Tremolo or abbreviation?

[Axel]

These 2 bars sound differently. Is that normal ? (I just wanted to use the traditional abbreviation for 4 sixteenth notes, not an unmeasured tremolo)

[tbabcock123]

They sound the same for me - piano @ quarter note = 50 using NotePerformer. What VST are you using and at what tempo?

[Axel]

I tried several vst (spitfire, vsl, ewql…) and several tempi. I seems that velocities are not generated the same way. I uses the tool found in the “tremolos” section because I don’t find the traditional abbreviation elsewhere.

[MarcLarcher]

Have you checked that in your Playback options, unmeasured tremolos are not assigned to 2 strokes ?

[Axel]

Thanks Marc. No, it is 3, like you. We can see the problem in the piano roll view below : slashed quarters are interpreted as “normal” quarters and trigger natural “normal” technique. Sixteenth notes trigger “natural short” technique. You can also see that velocities are not produced in the same way. So, for a violin (for which this notation is very common), it doesn’t sound the same at all.

I think that in Dorico the 2 things should be considered differently : one button for unmeasured tremolos, one button for the measured abbreviation (which is not a tremolo). The problem is the same for “multinotes” tremolo (which is not a tremolo).

[dko22]

What is written as a quarter is indeed shown as a quarter. It is played as 4 sixteenth’s because the Dorico measured tremolo rule is correctly followed. However, when using a NoteLength automation as in your example, the chosen patch will normally be different as the actual note value without the tremolo strokes is used so the sound is indeed different even if the actual number of notes played is the same. I think we’re saying the same here and that it’s a reasonable request for Dorico to make the behaviour more consistent

In the meantime you should create an extra staff (add staff below from the right-click context menu) so there is one hidden for playback and one with sound disabled for score display. When things get more complicated such as multi-note tremolos, you’ll probably need to do this anyway.

[Axel]

Thanks David for your interesting suggestion but it would be very long for me as I use hundred of these things in my orchestral compositions. The main problem of the slashed notes played by Dorico is that the playback results in a gun machine (one velocity per note, no humanization) not using the right playing technique. So, I’ll write the sixteenth notes, although this is longer to write and it weighs down the score.