Is it possible to add a certain amount of key velocity to an entire selection of notes?

Dorico
1

In general, I’m very happy with Dorico’s choice of key velocity for playback of my piano pieces. It gives a certain life-like quality to the playback if not all notes are played with the exact same key velocity.

However, there are cases when I want to bring out a melody or counter-melody just a little bit more. In such a case it would be convenient if I could add a fixed amount to Dorico’s existing key velocities. Is there a way to accomplish this?

In DAWs such as Logic Pro there is an add-fixed-amount function for key velocities. But all I can do now is simply give the entire selection the same key velocity; which of course defeats the purpose.

If it can’t be done, I would like to see an add-fixed-amount function to Dorico’s midi editor. Some of Logic Pro’s other functions (randomize within fixed limits for example) would be handy too for some purposes.

2

This video shows how to use the dynamics lane in Play mode.

3

Improvements to Dorico’s velocity editor so that you can apply a delta value to a bunch of selected notes are planned for future versions.

4

There is also another way to do this, which is to draw in some overrides to the dynamic level in the Dynamic lane of play mode. This will be translated to changes in note velocity (assuming the expression map is set to use note velocity for dynamics).

5

Today’s Dorico 3.5 release includes improvements to editing the velocity of multiple selected notes, in a way that will hopefully do what you want (though I agree with Paul that making the adjustments in the abstract via the dynamics lane is probably the way to go).