[Limitation] Mark Tree cresc. and dim. with NotePerformer 3.

Dorico
1

Till now I always fail to use Mark Tree instrument with NotePerformer 3 to achieve these type of dynamic curves:

“weaker < stronger > weaker”
" niente < certain dynamic level > niente"

Neither of crescendo and diminuendo articulates.

Is this an issue of NotePerformer itself?
----UPDATE----
Arne Wallander stated just now:

Unfortunately hairpins don’t work for percussion instruments in Dorico 3.
They only work for instruments that don’t use note velocity for control.
It’s a limitation in Dorico 3, not in NotePerformer.

2

Dorico can play back changes of dynamic for percussion instruments, but of course the notes have to be re-struck in order to produce the appropriate change of dynamic. The attached plays back as expected, i.e. with an increase of dynamic, for the HALion Sonic SE sounds. I’m not sure exactly how NotePerformer handles this kind of thing, but since it only uses velocity as a secondary means of modifying dynamic, that may have something to do with how it sounds in NotePerformer.
mark-tree-dyn.dorico.zip (407 KB)

3

Thanks for your demo file.
The HALion Sonic SE, in this case, sounds with too much machine gun effect.
I tried noteperformer with your demo file (which has unmeasured tremolo), the crescendo transition sounds not that smooth in volume and has to be started with niente. (I don’t know why noteperformer let the mark tree sounds in a not-sufficiently-quiet volume with ppp dynamic sign. Maybe I should invite Arne to join the discussion here.)

Maybe I need to use Halion 6 to make a customized mark tree instrument to cope with this case.

P.S.: Till just now I didn’t realize that Mark Tree notation needs unmeasured tremolo mark.

4

The reason why it’s not working with NotePerformer is that Dorico only modulates the key velocity with hairpins when you have it as the primary dynamic. Not when you use key velocity as the secondary dynamic of the instrument.

At least that’s the case when you use a hairpin with a repeat structure, e.g. a tremolo or trill.

NotePerformer’s percussion sounds are simply velocity-controlled. The only difference between Halion and NotePerformer in this instance is that Halion’s expression map uses the primary dynamic, and NotePerformer’s expression map uses the secondary dynamic.

5

Ok, so I spoke to Daniel about this, and the issue I’m describing above is actually fixed, if you have the latest version of Dorico.

The reason why there’s no crescendo/diminuendo with the Mark Tree, is that the Mark Tree in particular isn’t a generated roll, but it’s a sampled stroke. So it doesn’t respond to dynamic changes the way an actual roll would.

Sorry about the confusion!

6

Thanks for your reply. So Mark Tree in reality cannot control hairpin dynamics at all?

If not, will this gets fixed in the next NotePerformer update?

7

I’m going to see if there’s a way we can override this. The percussion instruments in Dorico are controlled with key velocity, so all single-hit percussion sounds have a fixed dynamic, for the time being. But maybe we can find some way to workaround it.

8

Thanks for your decision.

I apologize for my English. “Using a negative reply to a negative question” is an affirmative reply, but I forgot that when I was writing my previous reply.

Some orchestral percussionists told me on Facebook that mark tree in reality can hardly be played with hairpin dynamics control.
Therefore, I will just give up using hairpin dynamics with this instrument among my own compositions unless my guests specifically ask for it.

9

That’s a very good point. Hairpins with a mark tree would be very difficult. Or at least they would be very unpredictable.