FR: Auto-suppress playback in PT editor

Case in point: this bass part. I’ve created these editorial accidentals as custom playing techniques, and given that I had to choose something as the playback technique, opted for “Natural”. However, this means that they cancel the pizzicato. Of course I can suppress playback on them individually, but I have to remember to do that every time. Or is there another option in the dropdown menu that is guaranteed to never affect playback no matter what instrument it’s applied to?

Just choose a playback technique that does not exist in that instrument’s expression map. So for a string instrument choose a percussion technique.

You could set up a playback technique specifically for these, that you then add as a combination with “pizz” so Dorico knows that they can both be active simultaneously, or indeed set them to use the “pizz” playback technique (although that would limit these to use on string instruments).

Or, add these as staff-attached text items using the music symbol insertion feature in Dorico 4 (right-click when adding text).

Thanks, but my point is that I don’t want to have to think about what instrument I put them on and whether or not it happens to be pizzicato at that point. It’s just a reusable, nicely note-attached graphic item with a quick popover shortcut—which is exactly what custom PT’s are good for. Yes this happens to be a string part but I use them on winds, brass, voices all the time, too. Imagine the admin required to make a version of the symbol for every possible technique it might otherwise be interfering with! All of your suggestions are significantly more work than just suppressing playback on a case-by-case basis. Hence why I’m calling this a FR: please let me just bypass the semantics altogether.

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