How do I raise the pitch one octave or more?
Select the note, hold down Cmd-Option (Mac) / Ctrl-Alt (Windows) and hammer down at the Up/Down arrow keys!
Reading the thread title … The question seems to be about incorrect playback rather than simple note editing.
@spencered Please be more specific about what is playing the wrong octave. A little forum search shows you asked about this a month ago and gave up trying to understand the situation. If you tell us exactly what you’re doing in Dorico, we can solve this.
Right … I misread … apologies!
You’re going to have to tell us what VST you’re using. It might be possible to make the octave adjustment right in the VST or you may need to do it in the Expression Map. One of my favorite Bass libraries that I use is off by an octave in Dorico, so I made the adjustment in the Expression Map that I use for it. Just add 12 semitones to the Transpose setting in the map to adjust up by an octave:
Or is it perhaps about the (well-known) tenor singer conundrum?
Assuming you are using the default playback settings without any third-party virtual instruments, I recommend this procedure:
- Make sure you’re in Play mode.
- Select the instrument which you want to raise an octave.
- Make sure the track inspector tab is active (to the left in the Dorico window).
- Click the ‘e’ icon (Edit Instrument) next to the cog icon. In the window that just opened (your virtual instrument plugin), you will now need to transpose your virtual instrument one octave. The procedure will different depending on your virtual instrument of choice, but if you are using the Dorico defaults, the virtual instrument plugin in question will always be HALion, and that particular procedure will be described in the following steps below.
- Open the MIDI tab.
- In your instrument of choice, change the ‘Transpose’ value to your desired amount of semitones up or down (positive numbers go up, negative numbers go down).
- It’s likely that your instrument is using so-called key switches which is basically keys that change the behavior of your instrument in order to play back different articulations and playing techniques, and Dorico is using these to play back your choices of such in your score. Therefore your playable range (the keys marked in black and white) can’t overlap with your key switches (the keys marked in dark yellow), or otherwise you will hear (in most cases) a low note played simultaneously with your music. In order to check if this is the case, click the number next to your desired instrument slot and see if yellow keys appear in the keyboard area. If yes, proceed to the next step. If no, you’re done!
- Adjust the values named ‘Low Key’ and ‘High Key’ in your instrument slot so that the playable key range does not overlap the key switches (normally, only the ‘Low Key’ value needs to be adjusted, since key switches are typically placed below the playable range).
DONE!
Frigolito, thank you. Wow! You have been most generous to have done all this work. It got me through one of the strangest odysseys of my musical adventures, and by the end it almost made sense to me! Anyway, it works. The notes are pitched correctly now. Thanks again!
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I’m glad you are making progress.
I would just make one observation. If you use Dorico’s defaults, including the bundled sounds and factory Playback Templates, then everything will play at the correct pitch.
If it does not, then there is some anomaly that you have introduced.
You’re welcome! I had a read through the topic in an earlier reply posted by @Mark_Johnson, where people tried to help you, and while their advice were not bad per se, it appeared that most of them bluntly assumed that you were familiar with some high level concepts, including VSTs and expression maps and had a rudimentary understanding of the Dorico UI and corresponding terminology, which is not particularly helpful for beginners.
Like other people mentioned, you could also adjust the expression map – basically the directions for Dorico on how to handle your virtual instruments – but then we would also need to know which instrument and which expression map were being used (which some people were asking for), and that’s an entirely separate procedure in itself, which is why I went with the VST method.
This is a good point! I just assumed you knew what you were doing and wanted to make a quick hack for whatever purpose. But if you’re going for correct and idiomatic notation, you should in general be able to trust Dorico’s defaults.