Playback Options missing in Dorico 4?

Hi, I can’t seem to find the Playback options in Dorico 4, ctrl/shift/P doesn’t bring them up and it’s not there under my play tab. Using Elements trial. Trying to access the trills options-generated vs samples. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!

Hi Sean, Playback Options is only available in Dorico Pro. When using Dorico Elements, you have access to Layout and Notation Options.

Also in Dorico Pro 4, Playback Options is now on the consolidated Library menu, rather than the Play menu.

Thank you for the prompt response, is there any way for me to access those trill options? Causing issues with Note Performer.

Please lmk if there’s a solution, otherwise Elements fits all my needs, I don’t want to upgrade for access to just the one feature.

As referenced in its documentation, NotePerformer includes its own setting re generated versus sampled trills. You could download a trial version of NotePerformer and see if that will meet your needs.

I know, NotePerformer needs you to set it to Generated trills but I can’t access the playback options.

I have other libraries that use samples for trills, I had just hoped to be able to switch back and forth. I know it’s Elements, but it seems like a small but necessary feature to have access to.

One could argue that every feature in Pro is a necessary feature for some project or other and should be available in Elements. Indeed there are many here who argue that Pro itself is lacking some essential feature (that is small and simple to implement). The Dorico team has drawn its lines on the relative capabilities of SE/Elements/Pro. I wouldn’t hold my breath that they will change.

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Hi there - trying to understand the different tiers here - I’m a drummer and using Dorico for drum notation only - it’s great so far! It seems though that the only way to be able to play back with a swing feel is in the Playback Options menu - is that correct?

If that is correct, then the free tier is relegated to playback music straight only – devoid of all swing, is that correct?

If you want swing feel, invoke the tempo popover and write swing — you’ll have several options there, choose and Enter the popover. Done.

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Here is how to enable swing playback in Dorico SE (from the 3.5 manual, as Play mode-related topics haven’t yet been added to the v4 manual, but the principle is the same).

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I agree that you shouldn’t need Dorico Pro in order to use NotePerformer as intended – we should be able to make this change of the playback option for trills automatic, regardless of whether you’re using Pro or Elements. I’ve made a note of this.

Thank you very much for the response and even more for your willingness to create a solution, I sincerely appreciate it and imagine many users will benefit from it’s implementation. Dorico 4 is an incredible upgrade of the whole program and things such as the increased player count in Elements have made using it more accessible than ever.

This works great, thank you @Lillie_Harris!

I was confused as I found this page from Dorico 2.2 when searching for the answer.

As an aside, it would be great to have links to the different product versions of a page, so if you’re like me and google a topic and land on a page for an older version, you can easily click to find the right answer for your product version. As an example, PostgreSQL does a great job of this (completely different product, but similar concern).

This is really nitpicking though - in general, I love the product and think you all do an amazing job supporting it - so thanks for that!

Yes, we’re aware of this and it’s something we’re looking into. For now, the product name and version that’s displayed in the top left of the page should give you an indication of what you’re looking at: if it says Dorico Pro 2 and you use Dorico SE 4, that’s an indication that the information might not be applicable to your version.

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I hate to write it but I’ve been using Noteperformer with Dorico Elements since Jan 2019. If it hasn’t changed since then, it won’t change now.

How’s that coming along? Any update?

No news as yet, but we do anticipate that the Playback Options dialog will be included in the next major version of Dorico Elements, when it is released later this year.

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