Any tips on how to properly assign a crescendo to a crash cymbal roll so that it both looks right in the score and affects playback would be greatly appreciated!
cymCrescTest.dorico (1.3 MB)
For appearance, apply the dynamics to the cymbal note, then (with the dynamics selected) press F to flip the expression above the staff.
I handled the single-line and five-line differently to show what you see. (Perhaps my approach is based on an older implementation where the five-line and single-line views do not show in the other view.)
I changed to single instrument view, applied the dynamics, flipped them, then changed back to 5-line. That way you ought to have both playback and the correct score.
Jesper
Edit: No, you still have to flip it in the 5-line score. A bit of a mess.
I know from reading many of your former posts that you know whereof you speak, but I cannot replicate the process you describe. I have tried entering the elements in various orders in the two modes, single-line and five-line, but the dynamics I enter in the single-line mode do not carry over into the five-line display.
It’s a bit disappointing that the standard method for entering voice-specific dynamics doesn’t seem to work properly with drum kits. Hopefully, this will be addressed in a future update. Having to adjust layout settings just to assign a dynamic marking to the correct voice feels more like a workaround than a proper solution.
That said, I am able to place the dynamic when I expose the individual instruments in the five-line kit by changing the drum set staff visibility settings in Layout Options. However, the dynamic still doesn’t appear in Galley View or the part, regardless of whether I flip the dynamic or not.
I believe it was @MarcLarcher who recently suggested to me using W to toggle between the score and the part, but this doesn’t seem to work as expected with kits when the five-line view is exposed. When I tried it just now, it jumped to the start of Flow 1, even though the selected part was in a much later flow.
W works perfectly as long as the selected item is still in view. Otherwise, as you’ve noticed, you’re back at the start of the flow.
Make sure you select something like a note before hitting W, so that you’re on the right spot. It’s a workflow thing to add in your brains…
The problem with the three (?) different types of dynamics in kits is not new, I think I wrote a thread about it years ago (5+): my understanding by then is that you cannot have dynamics in a view reported in another view. You can have global dynamics set with a 5-line-staff view, and you can have granular dynamics with grid or 1-line-staff. And I don’t think it’s a problem to have both on the same file, although I don’t remember which one gets played then.
In the example above, the crescendo marking is ignored during playback. Interestingly, even though only a few specific kit elements are highlighted, the entire kit sounds.
This makes me wonder, could it be that Dorico doesn’t treat kit elements as independent voices when it comes to dynamics and playback?
I’ve just tested the W shortcut again. As you noted, when a selected note is in view, it works as expected, toggling cleanly between the score and part.
However, if the selected note belongs to an individual kit element 9exposed using Layout Options->Players>Percussion->Drum Set… single-line instruments), pressing W takes me to the beginning of Flow 1 in the part, even though the note is actually much later in a different flow. Curiously, pressing W again then takes me back to the correct location in the score.
It seems there might be a pesky bug here?
It would be disappointing to discover that it isn’t possible to show and adjust the dynamics of individual kit elements. It would be helpful if @dspreadbury could confirm. I have my fingers crossed that there might be a workaround/solution…
I’ve just tested in this file. It happens to work perfectly when dynamics are set to 1-line-staff instruments — here I’ve set a crescendo on the snare. Incidentally, I think I’ve noticed a mistake in my lates SD3 Core percussion map/Instrument playing technique editor for the snare. The Rimshot snare did not have the appropriate playback technique in the map (Rim instead or Rim Shot). [Edit] I just checked, the last file was ok. I don’t know what I have here in my computer, there must be some housework to do in my files… I might as well change this to rim shot instead of rim, since there’s a rim only technique too. Dynamics in a SD3 kit.dorico (1,3 Mo)
Marc (and others) are absolutely right: dynamics placed on individual kit instruments, when exposed as one-line instruments, do play back correctly. In my test, I applied a cymbal roll with a dynamic from mf to f, and there was no noticeable crescendo. However, when I exaggerated the change (from p to f), playback behaved as expected.
So the core issue seems to be this: if dynamics applied to individual kit elements trigger correct playback but aren’t visible in the full score or part, how can we meaningfully reflect dynamic changes within a drum kit?
In most cases, there’s probably no need for per-element dynamics within a kit, but rolls might be the exception, where a clear crescendo is musically important.
