Dorico doesn't play dynamics?

Dorico
1

Hello,
I have imported midi files using the “preserve velocity” option, but now Dorico doesn’t make any difference between a ppp and a fff in my score. Crescendo and decrescendo don’t do anything either.
Is there any way to reset the velocity to default, or something else to make dynamic changes work?
Dorico 2.1.10.1080 - macOS 10.13.6 - Halion Sonic SE
thanks
Florent

2

IIRC Not all instruments (particularly sustaining instruments) use velocity to control volume. You need to be sure you have the appropriate expression maps installed for the instruments you are using.

Presumably Play > Load Sounds for Unassigned Instruments or changing and resetting the Playback Template should help.

3

I would also highly recommend Note Performer for playback which makes a huge difference.

  • D.D.
4

This is expected behaviour - you’ve asked it to preserve the velocities so it will use those rather than dynamics. You can go to play mode and choose Play / Reset Overrides to tell Dorico to ignore these and it will respect dynamics again.

5

thanks!
I’ve already tried the “Load Sounds for Unassigned Instruments” and the “Reset Overrides” in the Play menu but in this case it doesn’t do anything.
for example, I do not hear any difference in volume in the vibraphone between bars 4 and 5 when it should be pretty drastic
Screen Shot 2018-11-23 at 11.19.27 AM.png
any other idea?

6

Did you select all notes before doing Reset Overrides? (it operates on the selection)

7

yes I just tried selecting all notes and it does not make any difference
a pppp plays at the same volume as a ffff…

8

I suggest you attach your project here so we can take a look at it. Please zip it up before you attach it.

9

Have you changed the sounds in HALion Sonic SE? If so, one possible cause is that the expression map is wrong (eg Dorico is using mod wheel for dynamics but the patch uses note velocity)

10

thanks for you help! I am working on a temporary laptop on which I quickly installed Dorico to work. Maybe something went wrong in the installation?

I just tried to add new players and copy the music on them, to restart computer and Dorico, to click on “Load Sounds for Unassigned Instruments”, to delete the Halion plugin and put it back, to manually assign instruments, to click on “Load Sounds for Unassigned Instruments” again
right now, it seems like the dynamics are working but the percussion only play one note…
So2-06.dorico.zip (773 KB)

11

and to answer Paul’s question, no I haven’t changed anything, I just intalled Dorico on this computer

12

I find that when I open your project, the vibraphone doesn’t play back at all; choosing Play > Playback Template and re-confirming the choice of ‘HSSE+HSO (Pro)’ is sufficient to sort this out. The vibes and marimba seem to respond to dynamics just fine for me.

The dynamics for drum kits are a bit more complicated, unfortunately. Because drum kits are made up of a number of individual instruments, at the moment, Dorico can only play dynamics that are assigned to those individual instruments rather than to the kit as a whole. If you go to the Players page of Layout Options and set the drum kit to appear as ‘Single-line instruments’, you can then add dynamics to all instruments of the kit there, e.g. add them on the bass drum and then copy and paste them to the other instruments in the kit. This will make them play back as expected when you return to using the 5-line staff presentation type.

In the forthcoming update, you will be able to add dynamics to multiple instruments in one step, so although you will still have to show the percussion kit as single-line instruments to add dynamics that will play back, you should find that it’s not too labour-intensive to add dynamics to make your drum kit play back as expected.

13

thanks Daniel!
for some reason on this machine re-confirming the HSSE+HSO in the Payback Templates, brings the sounds back but vibes and marimba still don’t response to dynamics.
that’s OK though, I’ll just use my imagination!
Florent