Doesn’t work. Maybe that’s a good thing? Students will at least have to know the name of the chord…
wconable, take a look at Layout Options > Players > Figured bass. You can simply tell Dorico for which players figured bass should appear.
No, this is all working as designed. Figured bass is global by default, and applies to all instruments in the ensemble, but it only appears on the staves on which you explicitly invoke the popover and input figured bass there, or those that are activated in the list of players on the Players page of Layout Options (the former automatically activating the player in the latter). If you need to show different figures for different instruments indicating different harmony, that’s what local figured bass is for. All of this is documented in the Dorico 3.5 Version History PDF, and it would be worth quickly reviewing that now you’ve found your sea legs with the feature a little bit, as some of the details covered in there probably make more sense once you have the gist of the feature.
Here you go, Ben: Figurato is now SMuFL-compliant so it can be substituted for the figured bass font style. Note that you’ll want to use a smaller font size and probably scale down accidentals in Engraving Options until Dorico can kern larger accidentals.
Brilliant! Thank you, Florian!
Thank you, Florian! Just wondering, do we still need FiguratoB? Dorico can alter the baseline and order of the figures internally.
Probably not. I’ve included it in the release for all the poor souls that are still doing FB in software from the last century…
Fast work! Many thanks.
Is there a way to override Dorico’s automatic descending order of figures in FB-“stacks”? There is quite a number of instances where a different numbering order is used to indicate a specific position or voiceleading - as in the attached example from Bach’s G Major violin sonata.
I can’t get that to work, and yes, “Follow input literally” is turned on.
Am I missing something?
No, it’s not possible.
Some of the points are actually easier to solve by an algo than a real player. An algo has control of all instruments and doesn’t need to bother with personalities!
I for one would love to hear FB playing along
Are you able to realise figured bass really well in practical situations? If so, you’d know that creating an algorithm for ‘playing along’ could, at best, never yield better results than those of a mediocre player who’s busy playing an editor’s realisation provided for those players unable to realise figured bass. Much of good continuo playing is dependent on being sensitive to what’s going on around you at the moment. Having ‘to bother with personalities’ is an essential part of the game. Sure, you could design an algorithm for plunking out chordal accompaniments based on the FB figures, but that ain’t good continuo playing. Heaven forbid that this FB Plunking™ were to get implemented and that an entire population of inexperienced listeners would get used to that kind of ‘performance’!
Lars Ulrik, yes you can: since version 3.5 (I think) you can input the figures „the other way round“. If you need a 3 on top of an 8, try to input as „108“ whilst „following input literally“.
source: https://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1027306#p1027306
If you also tick the box for “Show compound intervals as simple”, then 10/8 will display as 3/8. (Up to 19, I think!)
Thank you Ben, this is the missing link.
I would actually favour - once the user has checked “Follow input Literally” - if Dorico would set these properties automatically. I don’t know whether that is possible though.
Wasn’t that joke about Quantum Mechanics (careful, you’re talking to an ex-physicist 
)
Florian, can you tell us how to make a font SMuFL compliant? I got FontLab on a Black Friday discount and am creating a font for synthesizer symbols for Dorico.
It was a conversation about general relativity between Ludwik Silberstein and Arthur Eddington where Silberstein implied (without using names) that he, Einstein and Eddington were the only three people who truly understood it. When Eddington remained silent after that remark, Silberstein told Eddington not to be so modest, but Eddington replied that he wasn’t being modest but merely trying to imagine who the third person was.
I think it was Bach who said “you just put the glyphs in the correct Unicode positions, and the SMuFL font just makes itself”.
Florian and I have been working on SMuFL-izing his Sebastian font. The two key points are: you can fill in Bravura glyphs for anything you can’t be bothered to make**, and you can product a SMuFL font that only does Dynamics, or Figured Bass, or other group that can be set in Font Styles or the Music Symbols editor.
** as long as the font is offered on a SIL licence.
I think it was Bach who said “you just put the glyphs in the correct Unicode positions, and the SMuFL font just makes itself”.
Or perhaps Bach was the third person who understood relativity.
Him, Gödel, and the other one.
Ooh, Thanks for the tip! I’ve just got an upgrade from TypeTool 3 to full FontLab for $199…!