implement adjustments of which I’m ignorant, but in any event I found the sound not to my taste. I was glad to find the video (mentioned in a previous post) that helped me access my Garritan instruments. Btw, I must acknowledge my gratitude to you and the others who have posted in response to my original topic. It’s generous of those so experienced to share with a Dorico “newbie” such as I!
I’m only just a couple weeks out of the gate myself, but I’m past the steep part of the learning curve, and it’s much flatter terrain to reach the the flag at the pinnacle. The key in HALion - and GPO5 is incredible (violins sampled tremolo? SAM brass?) - is to open the mixer and put a reverb on the output channel. There should be a couple Steinberg reverbs there. But if you already have GPO5 running, take the baton and sprint to the finish line.
I’ll get back to Garritan eventually, but I’m porting my latest arrangements over, the ones that are still works-in-progress; I only need an audio proof - my final mixes are produced in a DAW.
Thanks for the tip about putting reverb on the output channel to improve the playback experience with HALion. I’ll refer back if/once I return to experiment further with HALion. As of now, I will try to continue with GPO5 which has consistently provided excellent playback for my tastes/needs. While I have (once in a blue moon:-) attempted arrangements for larger ensembles, typically I create duet and trio arrangements to sing with friends (or sometimes to play chamber music). I tend to use flute for soprano, clarinet for alto, and cello for bass (although on occasion I do more whimsical combos like the clarinet-tuba duo I employed for my arrangement of Baby Face:-). Thanks again for taking the time to tutor/encourage me!