Tap Tempo or Conductor Track

I’ve just been watching and listening to this VSL library:

It got me thinking that ultimately what I would want from my ideal scoring package would be a way once the piece is complete to totally control rubato in the way that real humans play (and follow a conductor). Could this be implemented from a Tap Tempo key input to create a tempo track. It wouldn’t be necessary to generate tempo markings which I guess would be almost impossible to do, but would be a stand-a-lone feature of the ‘Play’ part of Dorico.

We may well introduce a tap tempo feature in Dorico down the line, but it won’t be for a good while, I suspect.

Thanks Daniel,

I think it could be Dorico’s USP? (or one of them).

Check out the comments from this video:

Q. Did you write this in Finale? If so, how easy was setup?

A. Hi, No I programmed (played) it into Logic and did the score in Finale afterwards just for visual feedback. It’s not possible to get Finale or Sibelius to playback a score with any kind of expression or ‘feeling’. It’s always too mechanical and lifeless, at least all the ones I’ve heard.

I don’t know the programming implications of implementing a Tap Tempo feature, but it moves a notated piece from mechanical to human as much I think as GM sounds to current sample libraries.

There is a way (although it is quite indirect) to create a tempo map in a Dorico project today.

If you have a sequencer that can create a tempo map either by tap tempo or by beat mapping, then do the following:

  1. generate that tempo map in the sequencer
  2. create a midi track that tracks the tempo map
  3. export that track as a midi file
  4. import the midi file into Sibelius
  5. export that file as musicXML
  6. import that into Dorico.

Steps 4 and 5 could be avoided if/once Dorico can import tempo from a MIDI file.

This seems like a lot of work, but it is not really all that difficult.

For an example of creating a beat map using Logic Pro X from an audio file, see this video tutorial. One could do something similar using tap tempo if an audio file is not available for the project.

The video goes as far as creating a drum map synchronized to the tempo map. You then need to convert that drum track to a midi track and then do the exports and imports as described above.

The above may or may not work for some interim sequencers and/or notation programs. But it does work using Logic Pro X and Sibelius.

Thanks dbudde…I’ll check that lot out.
Al