I have a tremolo on strings which lead up right to a caesura, where my intention is that the orchestra take a noticeable pause before the next bar. Timing-wise it works exactly how I want it to sound, but I’ve noticed that tremolos are negatively affected because of the tempo automation which starts while they are still playing - resulting in tremolos that very suddenly stutter as the tempo drops for the caesura – which, by the way, is placed at the start of the next bar as you can see highlighted here:
I’ve noticed in the key editor automation lane for tempo that Dorico does not allow me to drag over the automation point using the mouse (was attempting to see if I could start if a fraction later).
Is there any recommended workaround for this? Thank you!
Yep. I haven’t tested with any other playback template though I’m assuming it might happen with Halion since when I look at the automation lane, the tempo does drop right before the caesura but while the note is still playing (maybe it’s technically unrealistic but I guess I am wondering if the tempo pause can happen at the start of the bar but before the first note, which might solve it).
When Dorico has to generate notes to play a tremolo (or a trill) it can either do so in a way that tries to make the notes sound at a constant speed regardless of the changes in tempo, or it can generate them at a fixed length, such that they will speed up or slow down in line with the tempo.
In the NotePerformer expression map, you could take a look at the Playback Options Overrides section and see whether the option to Play tremolos at constant speed during tempo changes is overridden to be deactivated, and if so, try activating it.
Thanks Daniel, I never knew such a thing existed. In my version I could not find under the playback overrides anything labelled what you wrote, however after digging I did see an toggle selection box called Consider tempo changes in tremolos which was deactivated in the NP map, so after activating it worked perfectly. Good to know!
Hi Daniel, something I thought worth mentioning is that I have discovered on percussion, ‘z’ rolls still have this issue even with that tremolo override setting the expression map. I can change these to 3-stroke tremolos and they sound fine - but it would be nice if ‘z’ rolls had the same behavior since I generally prefer them for percussion notation. Thank you!
