Drawing in CC is still buggy

In my expression maps, my volume dynamics are set to CC1 and CC11. However in my current project (created in Dorico 3.5), the CC lanes don’t change when I edit my dynamics. So instead I’m trying to edit them manually. But this example shows some of the difficulty I’m having. I got used to this in Dorico 3.5, but I was really hoping it would be fixed in Dorico 4.

Sidenote, but why are there no shortcuts for the Tools in Play Mode anymore? The big pause in this gif is because I had to switch tools using the mouse.

drawingCC

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The single key shortcuts for the tools in Play mode do still work, but they’re not accessible when you’re using the Key Editor in Write mode because they conflict with note input shortcuts. See this post:

The problem you’re having with CC editing is that you cannot have two points at precisely the same rhythmic position. Dorico doesn’t (at the moment, anyway) provide a line tool with multiple nodes, and a particular point cannot therefore be both the end of one line and the start of another. The grid resolution for the controller lanes is very fine-grained, so I would hope that if you started your next ramp from the very next grid position after the end of the previous one, there would be no (or next to no) audible difference.

Gotcha. I’m also curious about a shortcut for the arrow tool, that would be a good thing.

Thanks for the explanation, that makes sense. The problem is, which you can see in my gif, is that when I start the next line from the next grid position, there’s still a big dip where the original CC information was, which sounds like an audible glitch. My last move was to drag the 2nd line start point over, which works. It’s just a lot of steps. Also, I’d much rather be making these changes in Write Mode, in the score, by just editing my dynamics. I’m not sure why making changes to dynamics sometimes has no effect on the CC information. I’m crossing my fingers that when the dynamics lane is reinstated, all of this will be sorted out.

Another example, look at what my dynamic marks are in the score vs. what the CC information looks like (for both CC1 and CC11) in measures 127 and 128.

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Yes, I can certainly see the dips there, but it looks as if you don’t have any of your own data at that point; that’s what Dorico is doing on its own. Do you know why the controller value for dynamics doesn’t appear to be applied until after the note onset? I may be very much mistaken, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what Dorico does by default using its built-in sounds and expression maps.

Yes, I guess I showed that to demonstrate why I’m editing CC so much in the first place. I sort of ended up addressing two issues with CC in this post. However there is also a dip in my original gif when I enter the 2nd line on the next gridpoint, it’s very thin but it’s audible.

I’m not sure, the CC doesn’t even closely resemble what I have entered in the score. There shouldn’t be any sudden jumps. This is using an expression map of my own making to use with one of my 3rd party libraries, but I do have dynamics set to CC1 and CC11. It works most of the time, but it would nice if it worked all the time and didn’t disrupt my workflow. I find myself obsessively checking the CC because I don’t trust it. Is there something in the expression map that might be causing this?

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Hallo - vielleicht hängt es mit meinem Problem zusammen?

Yes, that’s exactly the problem. Good to know I’m not the only one!

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Thanks for raising this issue. It’s very frustrating not having a multi-point draw tool. I find in its current form it’s not really useable because I spend so much time trying to align one draw with the one before it without overlapping. I also find I get random dynamic dropouts too, which I’d like to use the draw tool to smooth out. Not sure where they come from, but out of the blue they’ll appear for a couple of bars and then the dynamics will be smooth again. The other thing that’s a bit frustrating is not having mouse-over tooltips. So I try to use the key editor tools and then find their behaviour is non-intuitive, but have no idea why. It was only by searching this forum that I discovered that the line tool is not multipoint. Would have been nice to have that info in a mouse-over, or somewhere more immediately accessible. (I still haven’t figured out how to move the piano roll left and right without having to go back to the notation to do it.) Another frustration is the link button doesn’t stay linked, and the horizontal zoom level reverts back to its default when the link is reset. It would be nice to have the piano roll and dynamics link to the notated music and move in lock-step at the same zoom level.

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We know that the behaviour of trying to add data to the controller lane when the area involved already has data is not ideal: Dorico needs to be able to merge those regions automatically so that you don’t end up with gaps between the points you have drawn. Once we change that, I think you’ll find that compensates for the lack of a multi-point line tool, because if the final point in the previous region is “Linear”, then it will automatically join to the first newly-drawn point.

To move the piano roll left and right, hold Shift and scroll your mouse wheel.

It’s by design that the link is disabled as soon as you manually scroll or zoom the piano roll: it can’t stay linked if you whizz off somewhere else. We decided against trying to do the converse operation, where scrolling the piano roll would try to keep the corresponding notation in view, because especially in page view this could be very disorientating.

Thanks for your note, Daniel, and tips on scrolling. Regarding dynamics, I found it easier to open my project in 3.5 where I could see the dynamics lane, do the fixes in my CC1 and CC11 lanes, and then return to 4. I also find in 3.5 that I can join line segments seamlessly for <> dynamics, whereas I seemed unable in 4. Also, to give another example of weird CC behaviour, here are a couple of screenshots: one showing aberrant drop outs in CC1 and CC11 not showing the dynamic at all, this right next to a hairpin that behaved correctly.

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as the dynamic lane in D3.5 already has data for any dynamics changes so you only need to edit rather than add, and for many, a large proportion of dynamics changes will be to this lane, it’s simply likely to work better. This doesn’t excuse the disappointingly erratic behaviour of adding data in D4 currently – I find the same issues as described above – but I’m fully confident Daniel and Co. will sort this all out sooner rather than later with the planned action.

Other than this, I think the latest patch release has made significant strides in improving the overall experience of the Key Editor in Write mode. For instance right-click to bring up the alternative tools has been very nicely implemented.

Franklly, I’ve put D4 on the shelf for now. Will pick it back up after what was lost is back. What is new is good, but I’ll wait until pre-existing 3.5 functionality is re-added.

Yes, reluctantly I’ve done the same. There are many fine improvements for note entry and notation management in D4. However, I’m an amateur composer. I spend 98% of my time in the practice of composition. Putting the notes into the app is a very small part of my time. Instead I’d love some tools for quick “musical grammar” checks of voice leading, counterpoint “rules”.

I really like that Dorico has many features (e.g., expression maps etc) for rendering notated music, but a big thing for me is dynamical control. To get a decent demo, I need to be able to see and tweak the dynamics easily, and have confidence that they’ll be translated into CCs. Right now, I find that not to be the case. I’d really like a view where I could lock the automation lanes to the notation at the same scale so I can move sideways, play the music and hop between notation and automation. I want to avoid having to export to a DAW - I don’t need that level of mix and mastering - but I don’t think Dorico is quite there yet.

Also, I’m fairly new to Dorico’s engraving and in many respects it’s really good, but it lacks features to integrate the music in with supporting text and image material. I’d like to be able to lock text material to the start of flows so that text pages don’t get displaced into the middle of the music. I find I spend quite a bit of time manually managing the text/image/music content in Engrave mode.

I don’t like swapping between 2 versions of Dorico, so for now, the finishing touch (playback) of my projects is on hold.

I have the same problems with cc jumps.

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