I’m trying to add an Electric Bass to a piece. I can’t find that instrument anywhere in the list of instruments. What does Dorico want me to choose that will give me an electric bass sound on playback? Electric guitar is there and 4-string bass but no electric bass.
Any of the bass guitars in the Fretted Instruments section should give you what you want, I think (e.g. any that don’t contain the word “acoustic”). The “electric” bit is implicit when it comes to bass guitars.
There actually are bass guitars that are not electric basses. I know people call electric basses ‘bass guitars’ but I was taught that there is a difference. (Six versus four strings as a starter). An electric bass is not a bass guitar. So, when I see bass guitar, I don’t know for sure that the program is referring to electric basses or actual bass guitars. If there isn’t a difference why does the instrument list have, as an example, 4-string bass guitar and 4-string bass in the fretted instrument category? (A 4-string orchestra double bass isn’t fretted). It requires some detective work to figure it all out. It is unnecessarily confusing. I found that selecting 4-string bass gives me an electric bass sound. I’ve always heard people call it ‘electric bass’ and rarely ‘bass guitar.’ My first instinct is to look for electric bass. Not there. My second choice is to look for bass guitar, which isn’t there except as ‘4- or 5- or 6-string bass guitar’. This is just another example of confusing, vague or missing terms and terminology Dorico uses, either in the program or the documentation. It only affects 2 or 3% of what I do, but when I run across something like this, I’ve got to spend extra time trying to figure out what Dorico expects me to do that goes contrary to my musical training and experience and hope I’ll remember the next time I need to do this.