Hi all, I’m trying to figure out how to make a horn piece that is written in F Horn sound correctly. It is the same issue as I had on Mac which I fixed by transposing in the spitfire audio horn patch, but on iPad, I can’t see how to do this with iconica sketch? See original post here
Many thanks in advance
There is a Play tab on your score - Setup, Write, Engrave, Play, Print. Click that… edit, you said Iconica Sketch. Let me think about that for a minute. Another edit:
Click VST and Midi, probably the ‘e’ icon to edit, and here you can see where I created a Halion instance, and loaded an Iconica Sketch horn into it. Note the MIDI tab for transpose.
Thanks @phase_Shift much appreciated. On the iPad I can’t see vast/midi though, I don’t think they exist - can’t see the settings or where Halion would be
Just apply a Dorico default playback template. If your instrument is correctly defined, Dorico will apply the correct transposition.
There’s no need to mess with transpositions in Halion (your reference on another thread to a viola transposition makes no sense!)
Thanks @Janus , that’s my confusion. Surely an F Horn playing an f4 should “sound” a Bb3? Because Dorico knows to apply the transposition. But my f4 sounds like an f4. It’s as if my horn is not aware it is a transposing instrument
Can you upload the file so someone can take a look at what’s going on?
(Personally I don’t use the iPad version)
Definitely, thanks, that would be great. I’ll figure out how to do that and post it up. 
Theme From Jurassic Park.dorico (1.3 MB)
I was trying to learn dorico by notating this piece. It’s the opening horn part that is wrong (plus the clarinet of course), and as you say, it is because the instruments aren’t transposing as I would think they would. Bear in mind I am a total beginner so this is almost certainly my fault somehow 
You appear to have independent key signatures set for your Horn and Clarinet. I’m not sure how to unravel this.
Perhaps others could advise?
It looks like there was some confusion between entering in concert pitch and transposed pitch. I deleted the independent key signatures and then transposed the clarinet and horn parts by the appropriate interval.
Does this look/sound right to you?
@asherber (and @Janus ) many thanks for helping me with that. Yes, this sounds exactly right. I’m really keen to understand the mistakes I made . When you say independent time signatures, do you think I read from the score and put in the notes I was entering in transposed pitch for the horn and clarinet, and concert pitch for everything else? Or to clarify, when you are entering a horn part for an F horn, would you do it in concert pitch and make sure dorico knows it is an F horn first? I’m so confused 
. Thanks again for your help!
One can enter a transposing instrument either in concert pitch or in transposed pitch; the key is to know which one is doing at the time.
You don’t need to worry about setting different key signatures for transposing instruments like Horns and Clarinets. Dorico does it all for you when you choose the instrument in Setup.
Whether you input notes at Concert pitch or Transposed pitch is entirely up to you. Though if you are transcribing an existing transposed score, it is easier to work at transposed pitch!
You can switch between concert/transposed views…
Independent key signatures are different beasts. They do not transpose, rather they allow you to notate different instruments in different keys (to make it easier for the players…). See this example from Symanovsky’s 1st String Quartet…
I have an xml file the imported with independent key signatures for the transposing instruments. I understand what the problem is, but None of the answers say how to turn off what is sometimes called independent or local key signatures. I have tried to find where the setting is in properties pages, searches in the manual, and this forum, but haven’t found it. I would appreciate something like a page in the manual, a link, or an explanation that would help find how to turn it off. I’m a Finale convert, and was able to fix the key signatures in Finale after importing the file, but something eludes me in Dorico.
I’m not sure I understand your question, but if you have a Dorico file with local key signatures, you can just select those key signatures and delete them.
Thanks for the hint. I had tried right clicking, searching properties, scrolling through setup options, but wasn’t finding the magic. In SETUP, clicking the key signature doesn’t do anything. I found that in WRITE, sometimes a click on the key signature didn’t do anything, but a second click caused it to highlight. No options showed up and right click didn’t have anything that looked applicable, but your suggestion to DELETE led me to the Delete key and that was the trick. Yes, it was simple once I got there.
Someone who didn’t understand transpositions had forced the trumpets one step down, instead of up.
Why do you use independent key signatures for transposing instruments rather than the proper transpositions? Finale is able to consider any interval and key change you want. Or disable the independent key signatures before XML exporting the Finale file.
From my Finale transition experience it often causes less work (and less pain and surprises) to create a new file in Dorico with the instruments, number of bars, key and time signature (changes) and then copy and paste the music from the imported XML file.
