I’m a new Dorico user, with Dorico 6. I can’t get my ghost notes to play any softer. I struggled for a while, then followed the advice from a video tutorial and set a max volume for my ghost notes to 50 (shown below). It worked! Both when I put it on the CC11 expression map, and on the default expression map. But then I tried to set an expression so that playback would recognize accents, but it didn’t work, and now it won’t recognize ghost notes anymore either. I tried resetting my playback template, but no luck. I also tried just using the regular bracketed noteheads, and it didn’t recognize that either.
I also tried using the controls under the Dynamics tab of Playback Options, but they have no effect for either accents or ghost notes, no matter what I set the numbers to. I tried it both with and without the custom expression map shown below. I tried adding this custom expression to CC11, Default, and Iconica Sketch Percussion Map, and it’s not working with any of them.
I’m running the drums through Groove Agent SE.
How did I make it happen before, and how do I do it again? And how do I make accents louder? I’ve been so overwhelmed with all of the moving parts in making playback work in Dorico, and I am really struggling.
Welcome to the forum, Michael. There are indeed a lot of moving parts in Dorico’s playback system, so it’s completely understandable that you should feel a bit at sea.
To make a ghost note, all you need to do is right-click a notehead in the drum part and choose the option from the Notehead submenu to enclose it in round brackets. Then the option in the Note Dynamics section of the Dynamics page of Library > Playback Options will take effect.
Similarly, to make accents louder, you only need to change the corresponding option on the Dynamics page of Playback Options.
If this isn’t working, I wonder whether the issue is that the notes in your drum part have overridden velocities, because you either played them live using real-time input, or you imported them from MIDI? Try selecting the notes and choosing Play > Reset Playback Overrides. Now they should respond to Dorico’s automatic dynamic changes.
They come from midi, yes. This is a file I imported as MusXML from Finale. I just tried your suggestions on a separate file that I started in Dorico (VST source Groove Agent SE), and it worked there. But it still didn’t work on the one from Finale.
I just tried resetting the expression map to default and resetting the playback overrides, I switched the custom ghost note notation to the regular bracketed noteheads (and got rid of the custom ghost note playing technique in the setup page), and I increased the values on the Dynamics options, but none of them made a difference.
After following those instructions, I tried routing the audio through a drum set sound in HALion Sonic instead, and it only partially worked. It did reduce the volume, but it also reduced it for the cymbals that should still have been ringing. No dynamic change when I switch it back to Groove Agent.
edit: I also tried deleting the notes and inputting them directly into Dorico, and it was the same. BUT, I just tried making an entirely new file in Dorico, and just pasting everything from the first file into the new one, and that worked. So maybe that’s what I need to do for all the files from Finale.
It would be interesting to see one of the Dorico projects that you’ve made by importing MusicXML, so we can see what’s different about the configuration in those projects. Do you want to attach one of them here?
Here’s the file I imported. It’s really long, so I cut it to only the one phrase with the ghost notes. The “new project” file is the one I made by setting up a new file and pasting the notes in.
Ghost notes sample new project.dorico (2.3 MB)
Ghost notes sample.dorico (2.6 MB)
