Hello,
I’m preparing a presentation in which I want to demonstrate the audible differences between several historical tuning systems — specifically Just Intonation, Pythagorean tuning, various meantone temperaments, and Werckmeister III — as well as the sizes and effects of several commas, including the Pythagorean, syntonic, and Jing Fang (Mercator) commas.
I’m looking for a workflow in Dorico that is as intuitive and straightforward as possible, since my audience will consist largely of music lovers with no formal training. Clarity and simplicity are therefore very important.
I have already built a comparison setup in SuperCollider that reads a MIDI file and plays it back in different tunings. At the moment I’m using Bach’s Prelude No. 8 in E-flat minor from The Well-Tempered Clavier I, based on a MIDI file from bachcentral.com. In the SuperCollider version, I also compare several specific intervals — for example, a major third (A3–C♯4), a perfect fourth (C♯4–F♯4), a tritone (E♭4–A4), a perfect fifth (F♯3–C♯4), and a minor sixth (C♯4–A4) — across equal temperament, Pythagorean tuning, and Just Intonation.
That works well for audio, but SuperCollider is limited when it comes to clear score display. For that reason, I’m now considering recreating the same project in Dorico, so that I can present both the notation and the playback more clearly.
Before I go too far, I’d be grateful for advice from anyone with experience using Dorico for this kind of tuning comparison.
Would the best approach be to create separate flows, each containing the same musical material but assigned a different tuning system, using Dorico’s microtonal notation tools for the score and pitch-bend-based playback where possible?
Or is it generally better to rely on virtual instruments that already support historical temperaments internally, and simply switch temperament presets between flows or players?
More specifically, is Dorico itself practical for regular systems such as Pythagorean or quarter-comma meantone, but less suitable for circulating temperaments such as Werckmeister III?
For context, I currently have access to NotePerformer, Komplete, some older Kontakt/XSample libraries, and the HALion-based instruments included with Dorico. If anyone has experience with how well these respond to microtonal pitch bend, custom tonality systems, or Scala-style retuning, I’d be very interested to hear about it.
I’ve looked at a few related discussions already, including:
- Is there an easy way to set up an unequal temperament in Dorico?
- Steinberg forum discussion on unequal temperament in Dorico
- Well Temperment
- Dorico sending scales to players
but I’m not sure how much the situation has changed in recent versions of Dorico.
Finally, if anyone has recommendations for:
- a piece of music that works especially well for demonstrating tuning differences, or
- instruments that reveal those differences particularly clearly,
I would be very glad to hear them.
Many thanks in advance for any advice.
