How to transpose

Hello, I searched but I didn’t find how to transpose the instruments.

The clarinet should be written a second major above and have two sharp in the armor.

The bass clarinet should be written a ninth above and have two sharp in armor.

The double bass sounds two octaves below the cello when it should sound one octave below.

And so on…

(Images are not taken at the same place on the score)

Thank you for your help.

Is this an XML import? If so, you may need to manually reassign the instruments to each staff to make the transpositions show. They should display automatically if you’re in transposed score.

I imported an xml file where I copied, pasted each instrument into my template.


I just noticed that even if I open a new project or template created by Dorico, the Clarinet and other transposing instruments are written in C and have no alteration on their armors without a key in C major for example.

Are you sure you’re viewing in Transposed Pitch? Sounds like you’re in Concert Pitch. Check the Edit menu.

Indeed it was that…

Thank you for your help.

So I can’t find a way to fix the problem for the counter bass.

It sounds an octave too low, I know that on sibelius it was possible to solve this problem by editing the instrument.

Being new to Dorico I don’t know how to proceed.

Contrabass should be written an octave higher than sounding in both transposed and concert scores. To do so otherwise is wrong.

As I said earlier, my double bass sounds 2 octaves too low.

In this image it sounds an octave lower than the cello when it should sound in unison.

In this image it sounds 2 octaves too low when it should sound one octave lower than the cello.

The problem comes from my VST but on Sibelius there was a way to get around the problem by editing the instrument once and for all. I would write any note and the range was always the right one.

I’m looking for the same thing on Dorico.

Dear Ibadez38,
You should be able to solve the problem in the vsti itself (look for an octave or pitch change. By the way, which vsti are you using?)
A little bit out of topic, if you’re a french speaking user, I created a group on Facebook (groupe des utilisateurs francophones de Dorico), it might be easier to help you there :wink:

Thank you for your answer.

I use Cinematic Studio String and it has no settings to adjust the pitch.
Maybe by tinkering directly with kontakt this may be possible but I prefer to avoid it because I don’t know kontakt well enough.

The function was present on Sibelius, so I ask if it is also present on Dorico.


Merci pour votre réponse.

J’utilise Cinematic Studio String et il ni a pas de réglages pour régler la hauteur.
Peut être qu’en bidouillant directement kontakt cela peut être possible mais je préfère éviter car je ne connais pas assez kontakt.

La fonction était présente sur Sibelius, c’est pourquoi je demande si elle est présente aussi sur Dorico. Si elle ni est pas pour le moment peut être le sera t-elle dans de futur maj.

Merci beaucoup pour l’information Facebook. Je m’y suis inscrit.

It’s not present within Dorico itself - you’re expected to fix it yourself from within the VST.

To solve the double bass sounding an octave lower than it should, set up your expression map to transpose the notes up by an octave.

Thank you, but it was obvious. :blush:

I don’t understand.
My Full Score in concert-pitch shows the bass-clarinet written 1 octave lower - actually it shows the sound which is heard:
Bildschirmfoto 2020-06-29 um 12.19.30.png
In my bass-clarinet single part score it is showed correctly - it SOUNDS 1 octave lower than written, but it should be written 1 octave higher in my full score, too…but it isn’t.


That’s how Dorico does it with the double-bass and contra-bassoon. Both in full score AND part score it is written 1 octave higher than it sounds.
But with the bass-clarinet Dorico makes a difference between Full Score and Part Score. Why?
Nothing indicates that in the HSO BassClarinet Expression Map:

Shortly:
I get a different handling of transposing instruments
Double Bass + Contra - Bassoon: In Full Score and Part Score: Notes are written 1 octave higher than they sound
Bass Clarinet: In Full Score it is written like it sounds, in Part Score it is written 1 octave higher

There are different versions of the bass clarinet instrument with different approaches to handling its octave transposition. Try using the Change Instrument feature in Setup mode to choose an alternative one.

cool :slight_smile:
Thanx Daniel

In general we need to transpose VST.
For instance I want to use superior drummer and that particular plugin does not have a transposition function and truly I don’t what to do.
Also EZBass I can not use it.
Please let us have the capability to transpose on the play mode at least.