I have the latest Dorico 1.2.10, and was just trying to insert a cello cue into the violin part of a violin/cello duo. When I did it, the violin line transposed up an octave magically, with no clef change. There doesn’t seem to be a way to fix this. I used a rhythmic cue, and the violin transposed back down. The violin stays at the wrong octave even if I displace the cello line by an octave or two.
In an unrelated bug, if I insert a rhythmic cue, and the violin line is an up-stem voice whose notes above the center line, the stems (which were going down) suddenly go up, interfering with the cue. Again, there doesn’t seem to be a way to fix this. I managed to work around it by transposing the cello line down, and forcing stems down in the cue, but it’s a hack.
Could you please attach a short excerpt of your piece where this happens? (When you attach the file, include .zip on the end so it gets accepted by the forum website.)
You cello cue covers many bars of the violin, and so Dorico inserts a clef change to bass clef. That’s why the violin notes ‘transpose up’. I think you’d be better served by creating several short cello cues, such as in the attached.
Not sure what’s going on with the rhythmic cue, although the problem I see is not what you described. It seems that when you enter the cue the violin stems get longer, for some reason. Seems like a bug.
The stem-lengthening behaviour isn’t a bug, though it’s certainly not particularly helpful in this situation! When you have two voices with the same stem direction on a staff, Dorico ensures that the beams of one voice don’t collide with the noteheads of the other voice. You might consider making the violin’s actual music stem-down for clarity. Alternatively, you should find that adjusting the beam positions in Engrave mode gives a good and stable result.
The problem with the clef change is that even if you transpose the cello cue up 1, or even 2 octaves, it still stays in bass clef. Also, it doesn’t make sense, and Dorico does such a good job of “making sense” it’s rather flawed. In other words, if a cue would force the main voice to change clef, that is not a good idea, ever. Instead, a floating clef in parentheses for the cue, or auto-transposition (with option to disable) would be the way I would expect Dorico to go. Perhaps the essential difference is that the cue feature was designed for use primarily in rests? Then this behavior makes sense. But if it is over music (and this is obviously allowed), then the most logical way of displaying the cue should change. I am pointing this out because it renders the cue pretty useless, as it is just as much work, if not more, to try to un-mangle the cue as it is to simply copy/paste into a new voice at that moment.
When I was rehearsing this piece for the premiere, I watched the violinist pencil in these cues exactly as I would have Dorico make them. It would save rehearsal time and practice time, which as we know, is gold. The less time it takes to read a part and put it together, the more chance of getting that premiere and the all-important repeat performances (assuming the piece is good on its own merits)
There is another very real bug that I mentioned in the first post, but neglected in my hastily put-together example. See this screenshot:
If you don’t want the cue to insert a clef you can set the cue’s clef property to None. Note that there are two separate properties (Concert clef and Transposed clef) and Dorico shows the one matching with the current layout type. You can also change this behaviour generally in Engraving options / Cues / Clefs / Use clef of destination instrument. If you find afterwards that without the clef change the cued cello music needs too many ledger lines, you can transpose it using the cue’s octave shift property.
I have noticed the same stem direction change behavior noted in CelloG’s 3/17 7:15 am post. I have to force the stems of the main part down to avoid this.
If you use the other forum theme (“subsilver”), the post number appears directly below the post title. You can change this by going to your User Control Panel, then Board Preferences.
OK. The post I was referring to in my post #10 was CelloG’s post #8. Back to the issue: cues seem to mess with the stem direction of the main voice, which then has to be overridden manually. If it matters, I’m talking about non-pitched rhythmic cues. I use them to indicate the suggested interpretation of grace-notes in 18th-c music.
Sure.
This is what Dorico gives me at first.
This is what I want, of course; I get it by forcing the main-note stem down.
I have given the Ossia line that’s the source of these cues a name of nothing, which is why there’s no instrument name associated with the cues. It’s a kludge but a pretty good one, I think. By the way, notice that when the stem is wrong, the alignment is wrong, but when I fix the stem the alignment is right. This is only problematic when there are two voices in the main part; then I can’t adjust the stem of course, and the alignment is off again.
it’s online now 
