Introduce a Control Change into score in Write mode

Dorico
1

Hello Dorico’s Team,

Is it possible to introduce a MIDI Control Change into a score in Write mode the way Sibelius does with a text like “~C07,64” ?

If not, is there any alternative now or in the future ?

Thank you.
Eric

2

I’ll let them answer but don’t believe this is possible in Write Mode. However, with their Play Mode Piano Roll editor and access to all CC automation data there you can select a note in the score, and have the corresponding location in the piano roll open up on a 2nd monitor (if you have 2 screens and have opened a 2nd Dorico window), then make any direct cc changes to the selected notes to the right in Play Mode (as you may already know)…

  • D.D.
3

No, you can’t do it directly in Play mode, but you can of course create a playing technique that is mapped to a playback technique that produces the desired MIDI controller or keyswitch in your expression map, and that is the recommended way to handle this kind of thing. Otherwise, you can, as D.D. suggests, simply edit the data as desired in Play mode.

4

D.D. and Daniel,

Thank you both for your answers.

My idea was to avoid to switch back and forth between “Write” and “Play” modes each time I need to adjust the playback of notes on the scores.

Daniel, if I understand you right, I would have to create a playing technique for each value of the CC.
So, potentially, I would need 128 different playing techniques with each having a single fixed value. Is that correct ?

For me, and maybe I am not the only one, the possiblity to introduce into a score a text which can send MIDI commands would represent the ultimate flexibility to trigger sound samples for any libraries.

I am aware that writing non “musical” terms in a score is neither elegant nor academic, but do you think there is a chance to have this in Dorico’s future versions ?

As programmer, I could be interested to write a plugin in Lua to realize this functionality.
Do you think it is feasible ? And if so, where could I find the necessary information to interface with Dorico ?

Thank you for help.
Best regards.
Eric

5

Unfortunately at the moment the Lua API is insufficiently rich to allow this to be done.

However, we agree that it would be preferable not to require so much switching back and forth between Write and Play mode to make these kinds of edits and we are considering making it possible to show the piano roll editor and its associated editors for the current instrument in Write mode, which would make this kind of workflow much more convenient.

6

HI Daniel. I’m not quite following you on this. It seems to me that that what it does already - i.e. Play mode has the piano roll editor and its associated editors.

7

Indeed, I mistyped. I meant Write mode, of course.

8

Ah - that makes more sense.

Very interesting. FWIW I’d really like to be able to access the associated editors from within Write mode and thereby have the opportunity to set CC’s, duration etc. at the time of writing. However, I’d much (much) prefer to do that from a notation layout than a piano roll.

9

Hello Daniel,

Great to see that it is something you are considering.

In VSL libraries, a violin legato sample can be controlled by several CC (e.g. CC20, CC33, CC22 etc…) simultaneously, so you can imagine the need for such control.

I will be patient then…
Eric

10

Hello Eric,

do you really need all 128 values?

I needed several control changes to switch between fret positions in a guitar plug in. I made playing techniques consisting of a button with the number of the fret position for all the different positions, which I can pick now from the articulation menu. It solves exactly that problem, I don’t have to switch between write & play. So, it took a while to set up these buttons, but it’s definitely a huge time saver now.

11

Hello Christian68,

Of course, I could reduce my needs to some values, (e.g. 5, 10, 15, etc…) to get some effect.

But usually, if I need to control the vibrato of a violin sound sample, I ideally would like to create a hairpin and assign to this hairpin the starting and ending values of the CC20 controller, for example.

All this in Write mode, directly on the score without having to use the Play mode.

Then I would not need the intermediate controller values.

I hope my explanation is clear enough…

Eric