Swing playback error

Dorico
1

I’m working on a file with the default rhythmic feel set to 2:1 swing 8ths fixed. (It’s a rock song that I could also have chosen to notate as 12/8.) I have also tried setting the swing feel with the tempo popover with the same result.

But when I input a figure like this, the last beat is played straight.

Skärmavbild 2026-09-28 kl. 14.26.46
Skärmavbild 2026-09-28 kl. 14.26.46616×214 5.07 KB

The manual states that this result isn’t expected:

All pairs of either eighth notes or 16th notes in your project are played back with the selected swing ratio, depending on the swing unit for the selected ratio. This includes if the second beat is divided into two, such as two 16th notes in an eighth note swing.

Is there a setting that I’ve missed that’s causing this or is something else wrong? I’m also attaching a Dorico project with the odd playback.

Test.dorico (3.0 MB)

2

Curious. I have no explanation, but I did try moving the last note in each of the first two bars from Tom. 2 down to Snare Drum. The swing playback appeared to be OK when I did that.

3

Interesting! I hesitate to call something out as a bug, but that seems increasingly likely to be the case…

4

Any suggestions for workarounds? I know I can create a separate drum part for playback where I notate those rhythms explicitly as triplets, and mute the real part. Is there a better way to get it to play back as it should?

5
  1. With insert mode off, select the last three notes in the first measure and type ; 3:2e Return.
  2. Select the first of these three notes and type ; 1:2e Return.
  3. Select all three notes and beam them together.
  4. Hide the tuplet numbers and bracket.
  5. Copy these three notes with their tuplet signposts and paste over the last beat of the second measure.
6

Thanks! It makes the spacing a little off, but I can live with that. I had to think a while to figure it out, but I do understand what you did and how it works.

(I’m not marking your post as the solution, because - while it is a good workaround and I’m grateful - it doesn’t really fix the issue. Only the Dorico team can do that.)