Hello Dorico team,
I would like to suggest some ideas about the IRV option in Dorico 4.
Personally I prefer how this function was designed in Dorico 3.5.
it didn’t create separate tracks per voice.
it didn’t consume vertical screen space.
Once IRV in Dorico 4 is turned on, no way to restore the previous state.
Here are the suggestions I have in mind:
The design from Dorico 3.5 to be returned for this function.
When we are working in multiple voices mode, then the Automations and Velocity… should work per voice basis.
Copy and Paste of Automations is needed. Similar as in Cubase.
When switching from All Voices On, to Off the Automation Data per voice should be preserved and bypassed. When All Voices is off we’ll need to have separate global Automation Data for all voices. When the All Voices in switched on, then the global Automation should be preserved and bypassed.
We’ll need Channel Controls per voice, too.
I think that way screen space will be saved and the things will work much more efficiently.
For what it’s worth I have found IRV to be really valuable. For one thing, it seems to have fixed this NotePerformer intonation issue in a big Wagner Götterdämmerung file:
I’m not so sure. I like the new approach - it offers up more, and better options.
I do agree with you on vertical screen space. Ideally the original track should become a folder for the newly created IRV Tracks, so you can hide or see them.
One change I would make is to put them in staff order, rather than note direction order.
Aren’t the Channel controls already available by voice? Maybe I’m missing something…
The only thing that strikes me, but I might be wrong, is that, when you create too many voices, Dorico does not delete the extra unused voices anymore. Please tell me I am mistaken — and how to get rid of those unwanted voices
One improvement I’d like to see is automatic creation of a seperate track when you have Solo(s) staves in a divisi (So they can easily be assigned a soloist patch instead of a section patch)., Ideally playback templates could handle this automatically.
@MarcLarcher,
I think “Remove Tracks” in Play Mode is still not integrated. I also was trying to find a way to delete unused Voice tracks. Unfortunately the Manual for version 4.0 does not contain the Play Mode yet.
@Stephen_Taylor and @David_Tee,
I’m not saying that the IRV option is bad and not valuable. Just in the comment of mine I suggest something even better.
All Voices to be layered within a single track but with option to route them to separate channels and when All Voices is activated the CCs, Velocity and Pitch Bend to work per voice basis, not in a global way.
Another good approach would be if we can have an option to hide the Voice Tracks behind the Main Instrument Track and invoke them whenever we need them.
@TylerE,
Yes, for Soli and gli altri would be nice if Dorico can create a separate track for the solo instrument.
It is still the case that unused voices will be deleted when the project is reopened, but if you have empty divisi sections and independent voice routing enabled, voices belonging to those divisi sections will not be deleted even if they are empty, so that there are still voices present in the project to appear in Play mode and in the various places where such voices have to appear. This isn’t new behaviour in Dorico 4, as far as I remember.
Staff(a): assigned to a VST playing 1/2 ensemble celli
Staff(b): assigned to a VST playing 1/2 ensemble celli
Staff(c) assigned to a VST playing Solo Cello
The divisi at bar 5 plays back correctly but at bar 13 the Solo part is played by the Staff(a) ensemble VST. If I assign the Solo patch to Staff(a), then I don’t get ensemble playback prior to bar 13.
I discovered that in the Change Divisi dialog there is no way to reorder the soloist and divisions.
Is there a way I can have a two-part divisi followed by a divisi with a divisi of soloist and two parts and have it play back the way I want?
you have to change the solo cello to yet another voice and assing that to ”solo cello” vst.
You have to build your cello vst’s into VEPro in a way that it is possible to switch between solo, half and full section via expression maps. (For every voice)
I have also proposed one solution this problem back in 2020:
If there is some documentation about IRV, could someone kindly point me toward it? I have three separate staves (instruments) for each of my string sections to accommodate three different channels, and I suspect that there is a much better way to do this. Thank you.
Under normal circumstances you don’t really need to use IRV. Simply use three staves for three instruments on three midi channels. The IRV thing really only comes into play if you want to keep all your music on one stave, but have different sounds for each voice. It is somewhat of an alternative way of working with say three flutes in your orchestra - You could have three staves, one for each flute, routed to three flute instruments, or even the same instrument, and then use condensing to have them all appear on one or maybe two staves instead of three. With IRV you would write all your music on one stave, but use upstem voice 1 for flute 1, upstem voice 2 for flute 2, and downstem voice 1 for flute 3, all routed either to one flute vst, or maybe three flute vst’s for more realism if you have all three playing the same note for example. One of the advantages over condensing as I see it, is that you can freely edit the notes in page view, whereas once condensed, you have to go to Galley view to edit your notes, and then you can’t visually see the harmonic relationships so easily because it’s basically open score. That’s my take on it anyways…there are pros and cons and for things like divisi it can certainly be useful, although it can get a little complicated if you are not careful with your voice allocation and management as you can see from the above posts!
The Dorico 4 manual doesn’t yet include Play mode, as the entire mode changed significantly and I’ve not finished updating the text. For now, the 4.0.10 Version History is a good place to go for information.
The existing 3.5 docs about enabling independent voice playback (as I/we called it then) might still be of some use with a healthy side portion of salt, as the basic principle remains the same, although the visual impact of separate tracks is different.
Thank you. This explains a lot, since most of what I have been searching for requires play mode.
It seems that I might already be tackling this in the best way. If I use five different patches for Violin I (and I might), I need five separate staves each routed to a different channel. Is there a better way to do this? I was attracted to the idea that I could use different voices for different channels, but it sounds like this might be more trouble than it is worth.
I think if they are all doubling up the same material because you are thickening up the sound, yes, I would be tempted to have duplicate instruments held by additional players. But if it’s all music played by the same section and you require multiple patches/devices, and the printed appearance is important, then I would be tempted to use divisi and/or independent voice playback in concert.
