I have been checking out various posts on here about dynamics and volume, but I’m not getting the results I’m hoping for. Here’s my situation:
I create piano accompaniments of songs that are played on a Yamaha CVP digital grand piano. The MIDI files are played with two tracks–one is the “guide” track (vocal melody) and the second is the piano accompaniment. In Finale, when adding dynamics I would often edit the dynamic “Key Velocity” for pp or f or ff. Pianissimo was always too soft and forte and fortissimo were way too loud. I’m having that problem in Dorico–but to an even greater extreme. Pianissimo sounds like someone playing a piano chord three doors down. Forte sounds like someone is taking a sledgehammer to my piano for every chord. I would like dynamic contrast, but just not THAT much.
Things I’ve tried:
In playback options I’ve tried experimenting with dynamic curve, minimum/maximum dynamic level, and turning off/on “Reset dynamic level for short consecutive…”
In Expression Maps there is a section called Base and Add on Switches. This seems to have given me some greater success, but I’m not sure what this does. Can someone explain to me how this works? Unfortunately the docs on this aren’t very helpful. See screen-shot.
If there’s something else I can do to get the desired effects, I’m open to try.
You have basically covered most of the influential settings. Additionally, you should review the humanization options under Playback Options (first beat accent, polyphony settings etc.). Fiddle with those settings with the key editor open observing how changing each setting affects the velocity lane.
Also, if you have slurs or articulations in your score, they need to be dealt with in the expression map individually, e.g., Legato needs the same Volume dynamic setting as Natural etc.
Thanks for the suggestions. Where do I find the key editor? I see increase/decrease key editor resolution in the play menu, but you seem to be saying there’s a window I can see somewhere?
So this brings another question. Do I need to edit velocity for every note/cord/beat? Or can I edit the velocity for all notes marked pp or all notes marked ff? Not sure how it happened, but one of my pieces has the velocity of every pp note as 1. This means I can barely hear it, of course. I tried changing the first note to a higher velocity in the key editor, but it seems to only apply to that particular beat. I must be missing something?
Thanks!!
The other question: when I use the Expression Map setting for volume dynamic, I’m setting a minimum dynamic of 30, but a max of 90. I still get velocities in the key map well outside of that range. I get a 115 for a forte and a 15 for a pianissimo. Is that supposed to happen? And I’m not understanding what Control change is. Maybe I’m using it wrong?
Thanks again!
My guess it that you don’t have the expression map that you are editing loaded onto the instrument track for your piano.
Go into play mode and make sure you have your instrument loaded in the green dropdown and the expression map (the one you are editing) loaded in the red dropdown here:
You are absolutely correct. I didn’t realize this was needed at all! I did that and the dynamics are MUCH better and not quite so distant from each other. I can hear the pianissimo now and the forte isn’t a sledgehammer. I’ll attach the file, but I think this might have done the trick. Clouds.dorico (931.4 Kiba )
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