Is there a way to make grace notes play back with a legato articulation? The only result of this notation…
…is that the note on the downbeat is rendered as a legato note:
It’s annoying but possible… First grab the first one and try to edit it, this will happen:
The grab the beginning and drag it to where you want it:
Then grab the end and do the same:
Now when you grab the other only the end should move… Cumbersome but doable!
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Thank you! That works fine for the grace notes. Now my only problem is that the downbeat is rendered as legato, although it’s notated as staccato. It doesn’t help that I restrict the slur to the three grace notes.
I suspect this is because Dorico “in theory” puts the grace notes on the downbeat (as indicated by the thin blue lines) and there can only be one articulation at any given time.
Given that this is quite a common notation, is there any chance that Dorico might change this so that the notated articulation for the principal note takes precedence on the downbeat?
You shouldn’t really use expression maps… They’re crap and rarely play correctly. I don’t let Dorico handle even the dynamics! Everything manual, like a real musician…
Yeah, maybe I’m naive. But I’m getting some pretty good results with the setup I have so far. So if you don’t use expression maps, how do you handle articulation changes for playback?
I usually have a separate hidden instrument assigned to the same VST. That way I can work on it in Galley view, but the score in Page view looks normal… It’s also a useful method if you need extra VSTs for one score instrument e.g. special FX, extended techniques.
That’s a great solution! I hadn’t thought about that option, but will have to try it now. 
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If you do everything manually, you would be working against the underlying philosophy of Dorico. You won’t be getting near the complete value out of it. Though agreed sometimes you have no choice.
For example - instead of dragging the end of the notes around as described above, it is far better to set the percentage of written duration for legato to 105% (one time) so that you never have to think about it.
Having said that - As far as the staccato down beat I’m not sure what is right. Dorico seems to be treating the note and its grace notes as a single unit for purposes of applying articulation. I can for example create a combination playing technique in the expression map that triggers differently on legato + staccato. But then my legato + staccato PT seems to be triggered for the whole unit and not just on the down beat where the staccato appears. I don’t know if this is a bug in this version, or if I need to do a little more reading of Ms. Gould.
I honestly don’t see another solution. I am constantly getting issues with articulations not being triggered or untriggered. Also different VSTs have different dynamics curves and don’t play nice with each other. For the most part, I also don’t agree with what Dorico considers a mf and even less a ppp.
All these issues were prevalent in Sibelius too, which has led me to conclude that it’s the philosophy of automating performance which doesn’t work. Noteperformer follows a different philosophy and works marginally better…
I generally don’t have issues getting things to trigger or un-trigger when I want… This one would be an exception for today… But fair.
I guess the main thing for me is progress not perfection. I don’t expect it to be automatic. I do experience it to be a bit like painting a house; where you might have to paint some of the trim with a brush, but most of it can be done with a spray gun.
I think the day is close (controversial maybe, but I’m betting the farm) that a composer using Dorico will (in the end) have the advantage over playing parts into a DAW especially when individual voicing and orchestration is expected.
Today there are always CC tweaks and doubles but hey, the DAW people are doing that too. I think playing to a click seems like a survival skill we all would do well to acquire. We could use a few of the Cubase macros…
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Absolutely! I haven’t use my DAW in years… Well since Dorico 2.something. I’m very happy using Dorico for composing and full playback in one go, but I can only get it to do that manually. Just wish the Play window was friendlier…
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