The expression ‘Solo’ in music directs a player to play out above the others.
How should I add this indication to a player’s part? - In the manual, if I search under ‘Solo’, very many references appear. If I search under ‘Text’, then I’m not sure if I’m using the right tool to do this.
Does Dorico (3.5) have a dedicated place to insert the ‘Solo’ marking, or should I just insert this as text above a bar (measure)? 
Thank you.
Create a Playing Technique and make it a default.
Ah. Clever. Thank you Derrek 
Here’s the related Dorico 3.5 manual page showing steps to do this:
So in the end, how do we achieve a solo sound style of the instrument? The default plain text has no effect on playback. How can I make it affect playback?
Create a solo playing technique. Link it to a Playback technique (of your choice). Add a switch in the Expression Map for that instrument that will be triggered by the playback technique and send the appropriate keyswitch/cc message to your chosen VST so it plays solo patches.
But “solo” in itself is not some kind of playing technique.
Even if I try to assign some kind of playing technique to the text “solo”, I don’t even know what to choose, because from the drop-down list of all available playing techniques, I don’t see anything that would have anything to do with “solo” (or am I confusing something?)
I was assuming you wanted to trigger some ‘solo’ sound from your VST.
If you only want to change the dynamic, you could add a dynamic with a suffix and hide the dynamic intensity…
As it was said here at the very beginning, I need a “solo” in order for the player to play out above the others.
If you only want to change the dynamic, you could add a dynamic with a suffix and hide the dynamic intensity…
I don’t think dynamic will help here. You see, a solo is not a higher dynamic, but rather a more prominent line. This is the soloistic manner of playing.
The only way to make something (custom) in the score affect playback is through play(ing|back) techniques wired together via an expression map. Of course, this assumes you actually have a sample that “plays in a soloistic manner” – I’ve never heard of such a thing in the wild.
Well, then how do you just raise the volume level of an instrument specifically in the place where this instrument is playing solo? Is it possible to come up with something using continuous controllers MIDI?
Put in a dynamic louder than the previous section, then in the properties pane below, hide it.
I need to change the volume level, not the dynamic itself. Dynamics and just volume are two different things. I would have done it a long time ago and not bothered, because it’s really easy.
Do you understand the difference between dynamic and volume? Dynamic is not just a certain level, it’s the velocity of a note, timbre, and a bunch of other nuances. I can’t change the dynamics, because otherwise the instrument may sound completely different (see the comment from @Beechside: 12 horns in unison sounds instrument loud - #10 by Beechside).
As I suggested in that thread 4 days ago “You might like to try silencing some of the horns for that particular passage. To do so, select the notes for perhaps 6 of the 12 horns then open the lower zone (Properties) and, in the Common section, enable Suppress playback.”.
If I have understood your differentiation between dynamic and volume, this will keep the dynamic the same but reduce the volume because there will be fewer horns sounding. Have you tried it? It might work.
yes. You never said which instrument or library you are using. Most quality libraries have control over both dynamic layers, overall volume and where appropriate, vibrato. Determine how the instrument’s volume is controlled and either draw something in the Key Editor or as @Janus explains above, create a playing / playback technique, add an entry in the expression map and use the note dynamic section to “boost” the technique.
You never said which instrument or library you are using.
What difference does it make which instruments/libraries I use? I use instruments from HALion and Iconica Sketch.
Determine how the instrument’s volume is controlled
How can this be determined?
draw something in the Key Editor
“Something” is what exactly and for what?
and use the note dynamic section to “boost” the technique
I’m sorry, but to be honest, I don’t understand how it’s done at all. Can you give me a video example?
… because each instrument in each library controls articulations, dynamics, volume and vibrato differently.
… documentation, or a quick and dirty way is to go to Play tab, Track inspector and open the assigned expression map.
There you can determine how each articulation (playing/playback technique) deals with volume and/or dynamics. The example above (Flute), uses CC1 to control both for long techniques (legato) and velocity to control short ones (staccato). At least for this instrument, it doesn’t appear you can control dynamic layers and volume separately so simply using a dynamic marking in the score (and hiding it) is the best you can do.
If, e.g., you find that dynamic layers are controllable via CC11 (continuous controller 11) and volume were controllable via CC1, then you would draw appropriate values in the key editor for the corresponding CC.
… but it doesn’t appear you have this capability with Iconica.
And what about, for example, the overall volume, which is set by the CC7 controller?
I’m confident that you can expect long-time contributors in this forum to understand the difference, @Dima-S. But from my perspective your own discussions of what you’re trying to achieve aren’t clear.
What do you have in mind/ear when you say “soloist manner of playing?” In my musical experience it means precisely adjustments to timbre, amount of vibrato, and other non-purely-“volume” aspects of sound that help a line “sing.” But I understand you as wanting to raise only the “volume” — i.e., amplitude — of the sound without any other changes. Have I read you correctly?
It’s a tricky thing. Firstly, it’s basically impossible to play an instrument softer or louder without having concomitant changes in timbral quality. A “volume”-only adjustment would sound very unnatural, and only be achievable through electronic methods; think recording a line played loudly, but then lowering the mixer fader to make that same timbre softer in the mix.
Secondly, every VST out there handles the realization of written dynamic levels as well as “intelligent” contextual interpretation (often a part of what’s called “humanization,” along with things like slight rhythmic offset) in different ways and to different extents (as @derAbgang points out above).
Which sounds like this in playback, using NotePerformer 4.5.1:
Now as it happens, NotePerformer does a lot of work “under the hood” together with Dorico’s (adjustable) dynamic playback options (Library > Playback Options > Dynamics):
But as a quick demo, here’s what happens when I make adjustments:
Notice how much (naturalistic) timbral change is built into NotePerformer’s intelligent playback. (Clearly, though, I would need to do some tweaking of Dorico’s playback options in order to try and get different results, assuming that NotePerformer doesn’t exert so much control over things that a good result — as in, not having the hilarious mf “pop” in the softer version.) Iconica will no doubt behave very differently, as will other VSTs.
As with anything musical, I’d advise some trials and allowing your ears to decide what gives the kind of playback effect you’re trying to achieve. Hope this helps!
But I understand you as wanting to raise only the “volume” — i.e., amplitude — of the sound without any other changes. Have I read you correctly?
Yes, so that the instrument is the most prominent among the others.
What you demonstrated above (manually dragging the control points of the MIDI dynamic), do I understand correctly that this only changes the volume level, not the Expression (or Velocity, well, I do not know what to call it most correctly)?
And do I understand correctly that Default Dynamics MIDI data in the Key Editor is the same “the note dynamic section” that @derAbgang had in mind?
It’s a tricky thing. Firstly, it’s basically impossible to play an instrument softer or louder without having concomitant changes in timbral quality. A “volume”-only adjustment would sound very unnatural, and only be achievable through electronic methods; think recording a line played loudly, but then lowering the mixer fader to make that same timbre softer in the mix.
In general, I agree with you.
For that matter, I would like to clarify how to achieve a real soloistic manner of playing using other, more advanced VSTs? As I understand it, at the moment there is no such special instruction in Dorico. But for example, I need the instrument to sound in a soloistic manner in a particular passage.
As you said, this would mean precisely adjustments the timbre, the amount of vibrato, and other non-purely-“volume” aspects of the sound that help the line “sing”.
Let’s say we can entrust the precisely adjustments to the “intelligent” contextual interpretation of the VST itself. The question is, how to make it clear to VST, where exactly to apply it? We don’t have such a controller called “soloistic manner” right now ( 
)
Which do you want: “volume”-only or “soloistic,” with all of the other aspects that entails? (This is an either/or choice.)
If you listen again you’ll hear Dorico + NotePerformer is shaping things well beyond pure loudness. It’s automatically adding in variations of MIDI velocity, thereby causing timbral adjustments well as loudness, and bringing the top line out over the lower one without my having to do anything other than write mp < mf > mp. (I did no manual MIDI controller writing whatsoever until I tried out CC7.) Whether it sounds “realistic” or not is somewhat a personal musical determination, but you can experiment with the Playback Options > Dynamics settings I mentioned above.
In using NotePerformer I am by default entrusting a lot of this to “the machine,” since to my ears it renders quite musical performances — certainly good enough for the purposes of a playback demo — without my having to futz around much (unless I’m writing jazz…). In so doing I am also “surrendering” control to some extent, since it’s designed to do so much.
As pointed out, the library makes a huge difference in playback response to things.
Others here are far more experienced in working with porting Dorico into DAWs to do the “hardcore” shaping of things, so I should probably step back now and let them offer their wisdom to assist.
P.S. — I see that you’ve also got this parallel thread going, touching on related issues: Interpretation of CC11 (expression) / Velocity midi. Perhaps you’ll get your answer there.
