I’m a Finale refugee still trying to figure out how to do LV (Let Vibrate) for handbell music. I think I see how to make a map for MIDI sustain pedal down and sustain pedal up. But I don’t know what to put in the score to trigger these expression maps. What’s the secret?
In short, you should be able to simply use the playing techniques popover (shift+P) and add l.v. over the note. To extend how long it sustains, you’ll want to use a continuation line - with l.v. selected type shift+alt+right arrow and you’ll get two little dots, allowing you to drag out the right one as long as you want the note to sustain.
Regarding mapping, I think it depends on the library you’re using, what it is expecting. Most libraries respond natively to sustain pedal messages (CC64). So you may not need to actually map anything, if your library acts like a piano for instance, and knows to sustain when the CC64 is “high.” In which case you should be good to go with the above.
If your library does require a special mapping for l.v., you can access ‘laissez vibrer’ in the expression map base list. Or, in some cases you may need to do the inverse, where natural is always left to ring, and you could then add a damp or muted base switch to do the opposite when you don’t want it to ring (and then you would add damp or muted playing techniques in the score).
This is what I’ve tried in my attempts to get a functioning LV in Dorico with both a marking in the score for handbell performers and for Dorico playback.
I tried Playing Techniques under Library. I could change the technique “l.v.” to “LV” (the handbell standard) and change “non l.v.” to “R” (the handbell standard to end an LV and return to note-value ringing). I haven’t found how to trigger a playing technique so that I hear it in playback.
I tried adding a popover for “l.v.” It had no effect on playback.
I tried creating pedal lines, which affected playback in the manner I need. This could work if I could replace the “Ped” symbol with “LV”, the “*” damp symbol with something else, and remove the pedal line to bring them to the handbell standard. But in Engraving Options > Pedal Lines > Design I don’t see a way to do that. What does the Ped sustain do to affect playback? How might I do something similar?
I tried the Key Editor to use played vs. notated durations. This, plus text markers to tell performers what to do, gives me what I want, but it is tedious to extend every affected note.
And I’m back to this forum question. I see the Expression Map allows me to set MIDI controllers to start and stop sustain. But I don’t know what to put in the score to trigger the sustain or damp expressions at particular times.
I would welcome suggestions to make any of these ideas work.
Have you linked them as well to playback techniques? The names can be confusing but they are entirely separate and meant to work in tandem. Playing techniques would be for the score as formatted for players; but in order to make them do something for your playback library, you have to connect them via the playback techniques editor menu.
Yes, that sounds about right, basically the library is treating ringing like a sustain pedal. You can always manually override this in the key editor > automation > CC64. Any value 65 and above will sustain, anything 64 and below will not.
I would start first with connecting playback techniques. FYI you won’t have to change the name of playback techniques (unless you want to) because these are hidden from the actual score – they are really just the back-end to connect your maps to your library. the playback name for LV is ‘laissez vibrer’ which you can use as is. You can rename this to LV if you prefer but again not necessary. There is also damp and muted available as playback techniques.
If these don’t work, and the PED. with continuation lines does, I would just add the Ped lines as is for playback purposes, and then hide them in the bottom panel after you finish writing. Then you could still add your playing techniques as you normally would for handbell players. This might sound tedious but it would be a lot faster than your alternatives in key editor, especially since you could select all ped lines and hide them at once.
If you need to re-adjust or unhide them at any point, you can see where they exist using signposts. Hope that helps.