Dorico pro 6.1 proofreading. Range of Bass Clarinet in Bb.
Dorico maps sounding low C# as “below the comfortable range”. Basically even most beginners can negotiate the lowest notes on all types of clarinets with ease. Sounding low A which is to my klowledge unplayable even on modern Bb Bass Clarinets is also listed as “below the comfortable range”, it should be “out of range”. The major third between two notes discussed above is listed as “might not have the necessary C extension”.
I think that the definition of modern Bass Clarinets should be updated. Most professional Bb Bass Clarinets can play until sounding low Bb (C extension). Of course there might be some legacy or student models at some school bands, maybe there should be 2 instruments: with or without the C extension. And low sounding A should be mapped as “out of range”.
That is the first issue I found with 6.1, lets see what else will pop up later
Good for you if you work in an environment where those Bass Clarinets are common.
I will have to admit that it was only last year that I learned that Bass Clarinets could even go below a notated E I had never seed a clarinet or a Bass Clarinet part that would go any lower before, and when I saw such a part, I thought is was a misprint.
(No disrespect, of course. We all live and work in the environment that we live and work in )
I changed my layout and saw hundreds of “out of comfortable range” warnings. Strings, winds, brass- you name it. Not even extreme but just at the high/low end of very classical and usable range.
This category of proofreading is probably considered for school bands in general, that would make sense. Luckily it can be turned off.
I did not find player level setting: beginner/intermediate/advanced. Is is somewhere? It was in my last notation app, one could set the general level of players for a document.
@Estigy therefore my proposal was: there should be 2 separate instruments; with/without C-extension. But then again it is also true that a professional should not even need the range-checking…. well we all make typos of course. In the current form the range checking in proofreading has to go off because it pollutes the list.
It considers a ‘top D’ on a trumpet out of the comfortable range I think it will go into melt down when I write out Maynard Fergusons “Theme from Rocky”
Just loaded a chart and its flagging up a “top C” as out of the comfort zone? (Bb5)
You can change the ranges of instruments in Library>Instruments. This may be a bit cumbersome but you can save your changes as default, so you only have to edit each instrument once. This will affect the colors and the proofreading suggestions. I prefer to just switch off the colors and proofreading warnings, but there is flexibility there.
Yesterday I opened a file from a few months ago that has a five-string electric bass (which can go down to B0, if not lower if one changes the tuning). Dorico flagged D1 both by note color and in the Proofreading panel. No big deal, but just for kick, I changed the range of the bass guitar in Setup to go down to B0, and it did not change anything. So I guess the answer is to change it in the Instruments library, so I’ll try that in the future. That D1 is indeed out of the range of a four-string electric bass, so Dorico is correct there, but just as one can have C extension for a contrabass, one can have an electric bass with a fifth string and that extends the lower range a bit. Thanks for the suggestion!
Could you post here or send me the score that’s giving the incorrect proofreading warning on bass guitar? I believe we use the string tunings for this (rather than the range in the Instrument library) but perhaps there is a bug here.
Thanks. No need, actually. I went into Library:Instruments and saw that the four-string electric bass was noted as the instrument that is current, and once I changed the selection there to the five-string bass guitar, all good. I think I must have just selected a generic bass guitar when I started and didn’t think to see if Dorico had a five-string option, which it does. Very helpful-thanks. No bug here, just user error.
I’ve been bitten by this as well, but with Tenor sax, which flags A2 as “below the instruments comfortable range”. Yes, it is low on the instrument, but it’s an extremely commonly played note on the Tenor sax, and is not outside the comfortable range for anyone except a raw beginner.
I appreciate that I can tweak the instruments, but Dorico really ought to come with (as others have said) default templates for instrument skill level. Having to tweak every instrument while writing for a professional band seems like a lot of unnecessary work that should be fixed by the software.
How have you been ‘bitten’? Nothing prevents you from writing the pitch. Only the VST you use might prevent the note from playing back. You are free to ignore Proofreading suggestions. And if you don’t want to see out of range notes just switch them off.
Indeed, when working with professional performers, range checking should be turned off. It produces too many false warnings across all instrument groups.
For range checking to function properly, additional instrument definitions would need to be added to the library. For example: modern bass clarinet; alto, tenor, and bass trombones with different valve configurations; and 5-string double basses with different tunings (here, the preferred tuning is in fourths: B–E–A–D–G). There should also be a project-based switch for beginner / intermediate / advanced levels.
One point that may have been missed is that this discussion is specifically about Dorico’s instrument range checking feature (and the underlying instrument definitions), which goes beyond simply checking written pitch ranges.
Could you explain, in detail, how to create the following custom instrument setups?
• Tenor trombone with an F-attachment
• 5-string double bass tuned B–E–A–D–G
• Concert harp where the two lowest strings are not tuned by pedals (as on modern pedal harps)
I’ve read the relevant section of the manual, but I still haven’t found a way to define these in Dorico.
I did miss the concert harp and trombone are instruments which cannot play all notes above the lowest note.
But why would the double bass not work? I don’t understand why the tuning of the individual string is important, all notes above the lowest can be played? (Or do you mean an extension on the lowest string?)
And if tuning is important, maybe you can rename a 5-string bass guitar, of which the strings can be tuned.
I did search for insruments like a blues harp, which also can’t play all notes, to see if there was some kind of special trick, but couldn’t find them.
The issue is the large number of false warnings, which are unnecessarily burdensome and effectively render the range-checking feature unusable. When instruments are not defined realistically, this is exactly what happens.
Try to imagine a score with around 120,000 notes and the sheer amount of false flags that result. Of course, I have turned this category off, but that is not the point. The point is to make this new feature usable for professionals as well.
Because it presents a frustrating and time consuming impediment to my workflow.
You are free to ignore Proofreading suggestions. And if you don’t want to see out of range notes just switch them off.
The issue (for me) is that the proofreading suggestions can be useful, but are unusable by default when writing for professional musicians. For example, I very much appreciate the feature’s ability to tell me when (say) a trumpet part is too high, or when I write a note that is below the actual playable range of an instrument.
What I do not appreciate is the constant barrage of “false positives” while writing music for capable musicians, with notes that are entirely playable.
Others have suggested re-creating all the instruments with new ranges, but I would argue that this is a specific and entirely unacceptable solution for a general problem. Imagine that I’m writing for a string quartet one week, then a big band the next, and then a pit orchestra the week after. Am I supposed to completely re-define every instrument that I use before getting on with the work of actually writing music? What if I spend part of my time working on music to be played by professionals, and then the rest of my time working on music for school bands? Dorico is meant to be a professional tool, which means that it should get out of the way of the user, not demand that they make tweaks to make features work properly, or try and “work around” a feature.
From a user experience perspective, the “correct” fix would be to have Dorico define multiple ranges for each instrument, e.g. “beginner”, “professional”, “extended”, and allow the user to select a range while proofreading or writing music. That way the user can benefit from the specific range that they need, without the tedium of redefining instruments.
I had never seed a clarinet or a Bass Clarinet part that would go any lower before, and when I saw such a part, I thought is was a misprint.