Velocity curve?

Dorico
#1

Just downloaded a trial of Dorico to test a few things. I’m looking for the best option to build a system for writing orchestral music with VSTs. I come from the notation tradition (use Sibelius) and can do a little bit in various daws, but I’m looking for the perfect combination of notation and audio. Is Dorico that?

So far I’ve managed to upload Vienna Ensemble Pro from a slave PC and added dynamics etc in the write mode.

I love that you can move the notes in play mode without affecting the score, that is just brilliant. But, can you change velocity in play mode using something like a velocity curve? If that’s not possible, and there are no similar alternatives, I don’t know if it can replace a daw for me. Adjusting precision and velocity is needed for that.

#2

Dorico will be the program you are looking for, but give it some time (in years, not weeks). Anyway, it is not destined to be replacing a DAW, the goal is to be the best app ever to engrave music.

#3

The goal is important of course. And Sibelius works perfectly as what it is. But my impression was that Dorico wanted to do something more than that, which must be one of the reasons to include a play mode where you can adjust the position to make a better playback.

#4

Another question: I’ve tried a little bit with 8Dio’s Insolidus choir. The dynamics in the write mode (pp, cresc, mf, etc) does not effect the playback at all. Any way do solve that?

#5

There are several ways that sample libraries control dynamics. Some use note velocity, some use MIDI controller data, and different libraries may use different controllers.

If the 8Dio library has Expression Maps for Cubase you can import them into Dorico. If not, you will have to read the 8Dio documentation and set up your own Expression Maps, or find the ones supplied with the Halion library that are the best match.

#6

I see, thank you. I know a map was necessary for articulation, but I was hoping it was enough with expression markings in the score to do the dynamics as it’s just volume.

#7

Once you’ve got your expression map set up with the appropriate controller for volume, note also that due to a bug, you will sometimes find that the dynamic level isn’t updated in playback if you change a dynamic marking in the score. Saving, closing, and reopening the project is sufficient to kick Dorico into correctly reinterpreting the dynamics. This is a bug that we plan to fix as soon as we can.

1 Like
#8

Thanks, that’s good to know. Any plans for a daw-like velocity curve in play mode? That would be quite amazing.

#9

Yes, we do intend to add this ability at some point in the future.

#10

OK, thanks, looking forward to follow this.