Which playing techniques/articulations affect playback?

Dorico
#1

Is there a post/document somewhere that lists which playing techniques, articulations, and ornaments are currently recognized by Dorico’s playback system? From what I’m reading on the forums, it sounds like some of these are still in development and not “hooked up” in the code yet?

I’ve been testing out the expression map / playback functionality of Dorico with 3rd party VST instruments and I really want to know if I’ll be able to trigger keyswitches in those instruments reliably. (Dorico’s built-in sequencer is a brilliant idea!) So far, I’ve only been able to get maybe 25% of the possible keyswitches to work. I’m wondering if the system just isn’t realizing all the playing techniques (like “vibrato” or “flutter-tongue”), trills, glissando/portamento, etc., or if it’s operator error on my part in setting up the expression maps or something.

I’ve gotten playback of instruments working using the Play and Kontakt plugins needed for the libraries I use (EastWest Hollywood Orchestra and Fable Sounds’ Broadway Lites).

I’ve been a Sibelius user since 2001 and I’m currently trying Dorico’s 30-day trial to see if it’s time to make the switch yet. I’m blown away by all of the thought that obviously went into the program and I’m excited to see what the developers are able to do over the next few releases. And I’ll be happy to give my money to Daniel and his team now that they have a new home at Steinberg! Best of luck!

#2

Welcome to the Dorico community, Adam. I’m glad you’re generally enjoying Dorico so far!

The main missing part in how Dorico’s handling of playing techniques works is it knowing which ones are mutually exclusive with each other: you should find that if you insert a “nat.” playing technique before the next one you want to switch to, things work a bit more reliably. This shouldn’t be necessary, of course, and this is an area that we will be doing more work on in the future.

#3

Thanks for your quick reply, Daniel. I’m still having trouble getting several of the playing techniques and ornaments to trigger the keyswitches properly, but maybe I’ve made a mistake somewhere along the line in my set-up. I think I’ll take a break and try to tackle this again in a little while.

I do appreciate your help and wish you the best with this new project. I can’t wait to see what your team is able to do in future releases.

#4

Ornaments basically don’t yet play back, I’m afraid: this is particularly troublesome for trills, of course, and we do plan to improve this as soon as possible.

#5

The other thing I’m hoping they can add really soon is the ability for the playing techniques to switch midi channels like can be done in Cubase. That’s particularly useful with Hollywood orchestra since we currently can’t create our own custom keyswitches in play either.

#6

I agree! This would be a huge help for all of us who need a way to create better mock-ups without having to send everything through to a DAW or do a bunch of workarounds within the notation software. There are some really nice sound libraries out there that we’d all like to be able to put to better use within a notation program!

#7

Hi Daniel and Dorico team: Just checking in to see if there has been any progress in recent releases in these areas (triggering keyswitches in 3rd party VSTs linked to playing techniques/articulations, ornaments, trills, etc.).

#8

Yes, there have been lots of changes. When you made your original post in January 2018 the current version was Dorico 1.2. You can refer to the Dorico 2 Version History PDF and Dorico 3 Version History PDF for comprehensive information of everything that has changed in playback.