Hello - I’ve been using the new cycle feature quite a bit - it is very useful for my guitar transcription projects.
But, I have a request (of course - grin!).
When checking a section of a transcription against the original recording, I frequently slow down the recording (using the Reaper DAW) - to let’s say 50% of the recording.
I then frequently put in a temporary tempo near the start of the measures in question (dividing the current tempo by 2). This works fine - it helps compare my transcription to the original recording. But - it’s unwieldy… I frequently have to search my transcription to remove spurious tempo marks.
So, my enhancement request is to be able to attach a modified tempo multiplier (like 50%, or 30%, or even 125%) to the Cycle widget - perhaps in the Properties Panel? The tempo multiplier would be in effect only during the cycle play, and wouldn’t affect the rest of the score.
This would greatly speed up my “workflow”, and hopefully others could put it to good use!
There are actually other uses of a tempo multiplier - for “score following” systems for live electronics. Without this, it is very hard to make adjustments if the score starts running ahead of or behind the performer due to tempo differences. So I think such a feature would have applications far beyond the cycle widget itself and completely outside of cycle playback. The same slider UI as in fixed tempo could probably theoretically be used but in follow tempo mode it would be percentage based.
It is very awkward to use Dorico for score following at the moment because it lacks this feature.
It might also be useful for people in general to experiment with different tempi (taking the entire piece a bit slower or faster) while preserving all rits and accel information and changes.
I do remember such a tempo control by ratio already having been requested by members of the forum (including myself) and subsequently been noted as an addition to the backlog by the team. I guess we will indeed see it at some point in the future.
Until a tempo multiplier (connected to the Cycle playback or not) is implemented (if ever), this is extremely useful to me! If I set the fixed mode tempo to about half the actual tempo, I can achieve my desired goal by simply toggling Fixed mode on and off.
