I have a rather complex question requiring some background information. I long ago abandoned East-West’s choirs in my attempts to create vocals with word pronunciation. A fairly new AI program called Ace Studio has nicely filled that void, but I have one problem. When I use an accelerando or rallentando in Dorico the musicxml export is not read exactly right in Ace leading to the orchestral export from Dorico not syncing properly with the vocal export from Ace. This could be fixed by inserting/changing tempo markings in Ace to match Dorico.
Now, we come to the crux of the problem. The time markers in Dorico play mode are only occasionally correct. I have a piece that starts in 6/8 at with a tempo of 150 eighth notes per minute. This would mean that each measure should last 2.4 seconds. However, according to Dorico the first five measure lengths are 2.1, 2.09, 2.85, 2.1, and 2.86 seconds. This correctly adds up to 12 seconds, but each measure should take 2.4 seconds. This anomaly makes it well nye impossible to sync up the two programs. Looking at intermediate beats gives whacky time intervals too.
Any ideas? I can provide the file if necessary.
I just made another complicating discovery. There are 25 flows in the work. I exported the flow I am having particular trouble with. Lo and behold, the time marks are correct when the one flow is separated from the whole work. Very strange indeed. It someone wants to work on this I would have to send the whole thing. I’m not eager to do that.
Was the project imported into Dorico originally via XML? Have you turned on all signposts? Are there any tempo related signposts that could be affecting the timing?
The project was composed in Dorico from the ground up. I have not inserted any signposts manually.
I keep finding new issues. In the isolated flow (exported from the overall work with 25 flows) the time from the beginning of the “project” is correct, but the time from the beginning of the flow is incorrect. I say “project” loosely interpreted because after exporting there is only one flow in the “project.” Very weird. I’m in the latest version of Dorico 5 Pro.
Just a thought. Have you set the Playback Options gap between flows to zero?
Do you mean your project with 1 flow here? (There’s nothing unusual with a 1 flow project.) If so, then I don’t see the difference between the start of the project and the start of the flow.
The only other thing I can think of is maybe some sample rate weirdness going on between apps in your system. In Dorico you can set the sample rate through Edit → Device Setup.
Do you have a playback template set? Sometimes setting the playback template to silence and back to the one before can resolve some issues. Might be interesting to see if the timings are correct with the silence template set.
If none of that works post the 1-flow project file.
Yes, I’m speaking of the single flow project extracted from the full project. You are correct, the elapsed time whether viewed from the beginning of the project or the beginning of the flow should be the same, as they are measuring exactly the same thing. They both start at zero at the beginning of bar 1 as they should, but that’s where it ends.
At the beginning of measure two, the project time is 2.399 (actually should be 2.4, but that is a very minor issue). The flow time is 2.1 which is totally wrong. At the beginning of measure 3 the times are 4.799 and 4.20. At the beginning of measure 4 the times are 7.200 and 7.05. At the beginning of measure 5 the times are 9.599 and 9.15. At the beginning of measure 6 they magically resynchronize to 12.000 and 12.00 (the correct time). They same pattern then emerges from measures 6 through 10, first diverging and reuniting at the start of measure 11. sjanssens, what is the best way to get you the file?
Not sure if you can upload project files natively in the forum, you can try. I think most people put it in Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, or some similar and share a link.
You can upload a project file here (no need to zip or use dropbox)
What you refer to as “flow time” in post #8 is actually elapsed time displayed in hours, minutes, seconds and frames separated by colons, where the default frame rate in the Video Properties dialog is 25 frames per second. If you multiply the number after the last colon by four, then 2:10 becomes 2.40 seconds, 4:20 becomes 4.80 seconds, 7:05 becomes 7.20 seconds, 9:15 becomes 9.60 seconds, and so on.
Thank you, John! I haven’t ever tried to sync with video, so I wasn’t aware of the format. I did notice the colons but didn’t know why it was presented that way. I must say that it is quite interesting that Dorico doesn’t give a way to see the actual time (especially, since the time since the beginning of the project is actually pure time) as some of us need to sync to other audio software, not video. It would certainly be easy to add. It would also be great to have a pop-up over the time field to let someone know that the last digits were frames. At least now I don’t have to send anyone a file.
I’m going to solve my original problem by putting in ritardandos manually in Dorico on a beat-by-beat basis. I’m quite sure that Ace Studio will interpret that correctly, allowing me to ignore this special intervention to get things synced up.
Again, thanks for clearing up the meaning of the elapsed time information in each flow.