Changing "When" an Instrument Change Takes Effect

I have two oboes in a score, one doubling on English Horn. The English horn begins the movement and then changes to Oboe. However, because the player doesn’t switch for about 16-20 bars, I get multiple systems of two blank Oboe staves, rather than having them condensed. Is there a way to change “when” the instrument change takes effect to eliminate this? It happens 5 or 6 times in my piece.

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Unfortunately there isn’t a way of controlling where an instrument change takes place currently, other than to add something that prevents an instrument change to the part you want to “stay on”. One such item is a chord symbol region. However, it will also break multi-bar rests but you might be able to find a way of having it so that that still works? It depends on the music going on at various stages.

I would like to vote on better control in this area too. I would love to have the option in a way like:

“Don’t apply an instrument change if the next musical event is within X quarters, and show both staves instead.”

Or similar. Ideally, this would be specific to certain players, especially the percussionists.

Example:
Bildschirmfoto 2022-07-16 um 13.36.07
Here my Soloist-Percussionist is quickly changing instruments.
I want to:

  • have player instead of instrument labels for the soloists
  • allow instrument changes in the layout (because of the woodwinds)
  • have both the initial marimba and the 5-line Kit that is being changed to shown in this exact spot in the score.

I don’t see it currently being possible.

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I just wanted to ask if there’s been any improvements in this area? I’d love to be able to manually position instrument changes, especially since the automatic settings aren’t very reliable. I’m currently working on a percussion part and have this unnecessary line of glock. The glock hasn’t been used at all in the score until its entry at 33.

Does anyone have any tips for fixing this? I don’t think the chord symbol trick would work since percussion parts allow multiple staves like this but maybe I’ve misunderstood it.

I’m pretty sure you can fix this particular instance with Manual Staff Visibility (see Hiding/Showing staves from system/frame breaks).

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Thanks! I’ll play around with that.