Table of Contents
Play mode
Play mode allows you to change how your music sounds in playback, including by changing the playback template and assigning VST instruments, inputting automation, adjusting the mix, and changing the sounding duration of notes in playback without affecting their notated duration.
Swing playback
Swing is a style of performance where equally-notated notes are played in a regular pattern of alternating longer and shorter notes, which commonly entails eighth notes being played as a quarter note triplet followed by an eighth note triplet.

Swing playback

Swing is a style of performance where equally-notated notes are played in a regular pattern of alternating longer and shorter notes, which commonly entails eighth notes being played as a quarter note triplet followed by an eighth note triplet.


Figure 1. A swing phrase with simplified straight notation	Figure 2. How the same phrase sounds with a 2:1 swing ratio

Swing playback allows you to hear the uneven rhythms you want whilst retaining their simplified notation, including if the second eighth note beat is divided into two 16th notes. In Dorico Elements, you can enable swing playback for certain sections and for individual instruments only. You can swing either eighth notes or 16th notes.

Based on academic research into the rendering of swing by musicians, swing patterns in Dorico Elements are tempo-dependent by default. This means that the swing feels more pronounced at lower tempos, and straighter at higher tempos.