I don’t have DAW-savvy experience, so I’ve more or less ignored Play mode since I started using Dorico. But I’ve tried experimenting with the time track of the new Key Editor with a view to using it to create pauses in playback between phrases - for example in senza misura passages - or to lengthen the duration of notes to simulate fermatas. I can see that this simply entails entering a slower tempo at a particular point. But I haven’t found a way to do this in a way that the original tempo is restored after the pause/fermata - I have to do another operation to achieve that, trying to match the tempo before and after the ‘dip’. This is the kind of thing I mean:
Actually I don’t think I got the previous and subsequent tempi to match there, which is why I’ve been looking for a way - maybe by using a marquee selection - to select a portion of the main tempo line and pull that portion downwards. I haven’t cracked it yet, so I’d value guidance on the easiest way to achieve what I need (which can of course be achieved in Write mode by inputting two tempo changes, being the method I’ve used until my attempts to get to grips with the new editor).
I just set a hidden tempo expression to restore the original tempo. In some cases I use a similar hidden tempo expression to initiate the slowdown and avoid the tempo track which still confuses me some too.
I have also found that adding a hidden eighth rest (without changing the time signature) can simulate a pausa.
Thanks, Derrek. I’m glad I’m not alone!
When you use the arrow tool and drag the little box up & down, you get a tempo display in bpm.
It’s a bit easier to match the previous tempo if you add the “a tempo” point first, then put in the modification before it. Also you can make the lower zone taller for more precision by dragging the divider on the right upward.
Brilliant! Thanks.
You could also type ”a tempo” to the tempo pop-over and hide that marking in the properties panel. If you then use line -tool to slow down the tempo, the hidden ”a tempo” -marking should restore the tempo to what it was before the added line.
The benefit of this approach would be that if you later decide to change the prevailing tempo of that section, the ”a tempo” marking should react to this change.
Many thanks for the suggestion.