When in concert pitch, is there a way to put instruments like baritone sax and bass clarinet in bass clef instead of treble with a million ledger lines? I like that they look like they’ll read (treble clef in these examples) when in “transposed pitch,” but it’s tough to tell what I’m looking at in concert when the contra bass clarinet looks like this while in “concert”…
That’s a cool idea - like if in the instrument designer, there was an option within a transposing instrument to define what clef it is while transposing vs when in concert pitch? That would be pretty cool!
Totally. It’s one of the few things I miss from Finale. It transposes from sounding pitch in whichever clef makes the most sense, to pitch as read. It’s pretty mice when checking voicings and the like.
Yeah I’ve been sorta working dual Finale and Dorico for the last 3 years now. There’s the occasional thing that I miss from Finale (like their much more extensive “Explode” function, or the ability to define numbers of bars per system on a selection basis), but sooooo many things are miles better in Dorico. So, each has their weaknesses and strengths. That transposing instrument feature in Finale, if I recall, was only even introduced a few years ago too (and made the upgrade an insta-buy for me at the time!).
Nah…the transposition thing has been around forever. But there’s very little I miss about Finale. No sour grapes here…just trying to improve my workflow.
Huh, I swear I remember an upgrade that improved SOMETHING regarding transposition vs concert scores.
Oh, I remember now - they made an option in C scores to maintain octave transpositions! That did help with idiotic ledger lines, like with double bass, a lot. I think that’s what I was actually thinking about. I think that was v25, which - omg, that’s already 2016. Yeesh, time flies!
Yes, there are predefined instruments that do this. Search for Baritone Sax, select it, then select the Bass Clef Concert Pitch option.
Have you tried this:
Thanks Craig!
Never noticed this option before. Dorico wins again!
You can also just define the clef to be different between concert and transposed directly in the clef. It doesn’t work on default clefs, so you need to add an explicit clef first, but then you can set up any clef to display however you want in concert and transposed pitch:
Can this become a default setting, rather than me having to change it every time I add a bass clarinet or baritone saxophone to my file? When would I ever want to see my bass clarinet music written 5 ledger lines below the treble clef when switching over to Concert pitch while composing for these instruments?
The instrument is there by default, you have to chose it so I don’t understand what exactly you mean? Do you create players/instruments with the ensemble builder?
When you add a bass clarinet or baritone sax from the setup page, be sure to select the one which says Bass Clef Concert Pitch instead.
I did not know those existed until just now, but that will make it easier in the future if I can remember to do that. I think that should be the default option for certain instruments.
