Alternate key signatures within a Dorico document

I’m new to Dorico (from Finale). Mostly I want to use it for lead sheets. Usually no lyrics, just melody and chord symbols. Like for a small jazz group or solo guitar performance. Here’s my scenario:
I like to practice tunes in multiple keys, perhaps all 12, for occasional work with a singer or just finding that right key for solo guitar. It would be nice to set all this up in a single Doric score/document.
Could I do this by creating a “player” for each key, say a base key and then some number of alternate “players” each with a different key signature?
I’ve been playing around with this idea but can’t seem to make it work yet. When I change the key for an alternate player, it changes the key for the original player. This may just be my unfamiliarity with Dorico at this point.

Does this seem like a sound approach, or would there be a better way to do it?

Thanks in advance.

I think the best approach might be to create additional layouts and set the clef and transposition overrides for each layout. So each layout will notate your main sheet in different keys allowing you to practice (though Dorico’s playback will remain the same)

(Others may be able to advise better).

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  1. No, setting up 11 chromatic duplicates of an instrument and handing them to the one player is too laborious.
  2. It is better to use 12 different Layouts of one piece, as suggested by Janus.
    Alternate key signatures within a Dorico document - #2 by Janus
  3. A third option would be to duplicate your flow 11 times and transpose each flow in chromatic order. This will take longer as suggestion 2), but you would have everything in one Layout.
    It is basically your choice how to proceed.
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Yes, Janus’s method is best, because you will have a flow for each song, and the songs will have the same flow number in each layout. (And they can still be reordered if you want.)

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Ok, I’ve been playing around with this a little and it is clearly a much better approach than my suggestion. I was a little puzzled by the Clef and Transposition Overrides dialog at first, as I don’t need to make any clef changes. But it is deceptively simple. I just change the transposed pitch and voila, the notes, chord symbols, and key signature all change at once. This is really nice. As Janus said, the playback is unaffected but that is fine.

Thanks to all for the advice!

I suppose it should be Clef and/or Transposition Override.

Remember you can save this as a Project Template (File>Save as Project Template) so you don’t have to set it up every time.

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Thanks, Janus. That’s a great tip!