I’m using Dorico 5 (Pro and Elements), and have issues with Groove Agent. When I drag various rhythm patters into the Play window grid, the sound and drum playing changes.
First off, the sound is softer/lower when playing the drum pattern from Dorico itself in Play or Write window vs. playing from inside Groove Agent. More importantly, the way the drum kit sounds and plays differ considerably, when triggered from Dorico itself.
For instance, if I change the default “Life is simple” pattern set (which plays off correctly) with “Swing Seat SE”, the snare drum hits are different when played back from Dorico Play or Write window, vs. inside Groove Agent. From Dorico itself the snare doesn’t play correctly, with too many hits and incorrect dynamics.
The percussion map listed in Play window is still Groove Agent SE Studio Kit, the same kit afaik as shown in Groove Agent.
This happens with every PC or Mac I’ve tested this on (both Dorico 5 Pro and Elements). Is this a bug, or some rather unintuitive feature? How do I fix this?
I’ve just tried this myself and I find that it works pretty much as I would expect. Make sure you’re using Drum set (full) rather than Drum set (basic) as the kit instrument in Dorico so that all of the instruments in the kit are mapped.
Still doesn’t work, I’m afraid. Using Drum set (full) many patterns don’t match between Groove Agent, and playing them off inside Dorico itself.
Could this be a bug? If not, this is incredibly unintuitive. As it stands, using Dorico for jazz/pop/rock arrangements with a drum kit is not working correctly. Which makes it less than ideal for educational use…
Could you provide some more detailed information, Geir? Which specific pattern are you dragging in from the “Swing Seat SE” kit, and how specifically does it differ from the played result?
It is of course possible to write drum patterns in Dorico using a wide variety of other methods, including inputting the drums individually using mouse, keyboard or MIDI step-time input, or real-time recording, and it’s also possible to edit the music that is created by dragging a pattern from Groove Agent into the Key Editor, so you shouldn’t be at a complete impasse in any case.
Thanks for replying. There are likely many patterns that don’t work properly, but this is very noticeable with the regular rhythms from (not fills) from “Swing Seat SE”. The snare drum hits are different when played back from Dorico Play or Write window, vs. inside Groove Agent. From Dorico itself the snare doesn’t play correctly, with too many hits and incorrect dynamics. The sound is also a bit different (louder, fuller) playing patterns inside Groove Agent.
I’ve tried using Drum Kit (full) sample instrument as previously suggested, but it didn’t make a difference. Something’s definitely off, and I just don’t see how else I can fix this.
If you can figure out what’t not working, it would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks for your reply. I misread your post initially, but have hopefully given a more specific response now. Hopefully you can figure this out, I’m out of ideas.
Any solutions to this issue, anyone from Dorico team/Steinberg?
This affects all my pupils (they use Dorico 5.1), and it’s greatly hampering my pop/rock/jazz assignments. In Sibelius, all I had to do was to drag or insert a rhythm, and it “just works”.
Seems like an issue with mismatched velocity respons for the drums - esp. noticeable on the snare drum. Ghost notes become full hits, when playing the pattern back from Dorico (vs. inside Groove Agent).
Hi @Geir_Eriksen, not sure if this could help. If your goal is to have exactly the same playback, instead of dragging the midi region from GASE into the Play mode window, you could create Midi Trigger Regions that will trigger the various patterns of GA. (I changed the Preferences > General > Middle C to C3 to make Dorico trigger on the same octave as shown in the GA patterns).
So the playback is 1:1. You can then drag the patterns and adjust their length as desired, to have the visualization, and then select all the notes and suppress their playback (so that only the Midi Trigger Regions will produce the playback.
Here a video screenshot of the result with Swing Seat SE (I randomly triggered some of the patterns with their trigger note, which you see in the blue region below the notes):
Thanks Christian for the detailed reply, much appreciated.
However, I know about the Midi Trigger function (control + 0). This way the pupils can’t access the individual notes, and change the rhythm patterns to their liking. Using Midi trigger regions will sound accurate, but it hinders any kind of fine-tuning or changing of the patterns.
This is definitely something that should be looked into and fixed. Being able to fine-tune the drum patterns is an important function.
If you copy and paste a few bars of a drum pattern in the Write window, the copy is not identical. For instance, hit variations - like open and close hi-hat, will not copy correctly, certain details do not carry over.
Not sure this program is fit for this kind of composition assignment, which is unfortunate.
Right now, if you want to use drum patters in Dorico, just view them as sample loops that can’t be altered. The other functionalities typically associated with a notation program are essentially broken.
I suspect the main problem is that when you drag and drop the pattern into the Key Editor, the recorded velocities from the MIDI file are being ignored. Try this:
Instead of dragging the pattern directly into the Key Editor, instead drag it to your computer’s desktop. This will create a MIDI file containing the pattern.
Now in Dorico choose File > Open and choose the MIDI file you dragged onto your desktop. This will show the MIDI Import Options dialog.
You’ll find that Dorico doesn’t work out that this MIDI file contains percussion information by default (because there are no clues in the MIDI file), so edit the instrument it’s chosen to be Drum Set (Full). Then expand the Import Options section at the bottom of the window, and make sure the Preserve note velocities option is activated.
Click OK to complete the import. You should find that the velocities now match what you hear directly in Groove Agent SE more closely.
Having switched on Preserve note velocities, that preference is now set application-wide, so when you next drag in a pattern from Groove Agent SE, velocities should be preserved correctly.
OK, that worked, thanks for the help. Much appreciated!
However, this is highly unintuitive, and more of a band aid on a drum pattern feature not working properly (including copy-and-past in Write window). Hopefully the dev team can make this feature more practical in a future update.
You’ll need to provide specific details of the copying and pasting problem you’ve mentioned here. If you’re copying and pasting from one bar in a specific percussion kit to another bar in the same kit, everything should work exactly as you expect. If you are copying and pasting between two different kits with different instruments, then Dorico may have to perform some re-mapping between the instruments in each kit, in which case you should not expect identical results.
We need more details to be able to troubleshoot what might be going on.
If you copy-and-paste one or more bars of drum notation in the Write window, the copy of the original notes is not complete. Hit variations of different drums or cymbals are not copied over - like open vs. closed hi-hat, or regular snare drum vs rimshot. The copy will be reset to the standard variant (say closed hi-hat, instead of open or foot stamp).
Maybe you can include “preserve all velocities” as default for using drum patterns from Groove Agent (or similar) in the future? There should be no reason to have this turned off. This is not an option in Preferences either, and can only be activated by exporting a drum pattern (or similar) as a midi file - then importing it.
I guess most people use dorico for classical or big-band scores, but practical drum notation features is very useful for educational purposes. Hopefully you can fix these issues in a future update, to make drum writing quicker and easier.
Thanks again for your help!
NB: Being able to right-click the note regions in Play window for dragging, copy, delete etc. would be very useful.
That really isn’t the case, Geir. If you can provide an example project that will allow me to reproduce the issue, please upload it here, together with the steps required to reproduce the problem. When you copy and paste music from one part of a percussion kit to another location elsewhere in that percussion kit, all existing playing techniques are retained.
No, copying patterns (ie. copy-paste bars/notes inside View window) that use hit variations (for example, hi-hat w/feet-stomp becomes regular hit) does NOT work correctly.
Try “Swing Seat SE” from Jazz essentials. This happens both on my Mac using Dorico Pro 5, and on my students’ PC/Macs using Dorico Elements 5.
Dragging patterns from Groove Agent into the Play window work as intended, after exporting and importing a midi-file, using “preserve all velocities”. For a future update, it would be better it this was activated from the get-go, or an option available in the preferences.
Thanks again for your help, and hoping for an upcoming fix/patch.
I need specifics, Geir. I’ve dragged lots of different patterns out of Swing Seat SE into Dorico and then copied and pasted the imported music into later bars in the same project, and all of the playing techniques are preserved correctly. I know it feels like I’m asking you to do work here, and you probably feel like that should be my job, but in order to investigate a problem, I need a clear set of steps to follow, or (even better) a project that you attach here together with a set of steps to follow.
For example, take a look at the attached project. I dragged Main 13 from Swing Seat SE into the first bar of a Drum set (full) instrument. It contains both rim shots in the snare drum and “foot” techniques for the hi-hat in the first bar. Select that bar by clicking somewhere in a blank part of the staff, and copy it to the clipboard. Now select a bar rest in e.g. bar 6, and paste. The snare rim shot and the hi-hat foot technique are correctly preserved.
If you have a counter-example, make a similarly trivial example project, and upload it here, together with the steps required to reproduce the problem.
Ok, I just opened up a new template (also tried several different ones), and I use Drum kit (full).
Here is an example (I also did the import-export midi thing first). The last bar is a copy of the first bar, as you can see - the copy is not complete/correct. In this case it’s the hi-hat, but it can also be the snare (rim-shot vs regular hit) etc.
