Engrave help

[ralphw]

Greetings!
I am a Finale convert. I love Dorico. I can actually get more work done until it comes to getting the score and parts to look right.

I know it has to be my lack of experience, but I have been working for at least 8 hours trying to get my quintet printouts to look right.

Background: Brass Quintet arrangement of Bach chorales. Useful for warming up. It is a set of 12 chorales. Each chorale is a separate flow (I LOVE flows!!!).

I can get the score look OK. I’m still struggling with a new flow starting on the same “line” as a previous ending flow, but everything else looks good.

The majority of the time I’ve spent working on this piece has been working on the parts getting the flows to “flow” properly (pun intended.) I’ve been mostly successful but I still cant understand the rules on moving a staff from one page to the previous page, even though there is plenty of space there. (I’ve attached the Dorico file and the score PDF and the Tuba PDF that will be part of the discussion.)

The biggest headache, right now, is the last staff in the Tuba part. I have tried everything to get that last line to go back a page. It “looks” like there is enough room, but no matter what I do the last line insists on moving to a new page.

I need to better understand how to do this easier. Everytime I make a change it messes everything up on that page. How do I lock a bunch of staves so they don’t modify because I move remove a System Break!!!

Also, I can’t figure out how to do this grunt work of the staves on one part (or in the default parts) and have it take hold on any new parts I make in this arrangement. (i.e. I want to add an alternate Horn part for another trombone.)

The video in the help file is for a much older version of Dorico and all of the instructions don’t apply to the current version.

This is the only frustration I have with Dorico. Normally, Dorico does a great job without touching the parts layout but that goes out the window when you work with flows. Is there a more recent resource on using Engrave mode?

Thanks,
Ralph

Full score - 12 Chorales for Brass Quintet.pdf (226.3 KB)
Tuba - 12 Chorales for Brass Quintet.pdf (91.9 KB)

12 Chorales for Brass Quintet.dorico (2.1 MB)

[asherber]

Taking a look at your Dorico file, it seems that you are still following a Finale workflow of moving things around by hand. You’ve got system breaks all over the place, and almost all of your systems have been moved by hand. I know this was common in Finale, but in Dorico you will get much better results if you adjust your settings so that Dorico will do all of that for you.

One thing to keep in mind is that Dorico calculates available space based on your settings. If you then move systems closer together to make space at the bottom of the page, Dorico does not recalculate to take manual positioning into account. If you want systems closer together, you should adjust the inter-system gap in Layout Options and let Dorico take care of it.

[tom_ginsberg]

this might be a more recent video. very helpful

Learning Leading Layouts | Discover Dorico

[ralphw]

I’ll watch the video shortly (I have to teach a class on the use of inductors in AC circuits.)
I know I’m fighting the built-in systems because everytime I tried to do something it would fight me back. I just couldn’t find what I needed to adjust to get good looking part layouts. I would dearly love to, in this case, only have 5 pages per part and the only “manual” adjustment would be to move the pick-up measures to the next system…unless there is a hidden setting for that.
What settings do I need to look for to replicate, or at least get close, to the look I currently have? I will make a copy of the file and delete the manual edits and start over.
I’m getting lost in all of the parameters and settings in Dorico that Finale didn’t have.

Thanks,
Ralph

[dan_kreider]

Here’s an uploaded file. It’s not complete, but it’s a start. I’ll post some settings and suggestions next.

12 Chorales for Brass Quintet REV1.dorico (1.8 MB)

[dan_kreider]

First, I did Engrave>Staff Spacing>Reset Layout and Engrave>Format Music Frames>Reset Layout.

Next, your flow headers really should be populated in the Project Info tab (Ctrl/Cmd-I). I did the first one by copy-pasting from your text:

Then I edited the flow header template:

Which gave this, much better:

[dan_kreider]

Then I basically just reduced the Note Spacing value in Layout Options, increased the percentage threshold in Layout Options>Vertical Justification, and a few other small tweaks.

Oh, and I also reduced the values for Layout Options>Page Setup>Flows>Flow Heading Margins

It isn’t done, but now you should be able to add some judicious system breaks to set your desired casting off.

[ralphw]

Thanks!

Did you replace the System Text with the flow headings? (I’m at work and don’t have access to Dorico right now.) I tried that and wasn’t happy with the layout but I like what you did. I’ll spend more time with it when I get home.

Is there a way make these same adjustments to the quintet template?

Ralph

[dan_kreider]

Yes, I used flowing headings, as they’re better designed for this function. You’d need to do something similar to the Score layout (this was for the Part layouts).

[Derrek]

Happy “Cake Day,” @ralphw .

[ralphw]

Thanks for the help…I’m getting much closer.
I’m happy with the score:

But when I get to the parts, I can make the Trpt 1 look fine, but even though I use the same settings, I can’t get the other parts to look like the Trpt 1. The ONLY manual override is the move of pickup measures. I have no others in place.

There has got to be a way to move the 3rd flow to the first page. That alone would bring my page count per part from 5 to 4. But I can’t figure it out. I’ve modified the Flow margins, all parts are the same.
I’m close!!!

Thanks for hanging in there with me.
Ralph

[Janus]

There is no point in posting pictures of score pages that do not show signposts. Even then it is just a guess to say what is happening.

[ralphw]

Ok…forgive the naive question, but what are “sign posts”?

[Janus]

@ralphw

but what are “sign posts”?

No problem. checkout the manual…
Signposts • Dorico Pro Help • Reader • Steinberg

Signposts help to show how you have forced layout changes, which can be helpful diagnosing problems (but still no substitute for uploading the project itself)

[ralphw]

Thanks! I had wondered where they went!

Here is the file.
12 Chorales for Brass Quintet REV1.dorico (1.8 MB)

[asherber]

And there’s your answer: You’ve got a manual frame break at the top of p. 2 in the other parts.

If you delete that frame break, then you’ll get more music on p.1…too much music, because you’ve got a frame break at the top of p.1, and that one has “Wait for next frame break” turned on in the Properties panel. So you can delete that one as well, and as you continue you’ll see that you have other frame breaks in places you may not want.

[ralphw]

Thanks! That’s getting much better!

Did I add the Frame Breaks or is that something Dorico adds on it’s own?

And how do I need to best go about addressing the spacing issues, especially with staves that do not go all the way across.

I have adjusted the note size, etc, as suggested in the video above (in fact I made adjustments as I watched the video…).

I know about “Casting Off” the lines, but I don’t want to force X number of bars per line. I can live with a shorter line for the last line in a flow if I can’t somewhat even them out. Is there a command to force a “re-flow” of music? It looks like not all of the note spacing is in effect.

Thanks for being patient with me! Dorico handles formatting differently from Finale and I have 30+ years of Finale formatting to unlearn!

Ralph

[asherber]

@ralphw

Did I add the Frame Breaks or is that something Dorico adds on it’s own?

They were added by you. Dorico doesn’t add such things on its own – although there are times when it inserts system breaks in response to some other user action, like adjusting note spacing within a measure.

@ralphw

And how do I need to best go about addressing the spacing issues, especially with staves that do not go all the way across.

There are a couple of things going on here. You do have a number of system breaks which are leaving you with short final systems; perhaps some of these could be removed, which might improve the flow of systems.

When you are left with short final systems, if you don’t like the look of that, you could adjust this setting, in Layout Options > Note Spacing.

If you untick that, for example, then Dorico will always justify even short final systems like you have – although you’ll see that the notes will be very spaced out.

You might get better results by inserting a note spacing change at the beginning of the flow, with Engrave > Note Spacing Change. If you increase the first setting, the default space for quarter notes, you’ll increase the horizontal spacing of all the music in the flow, which will eventually reflow the music in a way that fills that last system better. On the other hand, if you decrease that first setting, you might get things to space closely enough that those last couple of bars move up – although then everything might be too cramped to be readable.

In some cases, you can accomplish the same thing by moving bars by hand. For example, in your second flow in the Trumpet 1 part, you might just try pushing two or three measures from the second system down to the third, in order to even them out. Or you might try selecting the F in bar 141 and then Ctrl/Cmd+clicking the last B in the flow and clicking the Make Into System button in the right panel, in order to force the bars all into one system.

The point is that there are several different ways of tackling things like that, and the approach you take will depend on what you want the final result to look like, and to what extent you prefer changing settings rather than arranging things by hand.

@ralphw

Is there a command to force a “re-flow” of music? It looks like not all of the note spacing is in effect.

Unlike Finale, where you could turn off automatic note spacing and then re-apply it with a command, Dorico is always applying its spacing rules, within the parameters of your settings and manual choices. For example in the sixth flow of the trumpet 1 part, Dorico is reaching to the manual system break in m.5 The first 4 measures get stretched out to fill the music frame, but the second system is shorter than the threshold in the “only justify final system” setting, so it is spaced just with the values in Page Setup > Note Spacing.

(Note for the devs: I understand why those short systems are displaying 100% fullness, but it might be more useful if they showed the percentage of the full system width.)

[ralphw]

Thanks!

Once I cleaned out all of the adjustments I did and let Dorico do it’s
own thing, I’m much happier with the output. I only added the System
Breaks where I needed them and now all looks much better.

Thanks for the help!

Ralph

[Estigy]

This is by far the best outcome this thread could ever have