I am still flummoxed by the whole players/instruments/system.
I have a score with three players, each playing one instrument. I import a three-part xml file (from Finale) and with fingers crossed check the ‘merge players when possible’ option. No luck. It adds three new players.
I managed to wrest the three new instruments from the hands of three new players and give them to the existing players, and delete the now-empty players. But the three remaining players each have two of the same instrument.
How do I declutter this orchestra pit so that music for the extra instruments is attached to the previously existing instruments and I can delete those extra instruments?
I found a reference in another post to using “Alt-M or Alt-N” but have not a clue how or where I do that.
Also, what criteria make it possible to merge with existing players on import? They never seem to merge.
This is entirely dependent on how instruments are identified in the xml file.
Make a selection on one staff and those key commands will move that selection to the staff below (Alt-M) or the staff above (Alt-N).
Important: your import will arrive as a new flow only containing the new instruments. So you will need to add your original instruments to that flow (in Setup). You will then be able to use the Alt-M/N keys to move the notes from the newly created instruments to your original instruments. (You could also just use copy/paste if you prefer)
Once your new instruments are empty (or copied), you can safely delete them (select the instrument in Setup and put it in the trash).
Thanks, but how do I “add your original instruments to that flow”? The old instruments are already there under the old players, and they are listed under “Layouts” but they have no staves in the full score. I don’t understand why not or how to add those staves.
Dorico’s Setup is entirely like “reality”. You have, as you say, taken a viola from one player (let’s call him Dennis), and given it to another Player (Susan) who already has a viola. Susan now has two violas!
Normally, you only give a Player more than one instrument if they will switch between them, like percussionists playing multiple things, or a Brass player changing from a Bb Trumpet to C.
If your imported XML has created additional staves, then the best way is just to copy the music to your original Player, and then delete the unneeded Player.
The Setup page is like a wiring diagram: If you select a Flow you can add Players to it (by checking boxes in the Players list) and show that Flow in different Layouts (by checking boxes in the Layouts list). Similarly, if you select a player, you can add/remove which Flows and Layouts they appear in.
It’s fundamental to Dorico’s philosophy, but it’s fairly different to how other software handle initial score setup and therefore there should be no value judgement ascribed to getting one’s head around the concepts at their own pace.
Everyone learns something for the first time, sometime - you may have learned it a while ago, but there’s plenty of people for whom it’s still brand new.
And my love is like a red, red rose, but that gives me no clue what to get her for Christmas.
I am quite sure that it is, which makes it puzzling why it is so hard to explain.
Here is my screen after importing a flow. Organ 2, Ped, and Organ 1 came in with the import and their staves are shown in the score in the center. As I understand it, I must move that music into the previously existing viols so I can then delete the imported players and instruments.
But the visible score shows only the imported staves. There are no staves for the existing instruments to move the music into. Full Score is highlighted in Layouts and all players are checked yet there are only the three imported staves visible.
How do I make the empty staves of the existing players visible so that I can copy the imported music into them?
It looks like this imported flow is towards the end of the layout - you need to scroll to the right in the Flows panel at the bottom, and select the imported flow’s card.
Once selected, you’ll see which players are active in that flow: if your existing players aren’t highlighted, then they’re not in the flow, and their staves won’t appear. Tick their checkboxes to add them to the imported flow.
The imported flow had already been checked, but I have scrolled to the end, unchecked all of the flow cards except the imported flow, “rondeau”. Full score is highlighted; all players are checked.
Unexpectedly, now ONE of the existing players staves has appeared.
This might seem like progress, but I have no idea why that one appeared but not the other two.
And why would unchecking all the other flows make one (and only one) staff appear with the imported flow?
You don’t need to uncheck other flows, and this doesn’t relate to the score. I mentioned that it looked near the end because that was relevant to why you couldn’t see the flow card in the flows panel (it was out of view).
The important relationship we’re investigating is whether the players (left panel) are in the flow (bottom panel).
All players and all flows might be in the same score layout, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that all those players are in those specific flows.
So, to repeat what I wrote earlier: select the flow card, and check the status of the player cards.
If you uncheck a Flow, then that either removes the Flow from the Layout that is already selected; or, if you have Players already selected, it removes those Players from the Flow.
Don’t uncheck anything unless you want to remove it from something!
In my screenshot shown above, the “flow” card (the blue square that says “rondeaux” under the score) IS checked (do you mean something else by “select the flow card”?) .
The players listed on the left are ALL checked and they each have the expected instruments under them.
What else does “check the status of the player cards” mean aside from whether or not they are checked?
@rayates56, here’s an “oldie but goodie” YouTube playlist that I found very helpful in trying to wrap my mind around Setup Mode (made even more complicated by the importing of XML files), which, as @Lillie_Harris rightly points out, is a bit of a paradigm shift from other software:
Thank you for the link. I had already seen that and every other video and manual section and forum post that I can find. They all make sense, are consistent and actually pretty straightforward.
But, none of that is consistent with what I see on my posted screenshot where a flow is checked, and all players are checked, but two of the players have no staff appear in flow.
To spell out @Derrek’s answer a little more, and to hopefully help you to make the connection so that you’ll feel more comfortable dealing with this in future, when you select the rondeaux flow in the Flows panel such that checkboxes appear in both the Layouts and Flows panels, showing you respectively which layouts the selected flow appears in, and which players are assigned to the flow, you will see in the Players panel on the left:
As you can see, Viol 3 and Viol 1 are not checked, so the instruments belonging to these players are not assigned to the flow, and hence no staves will appear. Click the checkbox (without clicking somewhere else in the player card, as that will then change the aspect of what you’re looking at, making the Players panel the “master”) for each player and staves for its instrument(s) will appear in the music.
I would submit to the interface designers that it is not at all obvious that when the flow card is blue, and it is the only flow checked, that you also have to click on it to show the players assigned, especially when the players are also all blue and checked.
I guess the question for them is: if only one flow is checked, and that one flow is blue, why are there players listed with checks that are not assigned to that flow? I would have thought that it would look as it does if you then click on the flow card.
