I’m new to Dorico (working about a year with Dorico Elements, currently 5.1.0.2068 on Mac). My latest effort is working up a reasonably accurate version of ‘On The Nature of Daylight’ for solo piano. Many persons working in MuseScore have created their own versions, typically with minor deviations. I took the best solo piano version I could find, imported the MusicXML format for the file, and working inside Dorico corrected it against a printout of a string quintet version that was also quite good. So now I have a solo piano version I’m happy with.
However there is a problem with playback: The only dynamic marking in the MusicXML file was a single MP marking which I removed. No dynamic markings at present . . . yet here and there in the score, one or another voice (there are 5 voices) will suddenly jump in loudness.
I’m guessing the answer may lie in Play mode somewhere (though I don’t know how this could happen with a MusicXML import?!) - but as I only need approximate MIDI playback, I have rarely gotten involved in this mode; the most I’ve ever done is assign PianoTeq as a VST for piano sound. (Back when I used MuseScore, I was familiar with adjusting velocities for particular notes or for particular symbols, e.g. MP, etc.)
So does anyone have suggestions? If it’s an issue in Play mode, is there a way to reset all velocities (or whatever else might be involved) to default? Or is there some other issue that might cause this behavior? Thanks - Randy
P.S. I am going to try and attach the Dorico file (this is my first forum post). Also, I hope there are no copyright issues if I am working on this just for my own pleasure? On The Nature Of Daylight - solo piano - v03.dorico (1.8 MB)
In Playback Options in the “Dynamics” section, both “use pitch contour emphasis” and “use automatic polyphonic voice balancing” are activated. These both try to allocate intelligent dynamics in your score but the result may sometimes not be what you want. If the MusicXML file has already had carefully adjusted dynamics, you may well want to switch off these features (although for new piano scores, they tend to be pretty helpful).
Also under “Note dynamics”, you should zero all beat stress options as they don’t always produce the desired results.
dko22 - thanks for your observations. Pitch contour emphasis did not seem to have any involvement; but when I de-selected “use automatic polyphonic voice balancing”, that did the trick - the weird increases and decreases have vanished and the volume remains steady.
And actually playback sounds better this way - it lacks any human qualities, but at least it is no longer arbitrarily strange. With the “polyphonic voice balancing”, every now & then a left hand chord would be played softly, for no apparent reason; and every now & then, the eighth-note line in the right hand would suddenly swell in volume for a half-measure or so, then subside. These swells & subsidences made no musical sense at all, nor did they correspond to particular voices or any other reasoning that one could guess at.
So I don’t know what the polyphonic voice balancing algorithm is, but it ain’t working out of the box. Granted the piece itself is minimalistic, highly repetitive, and originally intended for strings. It does look like if I want to play with the settings, I can adjust the percentages for the various described effects & see if something emerges that does make the playback seem a bit more human without getting weird.
P.S. DanielMuzMurray - I actually hadn’t changed any changes to note playback, but thanks for the tip anyway, I know a little more now.
glad that helps – I find the polyphonic voice balancing does work reasonably well with my (relatively few) piano works but it’s going to depend on the style - obviously it’s been programmed for fairly typical classical style works (so probably not your work) with discernable melody/accompaniment pattern but even then, it does get some things wrong.