I imported a score into Dorico from Sibelius using the additional plugin, not the built-in one, as it delivers better conversion results. However, seemingly without reason or logic, some dynamics are plainly ignored in playback or interpreted as being way louder than they should be. For example playing the sample for fortissimo when pianissimo is written. I’ve reset my playback template, I’ve removed all playback overrides, I’ve switched playback templates (I use Noteperformer but the same issue happens with the included soundset), I’m out of ideas.
However, one very tedious thing works: removing the “offending” dynamics, and inputting them again. As this is a large orchestral score this will take me hours to do.
Why are some dynamics markings (which are indeed valid dyanmics markers, not just cmd+X plain text) not playing back correctly, and others are?
I’m hesitant to include the Dorico file as it is an original work of mine that I’d rather not send out into the ether like that. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do to troubleshoot!
IIRC some Sibelius dynamics are just text (like cresc.) and require a hidden hairpin to effect the change in volume. Could that be part of the problem?
(XML) Dynamics playback issue .dorico (1.2 MB)
I managed to cut down to a spot with the described issue. In this case in bar 4 and bar 7 the solo strings suddenly increase in volume/playback dynamic when the sixteenth pattern comes in in the tutti strings.
There were other spots, which I by now have fixed by removing the dynamics marking, and simply manually inputting it again, which means there’s something very strange happening with XML import. However, the problem in the attached bit of music doesn’t go away using that method.
I switched independent voice playback (is that what you mean by IRV?) on for the strings, that does indeed solve the issue! However, the tutti and solo parts now both end up on the first voice, which makes it impossible to assign separate sounds to the tutti and the solo players, which I think would be the whole point of independent voice playback.
What it does with independent voice playback is it literally takes the order of the staves, but that means that it interprets the solo part the same way as the tutti parts before the divisi into solo + tutti, as the tutti part ends up below the solo part in the score and they’re both interpreted as the first voice. Can I resolve this in any way? Thank you!
Yes, as Derrek suggests, what you can do is use different voices on the same staff, which will allow you to then assign different sounds in the Routing section of the track inspector panel in Play mode.