Once again, I hope I’m missing something… is it possible to set the default spacing between two braced grand staff instruments different from the spacing between the bracketed group above them and the top grand staff?
Yes: That one is controlled at Layout Options > Vertical Spacing >
Braced staff to braced staff.
Thanks Mark, but it seems I wasn’t clear… Doesn’t ‘braced staff to braced staff’ refer (essentially) to the internal spacing in a grand staff instrument? The vertical spacing options as I see them illustrated don’t appear to distinguish between bracketed groups of players and braced multiple staff instruments in this specific context.
As you can see in the screen shot, Dorico is justifying the piano the same distance from the perc group above and the Celesta below. You probably see also that the kbds & harp form their own group, and so should be separated from the perc group more than they are from each other. In addition, the piano top staff is also the mid-system staff for system-text. (I prefer extra spacing above any system-text staff even if none appears in that system.)
I was hoping to work this out in default options, but I’d be fine with doing manual adjustments to one system, so long as that system can be turned into a template for the entire flow, and automatic justification for every other system uses the proportional spacing of that template as the starting point.
The alternative is well over a hundred systems where the slight change in vertical spacing proportions will have to be handled individually. Thanks in advance for any thoughts whatsoever!
Sorry I read you wrong the first time. The gap you’re actually asking about is of course controlled by the same “Staff group to staff group” setting – whether they’re bracketed or braced.
And vertical justification factors into that gap, while it does not for the gap between braced staves. Thus the less full the page, the more uneven the spacing. I guess I’m not saying anything you didn’t know.
Sibelius offered a choice whether to include braced staves in justification; I hadn’t noticed until now that Dorico does not.
All I can add is that when your pages more than 76% full (as pictured), the disparity will be less.
Braced staves are never justified vertically, so their spacing always uses the Ideal Gap, plus any extra spacing required to accommodate notations/notes between the staves, with the corresponding Minimum Gap around such items.
Bracketed staves are subject to vertical justification, so their exact spacing can vary depending on the fullness of the page, its height and margins, etc.
I know I say this all the time but… Thanks! Learning about, and adjusting to the underlying differences of how things are defined (from the other three base programs I’ve used for decades) is crucial and your help invaluable.
The interesting thing here is that if the mid-system staff to which I wanted to apply consistent extra above-space was in fact a single staff (or if the staff above it were not grouped) then Layout defaults could most often handle it. But since grand staffs are treated as a group in determining which base-spacing is used, that isn’t possible here.
Easiest work around is to insert a blank shift-X text on that staff in every system. (Macros it is.) Any chance that a clean version of that ‘fix’ might end up as a player Setup option?
1 Like