Dynamics on independent voices not working as expected

I’m working on a marimba duet where there will often be two voices on one stave (in a grand staff part).

I’m trying to create independent dynamics that work correctly in playback, but often when I do the shift+D and put in the dynamic and then click option+command+return (I’m on a mac), the dynamic is going to the wrong voice-even in cases where the other voice does not have notes in that measure.

Easier to show pics than to explain. See in the notation, the <f is on mm 41-43:
Screen Shot 2022-06-29 at 10.28.54 PM

But when I go to the Play page, that dynamic went on an empty voice:

How can I make sure the dynamics are being applied to the correct voice? Thanks!

I believe that for multiple voices you should enter dynamics via the caret …this way you can select the voice in the same way that you would select a voice if you were adding notes. Then option click I think…the important thing is to use the caret. The dynamic will let you know what voice it belongs to in the same way a note does when you select it.

I don’t really understand what you mean. When I use the carat that is for one at a time entry. If you need to enter a crescendo that spans multiple notes I don’t see how you’d do that with a carat.

There is a trick:

Press enter or shift + N to start note input

Move caret to the starting position

Press shift + D

Press < and enter

Move caret to the ending position

Press shift + D

Press < and enter

Then press esc to exit note input

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The Space bar advances the popover and extends any open-ended items, like hairpins, pedal lines, playing techniques with duration etc.

I’m still unclear, because I can also just select a bunch of notes (no carat) and do a voice specific dynamic by holding opt+command and enter.

It works a lot of times, but sometimes (like in this post) it doesn’t work.

So why does it work sometimes and not other times?

Dynamics will only be truly voice-specific if they were input both with the caret active (and required voice selected, as indicated beside the caret) and you press Alt/Opt-Return to close the popover and input the dynamic.

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ok. Then can you help me understand what this is? I made a video to show.
https://youtu.be/8viditzmxdo
First I just created non-voice specific dynamics. You can see when I switch to the play screen that the same dynamics are on both lanes. They are not independent.

Next I create independent dynamics by just selecting the note and holding down opt+command and enter. I am not using the carat. So what is this version of creating dynamics if this is not voice specific? I am genuinely trying to understand the difference. Is there anywhere in the manual that talks about the different ways of entering dynamics?

ok-I think I see it-the way I was doing it is creating independent dynamics at the STAFF level, but not at the voice level.

Thank you! That worked great. I understand now.

Absolutely, see here.

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