Fanned beams

I played a extreme rubato passage with midi in cubase and now that it’s in dorico, I need to create multiple fanned beams, both accel and decelerando fanned beams. The deleted the overlaps on the midi notes, but in dorico there are ties on notes, 32nd rests, etc, and it’s really messy. What’s the easiest way to shape up how the notes look? I can’t even get dorico to stop snapping the notes to quantized values when I try to clean stuff up manually…

Hi @logsplitter,
I would suggest to make a copy of your cubase project, and use the powerful Warp Tool, so that your notes sit on actual beats. Then export the midi from that. So importing the midi into Dorico will import also the created tempo map, and the notes sit much better on the beats. And then polishing your midi in Dorico will be more straightforward, and you can create afterwards your fanned beams etc…

Simple example with two notes per bar (Warp tool in Cubase) :

For other more specific suggestions, we need your Dorico file (and possibly the cubase file) if you would like to post them here, to see what strategically is better for this case.

Thanks for the tips using the Warp tool. I’ll check into how that might work for similar situations. (I’m not sure if a custom tempo map will work in this particular case due to other reasons)

Is there a way to actually change the duration and position of the notes in the Engrave Mode? I was hoping that I could simply quantize the location of the visual notes into a note length that works (not the actual notes that play in the “Write” mode) and then simply do the Fanned beams and be done with it. I see there is a place to adjust note length (and where the sound happens) in the midi editor in Play mode, but it looks really fiddly.

In Engrave mode you only change the graphical positioning of items.

You can Requantize a selected passage (in both Engrave or Write mode, but is better to make it in write mode so that you can also visualise the key editor if desired).

And in the Key Editor (that you can visualise in Play mode but also in Write mode) you can change the Notated Durations and the Played durations, switching between the two modes.

For Cubase Warp Tool, I recommend this video:

You can, at the end of using the warp tool in Cubase, delete all the tempo information in Cubase, and all your notes will stay placed correctly into the grid (as before deleting the tempo information), but with an homogeneous metronome. So that the midi exported into Dorico will be much cleaner (but you loose the played agogic). So there are various ways to follow.

I renew my suggestion to share an example Dorico file (and/or Cubase file), for more specific help.

I would kind of like to have the original midi part play back the way I played/recorded it if possible. Maybe I should add a hidden midi track to play back the “rubato” played part, but then edit another “visual” part. Too bad Dorico can’t have them as the same thing.

I ran 1/32 quantize in Cubase, and also “legato”, so all t he notes are at least 1/32, and are the full length until the next note… but it’s still kind of messy in Dorico… with tied notes, and a slanted line (not sure what that is). See two attached images and midi file. (It will probably be easier for me to manually retime the midi notes manually… if I have to… than get up to speed on time-warp)

Also, Dorico must be quantizing the imported midi into this terrible swing timing. How to I shut that off?

quantize from c12.mid (2 KB)


dorico a

… maybe if I can get the notation to import without the swing quantization, and set it up to do 32nd notes (which I don’t know how to do)… then it won’t have that slanted line or overlapping notes (I have not idea why it’s doing that, because my cubase midi file has no overlaps)… anyway, then at that point I can simply put in the feathered beams and the playback will be ok, and all the notes will be there in the correct order with no overlaps.

Hi @logsplitter , here my attempt with your file:

  • edited tempo track with warp tool in Cubase
  • export MIDI and import into Dorico
  • created a duplicate player, duplicate church of music to the new player once at a time, and some quick MIDI editing to create the tuplets (insert mode is your friend)
  • apply the desired fanned beams
  • suppress playback from the corrected version

Cubase file:
quantize from c12.cpr (262.4 KB)

Dorico File:
free imporvisation transcription cubase to dorico.dorico (595.5 KB)

Result:

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Very cool, thanks. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to have different tempos because there are other instruments playing. (the tempo of the piece is 90 btw in case there is another notation solution)

Do you happen to know how import the midi file without the swing quantize, and then set up the measure to do 32nd notes?

@logsplitter
Just set the initial tempo to 90, and delete all the other tempo markings:

Thanks Christian. That really doe look great. I’ll drop that into my existing project.

I have a few follow up questions:

  1. I see that the audio playing back from the original (top) midi stave. Also, the notes are greyed out on the bottom “piano corrected” stave, but not sure how you did this. Do you recommend that I use the top (original midi) to hear the original performance of the piano, but hide that stave from the score, and then include the “piano corrected” in the score?

  2. Would you mind doing the same (dorico file) to the second section of piano improv (second accel/decel section) from my original midi file? I’m so slow at getting up to speed on Dorico… Have at it if you like!

Thanks much for the help.
-Jed

Hi @logsplitter

  1. you select all the music in the “corrected piano” and check the Suppress Playback in the Properties panel, then you can hide the original piano staves (so that they sound but are not visible) editing the system Break that you create at the beginning:

  1. if you can edit the Cubase file and apply the Warp so I know where the bars begin (just activate the warp tool in Cubase and drag the bar lines to the right notes), and then send me the cubase file, I will see what I can do

Great, thanks for the info on hiding the staves and muting.

Using your suggested notation (fanned quintuplet groupings, etc), I went into Cubase and manually created a new “Piano corrected” part for that second part. So I’m all good to go.

Again, many thanks!
-Jed

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You are welcome!