In Dorico 4, I could have a section instrument like violins 1 and 2 be labeled on the score with a grand staff brace as just “Violin” without the 1 and 2 on the individual staves. This is typical engraving in the film scoring world since violins are often copied on the same part. In Dorico 5, with a file that has already achieved this engraving, the appearance has changed to both violin staves each being labeled “Violin”. The settings in Engrave Options and Layout Option have not changed, as when I open the file in Dorico 4 (despite having been saved in Dorico 5), the desired result appears. Is it possible to achieve this engraving design again in Dorico 5 (or was it a mistake that it could do that in Dorico 4 that was then “fixed” with the update)? There are of course workarounds, but nothing that I could do as quickly as checking two options, or that don’t alter the nature of playback (like hiding the actual violin staves and using a generic grand staff labeled “Violin”)
Can you share the project file? I’m getting a centered single Violin staff label here in Dorico 5, but I’ve also got the 1/2 labels in inner staff labels. Have you overridden the instrument names for your violins so they aren’t numbered together, but meaning that their instrument names are different (even by a single space character)?
set show players name instead of instrument for the violins
set staff labels for identical adjacent instruments held by section players to group between staves.
I’ve attached the project file, last saved in Dorico 5. Opening it in Dorico produces the desired result, which is really strange to me. Slightly altering the instrument names by adding a space to one of the violin parts gives me a label on each staff, and removes the label centered on the brace. Rhapsody Main Theme - Marvel Ver…dorico (1.5 MB)
Indeed, those are the results I get playing around with those settings. Since the Layout and Engraving Options settings never changed in the file since, I’m inclined to believe that Dorico 5 changed the behavior of these settings. Whether the Dorico 4 or Dorico 5 version is the intended effect, I can’t say. But I would to do what Dorico 4 does without doing significant workarounds.
If the names are different, they can’t be consolidated. If you just want one violin staff label, and always want a combined violin part, you could instead just use a single section player for both Violin I and II, and use a divisi change at the beginning to put it onto two staves.
Yeah, that’s a workaround I’ve thought of. My issue with that is that I use NotePerformer, and doing a divisi change doesn’t make Dorico load another instrument track (at least not with NP), and thus can’t play multiple articulations simultaneously. But for music copying and engraving purposes, it seems like I’ll have to do that. Thanks for the help, and I hope there’s a way to do it the Dorico 4 way someday again
