I create new works (with all my personal settings) by
copying old works,
obliterating all content and
starting over.
I also add few notes initially and assign them to the first four voices so that I have consistent colours for the first four voices. (Sorry a legacy of a misguided youth spent in Finale.)
I read that Dorico culls unused voices. But in this sketch it plainly hasn’t done that - if we :
The unused voices were still present in Independent Voice Playback. If you disable it, save and close the project, then reopen it (and re-enable IVP), you’ll only have 4 voices left, both in Play Mode and in Write Mode.
It would still be nice to have a little button: “Remove empty voices”. It’s clear the functionality exists because it happens at start-up (or on close, not sure).
The voice management is really messy and I hope it will sometimes be addressed.
A frustrating example: You create a section division and a second voice in red is automatically created. That is fine. You now want to create a new divisi voice on the top staff (which actually could have been created automatically together with the red voice on the second staff but ok). You use the right click menu instead of the shortcut to create this voice and by mistake press the line to add a new slashed voice instead of a normal voice. The green slash voice is created (assuming you had only one voice on the staff + the second staff devisi before this command). That reflects voice 3 color as per the settings.
To correct the error, you press Crtl+Z a few times to undo and the green slash goes away and you would expect that the voice count would also be set back to 3 however it is not. If you now create the actually desired up or down stem voice it becomes purple, the color of voice 4. Although the action to create voice 3 was undone the program just goes on numbering the next voice.
I love Dorico’s handling of voices especially as I so often need more than 4 voices on a particular stave. A particularly bright spot is being able to input something in one voice and then split it between the other voices according to how it will actually sound or should be played . This is a technique that Finale could never do.
voice durations modified to represent what will actually play [not shown]
I have shortcuts defined to move things from voice to voice (or at least into the four most common ones which are : "up stem one and two " and “down stem one and two” )
This all works so beautifully provided the voice colours are as expected. It would be ever so nice to have a little popup that showed which voice has been assigned to which colour.
My major gripe is in keyboard music left hand and the right hand voice colours are assigned differently . So when I need to copy stuff between either of the piano staves and the choral parts I’m left guessing as to 'which voice is which’ (the display at the bottom will only show me what I’ve got selected - not necessarily the target stave in which I’m going to insert things). I raised this as a separate issue and the reply was “that’s how it works”. But why should keyboard work like that? Everything else has consistent universal voice colours.
The possibility to have multiple voices for divisi second staff, solo first staff and also multiple voices on the same staff for divisi, separate muted samples or also just to clearly show bass and melody as for example often used for guitar is absolutely great.
We just need a clear and simple way to delete a voice if we do not further need it. I often end up with voices without any notes in any of my flows which as per the Dorico manual disappear when you close and open a project but in reality they don’t. I would greatly appreciate if deleting a voice could be a user decision not a programmed decision.
Ah - so maybe there is a workaround. Is it possible to define a keyboard which only has one stave? then I could have two keyboards both with the same voice colours! (One could have a treble clef to one and the other bass clef ).
So when I’d finished composing I could add a real piano and copy everything onto the real pianos staves from my two temporary pianos.
When one closes Dorico, it harvests any voices with no notes in them; so to remove a voice, simply move its notes (& explicit rests) somewhere else or delete them.
especially as I so often need more than 4 voices on a particular stave. A particularly bright spot is being able to input something in one voice and then split it between the other voices according to how it will actually sound or should be played . This is a technique that Finale could never do.
provided the voice colours are as expected. It would be ever so nice to have a little popup that showed which voice has been assigned to which colour.
is in keyboard music left hand and the right hand voice colours are assigned differently . So when I need to copy stuff between either of the piano staves and the choral parts I’m left guessing as to 'which voice is which’ (the display at the bottom will only show me what I’ve got selected - not necessarily the target stave in which I’m going to insert things). I raised this as a separate issue and the reply was “that’s how it works”. But why should keyboard work like that? Everything else has consistent universal voice colours.
so maybe there is a workaround. Is it possible to define a keyboard which only has one stave? then I could have two keyboards both with the same voice colours! (One could have a treble clef to one and the other bass clef ).
