I’ve been importing a bunch of big band charts into Dorico via MusicXML. Whenever I do, I find myself each and every time needing to manually (in setup) change every single instrument’s default display of the instrument’s transposition (as in the attached image):
by clicking on the individual instruments on the left in Setup (Players), choosing “Edit Names”, changing “Show transposition” (at bottom) to “Never”, and then choosing “Save as default for instrument” (since I don’t wish the instrument’s transposition to be visible in the instrument names in the score).
Similarly, I would prefer that the actual Layout names (down the right in Setup Mode) be displaying in all caps, with the transposition as part of the name (such as “Eb ALTO SAX 1”). So I again find myself having to then manually change that info each time I import a new score as well.
Is there any way to automate this process? I would have thought that for the first problem, choosing “Save as default for that instrument” (as I’ve been doing when I go through each instrument individually) would mean that the next time I opened another chart in another session that ALSO used “Alto Sax 1”, it would default to spelling it without the transposition as part of the name (as I’d already specified and saved as default), but this hasn’t been the case - I’ve had to change every instrument manually every time regardless, all over again.
And as far as the Layout names, I have read that the workaround is to open an existing project for big band that has things set up the way I like, and then import the new Dorico flow in question INTO the existing project as another Flow, and then choose “Merge instrument names”, etc. However, when I do this, the program fails to identify and use the existing instruments I’ve already set up, which makes that approach essentially not useful.
Thanks for any suggestions as far as how to open a NEW big band chart and as easily as possible retain the naming conventions and Layout names from previous charts!
Thanks -
- D.D.