I am struggling to get percussion dynamics to play back and notate correctly for engraving. What I have is fairly simple, a kick drum and a cymbal, with different dynamics markings. If I enter the dynamics in single staff mode the playback is correct but no dynamics show in five-staff mode. If I enter dynamics in five-staff mode, it affects both instruments.
Is it possible to enter dynamics for percussion in a way that will be readable by a percussionist when the parts are printed but will also play back correctly so I can hear what I need to hear as I compose?
I have found a two year old post that manages to get different dynamics to show for two instruments in five-staff mode, but it does not play back correctly for both instruments.
I know this is far from ideal, but if you’re using a percussion kit, you will probably find it best to show the kit in single-line instruments mode (via the Players page of Layout Options) and add the dynamics for playback there, then switch back to showing it as a five-line staff and add the dynamics for printing there.
Hi @Gregg_Butterfield, adding to the suggestion by Daniel, to make the editing more comfortable you could duplicate the Drum Set layout, set it to single-line instruments, so you can edit the dynamics for playback comfortably, without needing to switch the layout options every time you need to edit your dynamics. And you can then edit the original layout for printing (remember to suppress the playback of the dynamics added just for printing, so that the dynamics entered in the duplicate single-line instruments will be heard)
Here an example:
Dorico file example:
drum kit independent dynamics .dorico (3.0 MB)
Is there a way to suppress dynamics without having to go into the key editor and manually adjust every single one of them? Going into a layout with single line percussion won’t work very well for me as the percussion kit has about 25 instruments in it. That’s a lot of scrolling past empty space.
I’m reducing a full orchestration down to just five musicians (one percussionist) for a small production/workshop of a musical. The percussion kit for it needs to contain all of the instruments in the five percussion kits in the full orchestration so that I can easily copy and paste them into the kit for the small ensemble before adjusting them so that the instrument count will be far lower for it by the time I’m done.
Also, I’m confused about what the dynamics editor is showing. In single line mode my kick drum and cymbal have different markings, but the dynamics editor seems to be showing just the dynamics from the five line mode.
I could create fake immediate dynamics (pp, p, mp, etc) as they are just text and insert them in the five line view, but I don’t know how to make fake hairpins. I have just done a little experimenting, and it looks like inserting an undefined hairpin might do it. A DuckDuckGo search assist states that, “An undefined hairpin allows the velocity to change to the net dynamic level but does not affect the volume until another dynamic instruction is added.” I don’t think this is true (after adding a hairpin with no ending volume and looking at the key editor), but the volume change is so small it likely would not be noticeable. I still need to check if the hairpin in five line view overrides the hairpin in single line view.
Yes, from the score (not the key editor and be sure you are in the 5-lines layout), select the desired bars , then right click and do Filter> All Dynamics, then you can apply Suppress Playback to them all at once.
