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 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 Pro, you can enable swing playback for your whole project, only for certain sections, and only for individual instruments. You can also edit the default swing patterns to customize the rhythmic feel you want in the Rhythmic Feel dialog.

Based on academic research into the rendering of swing by musicians, swing patterns in Dorico Pro are tempo-dependent by default. This means that the swing feels more pronounced at lower tempos, and straighter at higher tempos. Rhythmic feels that produce the same swing ratio at all tempos are also available in the Rhythmic Feel dialog.