Importing MusicXML - what would be the path of least friction?

[christerdk]

@Janus

There’s no issue mentioning MuseScore here. Many of use it alongside Sibelius and Finale, especially importing MusicXML.

It was just a feeble attempt to make a fun indirect mention. But it’s pretty obvious I’m not a comedian…

@Janus

MusicXML format contains very little information about sounds, so it’s easy for Dorico to confuse (eg) Solo Strings and Section Strings. Double Bass can sometimes arrive as Bass (singer).

That’s good to know. I may have missed that it could have been placed into a different instrument type.

@Janus

There is very little difference between your two approaches: Import into a new file will apply the Playback Template you have specified in Preferences. Import into an existing file will create a new flow and use whatever Playback Template that file is currently using (more often than not this would be the default anyway!). If you get no sound - just re-apply a Playback Template and sounds will be reset.

Ok, I will try that second re-application of the playback template. From a configuration perspective, I would intuitively prefer to import into an existing file, because I’d know that the playback, stage and space templates has been set to produce a specific sound from the beginning. I was just strange to see, say, Snare drum to be seemingly set up correctly in Setup and Play, with the correct notes, but not produce any sound. So I wonder if there’s still an element of manual mapping needed - we’ll see.

When doing import first, it seemed to me that only the default playback template was applied - with single players in the string section, but that was a minor issue I fixed like this. However, with regards to stage, all players where placed in a single point and all was very dry (reverb). I tried to apply stage and reverb, and while some players changed position on the stage, the percussion sounded so dry and raw that I wondered if it really came from Iconica (not lovely suspended). This might be the solution but the response went a little over my head with my current experience, tbh.

@Janus

If you want to personalise reverb and stage settings for future use, you would need to save the endpoint and use it to create your own Playback Template, which you could then set as default if you wish.

Thanks, yes, I watched the video about playback templates, and I’m pretty sure I’ll dive into the details forther down the road. I really like the separation of concerns in Dorico.