Dorico overwrites figured bass N5 as #5. Confusing. How can I prevent it?

Context:
I am arranging a continuo part in G minor that modulates to D minor via its dominant, an A major chord. I try to indicate it has E natural with “N5”, but Dorico changes that to “#5”.
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Question:
How can I ensure that a natural 5 is printed?

Extra detail:

  • I enter “!f9->8, n5, #, d=2, r=1” with the figured bass popover, but Dorico consistently changes that to “!b9->8, #5, #<3>, d=n, r=1”.
  • So I try variations, e.g. s instead of # before and after the number.
  • The closest I can get to something less misleading is to enter “+5” but I’m not fond of the slashed notation. Even in the continuo part, I feel it isn’t very readable.
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    • Also note here, omitting the exclamation mark can’t prevent it reverting to #5.
  • At one point in this journey, I had to exit Dorico and start again because it wouldn’t accept any changes at all- even after deleting and re-entering the figure. (At that point no figure could be written.)
  • If I try to indicate E natural in any chord in G minor it changes that figure to a #. See the preceding 6/5 in the part above. I entered “!n6,5” but Dorico changed that also.

I suspect the #5 means “raised” 5th rather than sharp 5th.

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In Engraving Options, Figured Bass, check the setting for “Calculate Accidentals” – I think “Absolute from Bass Note” is what you want.

Figured Bass is sometimes written “key agnostic”, so that the same figures will work whatever key the music is transposed to.

If your piece was up a tone in A minor, then you’d be wanting an F#. As Derrek says, the E flat of the key signature needs to be ‘sharpened’ to get your E natural.

As said, there is an Engraving Option that determines whether you want ‘agnostic’ (relative) accidentals or ‘absolute’.

Thank you Derrek, mark3 and benwiggy for helping me with this.
The solution I sought was to set the calculation to Absolute from Bass Note as mark3 suggested.
I had experimented with most variations but not that one. Having said that, I saw that setting when I started the project but interpreted the guidance entirely contrary to what now seems to be its meaning. I think the fact that there are two “in other words” clauses in the one sentence is a hint that the dev team had struggled with it.
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Hello everybody,
I’m trying to replicate Ben’s example of key agnostic figured bass from the blog note “Adventures in figured bass”, but even though I choose Relative key signature in engraving options, the status bar still shows a “c flat - e” on the a minor chord, as in the screen capture. Any ideas why?

The key signature has C natural. So a flat sign, relative to the key, will be a flattened note. If you just want a C natural and E, then it’s a 53 chord.

If you were in A MAJOR, with a C#, then a flat would give you a C natural.

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Ah ok… pity for the baroque practice where all minor chords are noted flat and major sharps… this can be handy when transposition is asked in sight reading , and the natural figure would be ambiguous.
I’m guessing the only way to keep flats and sharps in place will be some sort of lyrics-figured bass such as with figurato before version 3, right?

Are you sure that’s right? All minor chords? Even ones within the key sig? Can you give an example from the period?
My understanding is that flats are used where we would use naturals – e.g. to flatten a note that has a sharp from the key signature. But that’s usually changing a major third to a minor third.

My point is that you don’t need any accidental, because you’re staying in the key signature. And that’s true for any transposition.

I have created a replacement for Figurato, called GoFigure.

We don’t need the accidental for the a minor, only in the 17th century this cadence (like all) should end major… So the minor is needed to remember this choice.
The natural sign was not often used in the 16th and on into 17th c., so a natural b (on a flat key sig.) would be noted sharp, a natural f (on a sharp key sig.) noted flat.
Here’s an example from Monteverdi’s Poppea, A2Sc2, where Seneca’s a minor chord is noted flat.
2025-02-04 - 08.48.pdf (311.8 KB)
The interest in noting all minors flat and majors sharp rests in transposing when sight reading. If in our example I want to read a second lower, and I’ve notated the A natural, the figure in G would read a major chord. Of course when transposing with Dorico I’d have the key signature and part of the problem would end, but this is common practice among continuo players.
Thank you for GoFigure, I’ll check it!