I’m working on a horn arrangement, and currently am using TXLTimecode to Slave Logic Pro to Dorico so that I can hear the arrangement played along with all of the audio tracks.
However, it feels like Logic Pro is a little bit AHEAD of Dorico…and I think that it’s actually a problem with the way that the horn parts are being played. Like they’re almost coming in a little bit behind the beat. Like those midi horn players are a little stoned or something.
Is there a way to get the horn midi parts to ATTACK the beat, or even play a little bit ahead of the beat? As an experiment I notated one of the parts to come in 1/16th earlier (bpms are 150, so…pretty quick) and that, while being slightly early, was still closer to the correct way to play it than how it sounds when they’re notated correctly.
I am a total novice when it comes to understanding the underlying Audio Engine that’s at work behind the scenes in Dorico, so apologies for what is probably a total n00b question.
Meanwhile I’m also trying to figure out if I can apply a negative offset to delay Logic Pro ever so slightly to compensate for these lazy notes. But that’s silly, right?
I don’t know a lot of about the Logic slave setup, but are you using sax sounds from within Dorico? Because if so the first thing I would look at are the expression maps. Find the map in question and the articulation in question, and there’s a little box which says “Delay” and allows you to apply a negative offset. I find I have to do this with some libraries in particular with regards to legato.
Alternatively you could lasso all your notes and in the pane at the bottom there’s a playback negative offset you can do on a note-by-note basis. This can be helpful when you like the humanization of some notes being behind the beat, but maybe a few need to be really tight on the beat.
Thanks @wing - yes, I’m using the sax sound within Dorico…it’s whatever the default sound is by choosing Tenor Saxophone as a “player” for the part. These are both helpful suggestions. I wonder who decided in the expression map that playing late was more realistic?
I did also figure out how to apply a negative offset using the TXLTimecode plugin, so that it delays Logic ever so slightly. For the moment this is the easier path - and then I’m not spending so much time messing with the Dorico playback. In the end, hopefully the real musicians get it right!
Sometimes it does seem kind of wacky and completely random, I would agree. However there are some cases where it totally makes sense, such as legato. Because for many VSTs, legato is triggered instantly by overlapping midi notes, and sometimes things such as velocity (with Dorico it’s a slur but if you look at the midi in the play tab, a slur creates overlapping notes). As a result, the instrument can’t exactly look ahead into the future in order to realize the next note’s velocity or overlapping note, so legato often can come with a tad delay. So the trick is to compensate by forcing this event to happen earlier so it actually sounds in time with the rest of the music.
There can be other reasons with non-legato stuff like shorts, where the developer adds a tad more space before the attack transient - I think ultimately it is to offer a bit of flexibility and humanization among other reasons. I’m no expert in this department but as I understand it there’s usually some kind of logic behind it!
