Oh wow, I would like to remind that this is an almost 4 years old post and the subject has been brought up on the table many times since then but no or very few improvements for “jazz/rock/soul” drum part creation have been added to Dorico during these years.
First, @DanielMuzMurray , what I referred to is this “feature” that has been in Dorico for a while.
It is unfortunately to me completely useless for a number of reasons. Besides all the drawbacks with global configuring (and not area by area) and invalidation of the original one bar repeat function, it is not configurable and “suddenly” just shows a number in an to me (and some drummers I tried it on) incomprehensible way. This is the right idea, but please
- do not waste the one bar repeat symbol
- do not presume that something is actually to be repeated
- let me as a writer decide when and where to consolidate or not
- let me configure the appearance (including text)
- make sure that the part and and the score always match each other
Secondly, adding @Romanos , I see from your and DanielMuzMurrays reactions that what I intended to express is not what was perceived by you. It was not ment to show a bad attitude or sarcasm. If it did, I apologize for this! On the other hand, if I spend hours over several years writing and drawing do describe something I need (the desired function would save me many hours every week), then I get the answer “No you don’t”. This is … a bit … surprising. And to me, such “suggestions” do not contribute to a good conversation. Besides, the “multibar repeat” is really not something that could replace what I ask for. In some rare cases I can use a written pattern and ask the drummer to repeat it for a number of bars. Then it works. But this is very uncommon in my drum parts. More typically, in a say 16 measures period there might be two measures in the beginning with e. g. brass cues and a measure in the end with some other cues or a “fill” instruction. In between there are 13 bars in which the drummer is free to play “ad-lib” within the style. Here I write “Play 13” and no bar repeats. These measures are not repeats of anything specific, at least not just preceeding the “open” area. Thus, using a bar repeat is not only misleading (and takes a lot of extra space), it is actually directly wrong. But again, if you are happy with this in your drum parts - good for you! Then this feature request - which it actually is - is not something that you need. But why opposing to it? Somebody else might need it (and I know for a fact that this is a functionality that many writers are waiting for).
@Derrek , yes! This is a great conclusion.
@benwiggy if you read the first post in this thread there are actually illustrations. Are they not clear enough? If so, there is a later version of the feature request here Feature request: Multimeasure play (elaborate version). Perhaps some things are clearer there. I am not sure. Quite some time has passed…