At the end of a piano piece I want the sustain pedal to continue sounding through the last - empty - bar. I went to Engrave, and extended the pedal line graphically, but it doesn’t sound through the last bar. Playback stops at the penultimate barline. Is there a way to fix this?
Can you show us what the music looks like, or better yet post a Dorico file containing just the last three or four measures?
You could override the playback of the pedal line via the Key Editor. Show the editor for MIDI CC 64 and add the appropriate data points at the end of the flow.
If I just choose the measures I want the Pedal to hold (including empty measures) and then apply the Ped. with Playing Techniques, the sound holds through the empty measures (so far as a piano would sustain).
Extending a line in Engrave mode (making any change in Engrave mode) does not affect playback, only position. Extending the line in Write mode would lengthen the pedal effect as intended.
Thanks for responding Derrek. Of course, the first thing I did was to try and extend the pedal line in Write mode, but it wouldn’t let me extend into the empty bar. I imagine that’s because the pedal line needs a note to attach to, and there are no notes in that bar. I’m using Dorico 3.5 - perhaps the more recent version allows this?
You can always extend the pedal line using the shortcut Shift+Alt+right arrow, even if there are no notes in the bars through which you are extending the pedal line.
Thanks for responding Daniel. I’ve not yet done any Midi editing in Dorico, and I can’t find the Key Editor. A search in the Manual didn’t find it either!
Ah - shift+alt+right arrow - that’s done it, extended the line and it plays back! Thanks a lot.
The Help pages might not quite to up to speed, but the Key Editor has been a highlighted feature in the Version History PDF of each release in version 4. It’s also been showcased in several YouTube videos on the Dorico channel.
It’s well worth reading through the Version History document every time there’s a new release, as the most detailed breakdown of new features, improvements and bug fixes. And Anthony’s videos are great fun. Otherwise, you won’t know what you’ve got!
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