Instrument Ordering Conventions in Dorico 4

Hello Dorico team,
I hope you are doing well and everything going fine! :slight_smile:
We would be very happy if we see the Instrument Ordering Conventions in the next version of Dorico.
This is a very important feature which will speed-up the overall workflow.
Here is a list of important requests that I made many months ago:
This particular request is under number 15:

I decided to open this request separately because the Ordering Conventions function does not exist in Dorico for iPad.
Dorico is great piece of software, but when it comes to speed of workflow, still it needs improvement.

Thank you in advance! :slight_smile:

Take care!

Best wishes,
Thurisaz :slight_smile:

Please don’t bump existing requests, and especially please don’t create new threads that simply serve the function of bumping another thread. You can rest assured that I and other members of the team read and digest every single suggestion here, even if we cannot always respond in detail to every single one of them. You don’t need to continually tag us every time you make a post, or repeatedly post the same things.

Dorico for iPad does include automatic score ordering as you add new instruments, and a new means of quickly adding multiple instruments of your own choice (which are also automatically put into the conventional order) via the Add Ensemble picker, and these features will be included in Dorico 4 in due course.

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Hello Daniel,
Thank you for the information! :slight_smile:
I don’t own an iPad, so I can’t check it personally, just I’m talking from what I can see in the videos.
Sorry for bumping this request again, and for mentioning you in one of the previous topics!
I hope there will be various conventions, depending on the genre and the orchestra, like in the example I gave with MuseScore.

Best regards,
Thurisaz :slight_smile:

There is certainly the possibility for us to provide several different score orders, though at the time of writing only the standard orchestral score order has been implemented. It’s non-trivial to provide orderings for 600+ instruments, which is why to date we have only provided the most commonly-used one.

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Hi Daniel,
Thank you for the reply! :slight_smile:
Well the symphonic orchestra convention is probably the most complex because it may contain various instruments. I hope in the future you’ll be able to provide more conventions for various bands and non-standard orchestras! :slight_smile:
By the way, let me propose you another idea related to the conventions, which could save more time for the team.

  1. You could integrate “Custom Conventions” option which will work as User created Presets. The ordering of the instruments could be saved as “Ordering Preset”. Option to “Save Project as Ordering Convention” will be also very helpful.
    This will allow us to use our own presets for multiple projects.
  2. Would be nice if we could export these presets and share them with the others. Just like we are doing with the Expression Maps.
    This way the team and the customers will have an unified system that will allow them to create Ordering Conventions and make them public whenever they have time to do it.
    The team won’t have to dedicate a specific amount of time for creation and integration of Conventions.

Dorico is already 5 years old and many professional users, who are using it daily, already have multiple conventions which can be shared. Here the only thing which the team could do is to check them and if there is need of improvement, just to make the needed corrections, and to share the preset as official convention.
Probably integration of such flexible Ordering Convention system won’t be very easy, but once integrated it will be very powerful.

I think it worth to think about it?! :slight_smile:

Best regards,
Thurisaz

You could do this yourself by setting up a template with all the instruments you think you would need in the order you wish. Then for specific files you could eliminate any instruments not needed in a given arrangement.

You could also share this with any friends you wish.

@Derrek hello,
Yes, I know that you can share project files where the instruments are ordered by you.
The “Ordering Conventions” work in a totally differently. It’s more about how the instruments are placed on the score, not about exactly which instruments are included.
Imagine a situation where I created a larger Jazz Band Ordering, but you would like to write for smaller, or even to include instruments that are not part of my project. Just you like how my ordering convention is organized and you would like to apply it for your Jazz band with a single click.
In the current situation if I send you a project you will need to tweak it for your needs, then to switch the Playback Template etc… Many time consuming operations.
I hope now my idea is more clear to you! :slight_smile:

Best wishes,
Thurisaz :slight_smile:

You make it sound more complicated than it is. You seem to want the Development Team to do a lot of work you could do for yourself. In some cases it is worth their while to do so, but not in all cases.

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Derrek,
Obviously I wasn’t enough clear in my previous explanation. Probably because I’m not a native English speaker?! Just I’m trying to give more details about the idea which, probably make it sounds complicated.
Also I’m trying to make the life of all Dorico users easier than it is at the moment, by something that will improve the workflow.
Well it will take some time such feature to be integrated, but once it’s there everything will be very easy for everyone.
All notation apps offer lists of various Ordering Conventions - Sibelius, Finale, MuseScore…
Dorico 4 will offer only Standard Symphonic Orchestra Ordering Convention, which is great, but it doesn’t cover Jazz Bands, Marching Band, Rock & Metal Bands, Folk Bands… etc.
I’m just proposing something more advanced and flexible than having pre-arranged lists of various Ordering Conventions. Something where the users can be also involved in creation of these ordering conventions, just Dorico have to provide us integrated feature for this.
Since Dorico for iPad already has the Standard Orchestra Convention, probably it won’t be a mission impossible for the team the thing I propose to be integrated. Even I suppose it’ll be more time consuming for them to create all those list, than creating this feature.
As I said before “with a single click”! :slight_smile:
Currently if you create a project from scratch it takes dozens of click just to put all instruments and their Layouts in the correct order. I would like this job to be reduced to a single click, and it’s achievable.

I hope now you understand my idea better! :slight_smile:

Best wishes,
Thurisaz :slight_smile:

It’s always about a “single click.” The ability to create your own instrument order will, at least initially require more than a single click, about the same number of clicks as setting up a customized master template. :slightly_smiling_face:

It seems you’re asking for something more than what the competition offer, though. As far as I can tell, the competition offer quick ways to order instruments when creating them.

You’re asking for a way to re-order existing instruments, which, aside from anything else, is going to require Dorico to accurately match incoming MusicXML or MIDI tracks to Dorico’s (~600) instrument definitions. Plus there’s the complication of how Dorico should handle players that hold multiple instruments.

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Leo hello,
I’m offering something which is, let say, one step more advanced and flexible than the competition.
Actually MuseScore already offers many Ordering Conventions, plus Custom one.
By using these ordering conventions you can re-arrange an existing list of instrument in the “New Score Wizard” just before the creation of the project. This is one of the things I’m asking for.

Dorico doesn’t have a window like “New Score Wizard”, which exists in every notation software I know, so the re-ordering should work differently, or the team should integrate such window.

What I call “one step more advanced”, this is probably the most difficult thing. Some internal relationship between the automatic ordering and custom “Presets” should be integrated. Imagine situation where you are using “Preset” created by me, but you would like to apply it for a bit different set of instruments. Something internal should help for proper ordering of the instruments, probably some identification to show where exactly on the score the particular instrument sits, according to the other instruments in the set. Many of the rules that are valid for the Symphonic Orchestra work for the Bands.

About the multiple instruments players, it should not affect this. It should work per main instrument selected for the player. The secondary instruments shouldn’t be affected by the ordering. By the way the “Instrument Selection Window” presented in the video of Tantacrul is great idea.

After all I’m sharing an idea and how I imagine it should work. I don’t know how it could be realized. I’m not a coder and I don’t have knowledge about the code of Dorico. It’s not an open source product.
Simplicity for users very often means good planning and hard working from the developer’s side.

Best wishes,
Thurisaz :slight_smile: