FR: "Smart" Explode option based on instrument registers

[wing]

In my orch template, I frequently sketch from a piano and then explode onto instruments from there. However, when exploding, Dorico is very literal about the staves related to my original piano staff – in other words, it doesn’t care what kind of instrument I’m pasting to. The result when doing a big tutti chord is obviously you’ll end up with some treble instruments with impossibly low notes, and bass instruments with extremely high notes.

I have an idea (which I’m sure is much easier said than done!) - to explode intuitively based on instrument registers (perhaps as an option added to the ‘Paste Special’ Note Input menu).

I feel this would be most helpful if you work in a score using Orchestral Order, where Horns are placed above Trumpets. Let’s say I take a basic G7 chord voiced in the middle of the treble clef, and explode onto my horns, the trumpets will take the lowest notes, and the horns will take the higher notes. You may want this sometimes, but I think as a starting point, most of the time you want the trumpets to take the higher notes and horns the lower ones. And I can imagine this would be quite helpful with woodwinds, where you might have alternate/lower range doubling instruments added.

Obviously there will always be cleanup necessary after an explosion, but I think having the voices selected based on appropriate/possible registers for each instrument would be a nicer starting point to reflect how it’s imagined on piano and get me started with orchestrating more quickly.

Thank you!

[hrnbouma]

The Explode function as it currently exists is deterministic and predictable in a very simple way. Precisely the kind of thing that’s a major time-saver to automate. On the other hand, the chances that this “smart explode” would consistently and predictably do what I expect it to (and thus save me time) approach zero. There is not a single ‘correct’ way to voice/orchestrate a chord and even if there were, only using that one would become boring very quickly.

[wing]

As mentioned, my idea is not that it would replace any effort or work to do clean up – it’s not about a set-and-forget explode and call it a day, so I’m not looking for a creatively ‘corrected’ voicings as that is entirely subjective. It would simply place voices in a better and more physically realistic starting point to finesse from.

For example, and the reason I mentioned it would be most helpful with horns arranged as they are, is it is not likely you would ever want this in the first place (creative notions aside, I’m speaking in terms of possible ranges of instruments):

So my “smart explode” idea would essentially consider the possible and realistic range of an instrument for each staff and either arrange the voices accordingly, or: perhaps more simply it would have a range limiter where it forces impossible notes into something useable as a jumping off point!