Instrument format problem in template (Resolved)

I’m going back to the beginning with Dorico 2 and working through the online help.

Under First Steps: Getting Around: Opening a Template,

The first thing I did was to open up a template, “Choral and Vocal: Choir SATB, unaccompanied”.

What I get is a system with Soprano, Alto, a blank no name at all, and then Bass.
Screen Shot 2018-06-08 at 7.08.18 PM.png
When I go to Setup and try to assign an instrument to this third system with no name at all, I discover that Dorico does not have an instrument name for “Tenor” like it does for “Soprano”, “Alto” and “Bass”. What it does have at the end of the alphabetic listing is “[Solo Tenor]” which appears not to be a real instrument and doesn’t have its naming information formatted correctly.


Yes, it indeed looks like Dorico 2 does not have a “Player” for “Tenor” as in a section of tenors in a choir. But it has proper “Players” for “Soprano”, “Alto”, “Baritone”, “Bass” and others. What should I make of this?
Screen Shot 2018-06-08 at 7.10.32 PM.png

I get four correctly labelled staves.

Any chance that at some point in the past, probably in Dorico 1, you’ve changed the instrument name of a Tenor instrument to “”, and set that as the default for the instrument? if so, it’s not really Dorico’s fault, is it?

In answer to part two, here’s what I see. Seriously, this one’s on you, Wheat!

I have no reason to believe that I ever did any such thing, as I actualy used Dorico 1 very little. If this were the case, however, then how would I reinitialize things to their default state in Dorico 2? I certainly need that “Tenor” player as I work with choral music a great deal.


I have double-checked and completely removed Dorico 1x from my system and done a complete clean re-install of Dorico 2 and I have reproduced the problem. There is no Player for Tenor under Singers. I cannot see how “this one’s on you, Wheat”. Somebody explain what’s mis-configured here.

The only clue I can offer is that I have installed NotePerformer 3 and configured Dorico 2 to use it. Would installing NotePerformer 3 go about rewriting or deleting Player definitions in Dorico 2?

Otherwise, is there some Dorico 2 configuration file buried deeply in some unknown subdirectory on macOS that I failed to delete when I thought I was doing a clean re-install?

This is what I get when I choose New from Template:


And when I try to add a Singer part (solo rather than section):
tenor2.png

There’s the user data folder with your keycommands and the userlibrary.xml etc. I think it isn’t deleted when Dorico is removed. It may be in ~/Library/Application Support/Steinberg/Dorico 2, but I’m not sure because I’m on Windows.
If you find it, open the file userlibrary.xml and search for

<instrumentNames>

This is where any overrides to the default instrument names are stored. If there is a section

<InstrumentNameEntityDefinition> ... </InstrumentNameEntityDefinition>

with tenor related stuff in it, just delete the entire section. This should set your poor nameless tenors back to the default.

Yes! This corrects the problem.

To be on the safe side I deleted userlibrary.xml and re-installed Dorico 2, and all appears as it should be.

Through a clean re-installation I also systematically determined that the problem was not caused by NotePerformer 3.

It’s possible I corrupted or altered the entry in userlibrary.xml at some point, but regardless, you have shown me where the relevant configuration files are and how to correct the problem. Thank you very much.