I am trying to make an expression map which makes Dorico use velocity as the sole dynamic for shorter notes and CC1 as the sole dynamic for longer notes. That’s all I want it to do, as I only want to use it for exporting MIDI.
This seems to work for short notes, unless they are marked in the score as staccato. In that case, they appear in the Playing Techniques lane as Natural instead of Note Length < Medium. Is there a setting somewhere that causes staccato marks to override the expression map?
Check this setting under Playback Options:
Thanks. I haven’t changed that setting from the default. And its effect seems to be to prevent notes longer than a quarter note from being staccato, so I don’t think it could affect the way a staccato mark on an eighth note works.
Gotcha. But after a bit of thinking, staccato is staccato, it doesn’t override Natural (they’re mutually exclusive). So a note with a staccato mark will never pass through the Natural handling and therefore will never encounter your condition.
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I see (sort of). I was assuming that if the expression map didn’t include a switch for staccato, staccato marks would be ignored. Clearly I was wrong. But an eighth note with a pizzicato mark does trigger the Note Length switch. Why the difference? Is it because pizzicato is a playing technique and staccato is an articulation?
Anyway it seems I would need to do more work on the map if I want all short notes to use velocity and not CC1. Perhaps I will just use one of the factory maps, though none of them does exactly what I want.
My guess (and it’s just a guess) is that staccato is handled internally, hence the settings in playback options. So if you don’t have a staccato patch, Dorico will try to make it staccato anyway, whereas for pizzicato, it really has no idea what to do so it defaults to Natural.
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The only articulations that allow the Note Length switch to work seem to be Stressed and Unstressed. On the other hand I have yet to find a playing technique that doesn’t allow that switch to work. And some articulations, such as staccato, are always going to be short anyway.
