I’ve been working on an orchestral score and there’s two things I can’t seem to find an answer to.
The first is that I’ve been trying to get the first page of the score to condense Ob 1 and 2 but since the first time the second oboe player comes in he does so with the EH he’s doubling with it doesn’t condense. It would be nicer to have Ob 1 and 2 in the first page, honestly, since it’s a while until the second player comes in anyways. (See screenshot 1.)
The second is that I’ve gone and tried to manually override the condensing for Trombone 1 and 2 because it looks quite confusing on a single staff for the first few bars, but it won’t change a thing. I swear I’ve read the manual and guide at least 5 times to see if I’ve missed something, but I just can’t seem to understand what’s happening. (See screenshots 2 and 3.)
Would you be willing to post a Dorico file of the problem, say just the first system so we can see what you have done already and try other options that might occur to us?
Select the first few bars of the Oboe 2.
Write > Create Chord Symbol Region.
This tells Dorico that the Oboe 2 is not empty. Since there are no Chord Symbols defined, there is no impact on the score.
Condensing changes only take place at the very start of a System. If you don’t want the Trombones to condense at the beginning, the Condensing Change has to be at the very start.
It’s not quite accurate to say that condensing changes can only take effect at the start of the system: as long as the condensing change doesn’t require a different set of staves, then the condensing change will take effect at that point: but you’re right, Craig, that if you need to change the number of staves used for a particular condensing group, that has to be done at the start of a system.
