Hi all,
Is this possible? I can always export my Dorico file, then combine it with the audio file in my DAWS, but I was wondering if there is a way to import the audio file (aif, wav, mp3 etc) directly into the D project.
What do you think?
This has been requested a lot, but so far not possible. You can convert it to a video file and import that or you can load it into a sampler and trigger it from Dorico. Of course with the sampler it will start when it’s triggered so you can’t start playback in the middle of the sample and have it synced.
Thanks for the advice. I imported it into a new flow and it works fine, except now I have many pages of empty bars. The video only works as long as there are bars above it, so to speak. But this is a good workaround, as long as I’m not handing out parts or publishing.
Can you point in the direction of how to load it into a sampler and try it that way as well?
I don’t understand - why do you need to play back audio against non-existent score? (so that you are having to create empty bars)
When I go the sampler route, I usually use UVI Falcon for that, because it allows very easy creation of a new sampled instrument with drag and drop. But to me this only makes sense for shorter sounds, like a few seconds long. For a very long sound, using this method you would need to add a note to the score that would play this sound, and the note would have to be the length of the sound at the tempo, so you’d need a very very very long tied note in another staff to trigger and sustain the sound. If you’re having to create empty bars already to hear the audio, this probably will not be any better.
He may be thinking of transcribing from dictation, but it seems a somewhat convoluted way to do it–but it may be the only way in his case.
I followed FredGUnn’s advice. I converted a three-minute field audio recording I had made into a .MOV file (no video), then opened a new flow and attached it. In order for the video to sound I needed to add bars, extending the score the length of the video. If I were to remove bars the video would simply stop there.
Again, this is ok if I just want to create a version I can use for self-study playback, but useless for publishing or creating parts for the players in the larger multi-movement work.
This is an interesting problem, no?
No.. I don’t understand what the problem is.
What’s wrong with adding bars? Aren’t you going to put music in those anyway?
If there are going to be no notes at all in the project, why create a Dorico project that will have no notes and will only have an audio file attached as an .MOV?
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Also, the good news is that I could add notes in D to accompany (or forefront) the audio background I’ve attached. I haven’t tried that yet. The bad news is that if there are no notes then it’s impossible to stop the video while it’s running, or start it in the middle since there are no notes in the score to mark any particular bar..
Why do you need the audio in Dorico though? It sounds like you are saying instead of sending others the field recording audio (original), you want to send them an export from Dorico of a copy of the field recording audio over again with nothing added (so sounding identical to the original), and you want to be able to export this duplicate copy of the field recording audio from Dorico without having to add any bars to the Dorico project so it is empty.
That doesn’t make any sense at all so I think there must be something you’re not explaining.
I’m writing a multi-movement piece that includes Dorico notation over and juxtaposed with, in this case, bird sounds in the field recording. It’s an experiment. I may want to add D notation on top of the recording, or after it. I can render it in this way, or, if I perform it with live musicians I could run the recording behind (or along with) their performance. Does that make sense?
You can do the audio as a video file in Dorico for composing music to the audio (if you want to add notation on top of the recording).
If you’re doing a mockup of what the piece sounds like, I would probably only export the mockup of the live performers and not the bird sounds video-audio. Instead, add the video audio in via some other program like a WAV editor or Cubase, with the same timing you used in Dorico.
I seem to recall there are some issues with audio from a video file where it will sometimes be exported at the wrong time in the wrong flow, so better to avoid that for the time being. You can mute the video audio so that when you export it can’t be included in the audio export and then you don’t get birds at the wrong spot in the wrong flow due to some glitch.
Dorico will have proper support for audio files in the future (Daniel has said it is high on the priority list) and then it should hopefully make this easier.
Yup, I’m with you. If I want notes over the video, then attaching it seems to be the way to go. If I want to do a mockup I can combine the exported D f with the audio file in a DAWS.
My goal in starting this thread was to learn as much as I could about D’s relationship with imported audio: what’s possible and how, it’s strengths and limitations, and to share what I’m learning with all of you in case somebody else has similar questions or useful suggestions.
I now have a much better understanding of what I can do, and how. Thanks!
Once you understand how to get an audio file into Dorico (by creating a .MOV file) it can be very powerful.
I have to transcribe and arrange horn section parts for a band. So, I’ll bring the audio into Dorico and run it in sync with the measures in my score.
I’ll first put the audio in Cubase, and create and export a MIDI track which contains a tempo track extracted from the audio.
Then, I’ll import and create a new Dorico score with this MIDI file and import the .MOV file (which contains the audio)
Every audio file may present me with a different requirement for starting time depending on what’s important to the score, so I may have to fine tune the ‘video start time’ or offset once in awhile.
Now, the imported MIDI file (from Cubase) will play the score in sync with the imported audio file (the .MOV file)
Works great! Stop/from anywhere and have the music score always lined up with the audio file.
That’s useful! So you get the real sound of the horns synced with the midi file. Nice!