Condensing music

Dorico
1

I have just discovered the condensing feature, and have tried it on an XML transfer score to great success. Its friggin awesome, I used to spend hours doing this for large orchestral scores in finale.

Tomorrow I start my first job for which I will exclusively use dorico, and I want to make sure I do it correctly from the beginning so that the final condensing runs smoothly. As far as I understand:

  1. I create one individual player for every wind instrument (the instruments I will be condensing).
  2. I write all the music
  3. I create a new full score layout
  4. I go into layout options for that layout, enable condensing and create custom groups according to my needs.

Is that it? Am I missing a key step?

Thanks!

1 Like
2

You set up the project first by adding players. Some players may have more than one instrument, such as a player doubling on flute and piccolo. Each instrument will have a staff in Galley mode, but in page mode there will be a staff per player.

Full score and part layouts are created automatically as part of setup. If desired, you can add additional layouts, such as one containing all the brass instruments.

You can enable condensing for the full score layout before entering notes but be aware that the condensing logic will be running in the background. On larger projects and/or weaker machines this may cause a slowdown. If you experience slowness you can always disable condensing until all the notes are entered.