Is there a way to “Narrow down” areas when stipulating the number of measures per system. My score starts out in 2/4 so I want about 8 measures per system. Then the piece goes into 4/4 and there I only want about 5 measures per system. When I go to layout options and select “Casting off” I can set the number of measures per system but it is global for the entire score which means either the 2/4 pagers are too sparse or the 4/4 pages are too crowded. I hope this explanation makes sense.
Thanks for any help.
Hi @ghfagan51, a strategy would be to choose the desired global casting off for the time signature that appears most often in the piece, and then manually adjust the casting-off for the rest.
There are possibly some settings that give you automatically a better casting-off, but depends on the material. Can you upload your Project to see what is the best strategy?
You should just let Dorico do its thing. Don’t set any casting off. Dorico will fit as much music as it thinks can fit on each system - more bars for 2/4, fewer for 4/4 - and space them according to the layout options>note spacing settings.
If you want to override the global settings at any point, just add a note spacing change (found in Engrave>note spacing change)
(I really think casting off is for amateurs)
Janus,
Thanks for the response. I will play around with this tomorrow. My problem is that Dorico is giving me 12 measures for systems in the 2/4 section which I know the publishing companies I work with are going to want me to limit that to fewer measures per page on the score.
Increase the default space for quarter note… in Layout Options.
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Hi @ghfagan51, I looked at your Project (thank you), and actually your current settings give all green frames and system fullness, so everything looks ok.
But if your publisher would like more horizontally spaced music you can set the Default space for crotchet/quarter note to 6 (in layout Options/Note Spacing) (as @Janus suggested):
This will give you more or less 8 bars for the 2/4 sections and 5 bars for the 4/4 sections in this specific Project (and the fullness indicators will be even “greener”)
(tip: you have 2 page overrides on page 1 and 2: remove them right clicking on the little pages icons, and write your custom text for page 1 directly into the First page template)
Thank you , Christian. Once again you have helped me out in many ways. Did you notice how clean the condensing looks in this piece? That is thank to you.
Gary
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I did have one question related to the condensing. Did you notice in the piece that when the Clarinet 1 & 2 parts come together Dorico indicates a2, but when the Trumpet 1 & 2 parts come together it indicates Unis.? Do you happen to know why the difference?
Thanks.
Are your trumpets somehow defined as section players rather than individual players?
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I would use a manual Note Spacing Change (in the Engrave menu) to change the Note Spacing value at the different time signatures.
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benwiggy,
This worked well and I have made notes in my notebook for future reference in the Layout Section.
Thank you.
The suggestion by @derrek is spot on: check your brass players: they are mostly section players, instead of single players: to correct this, create for each one, a new single player, clicking the add single player icon and pressing esc after (without adding an instrument to it), then drag the instrument from trumpet 1 section player (the one with two heads icon), to this empty-handed single player, so your trumpet instrument will be hold by a single player… And repeat for trumpet 2 (and other brass instruments if you have other condensing issues).
The unison indication disappears. You can then customise your condensing change for the trumpets, as you did for the clarinets, as needed.
Derek,
You are correct!!! Which is weird because I actually used a Dorico template to create this score and am not sure why the Trumpets and French Horns were the only staves set up this way. Now the question is: How can I switch a staff from section players to individual without having to delete the section part and then create a new one with individual player and having to input everything again?
Wait benwiggy. I just saw that Christian R answered this very question and I will use his explanation to correct this issue.
Thanks again
I don’t think he is saying what I am saying: Note Spacing Changes are made from the Engrave mode menu:
This allows you to change the Spacing value at any point in the score:
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Christian,
I selected the "single headed “+” icon in Setup Mode and hit esc. I see that there is now an empty handed player in my instrument list but I do not see a blank staff in the score to drag that section 1st Tpt. part to. Should there be a blank staff that appears when I add that empty handed player?
Thanks.
Gary
@benwiggy
(probably @ghfagan51 is referring to the divisi issue)
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@ghfagan51
Empty -handed players don’t produce a staff. You need to drag the instrument from another player to that empty-handed player to transfer that instrument (that contains all the music of that instrument, and of course the staff where the music leaves), to the new player.
Here a video on how to do it:
Christian,I am working on it. I followed your video fine up to a point. I set up the two empty handed players and was able to drag the section player part into the new Tpts 1 player and did the same thing with the 2nd Tpt. part. Then I draged the new players up into place and now have two 1st Tpt parts (one single player and one section player) and two 2nd Tpt parts (again one as a single player and 1 as the section. I got a little confused after that as to how to eliminate the two section players parts. I will watch the video a few more times to see if I can figure out how tp proceed with that process.
Thanks.
Gary
benwiggy,
O.K. I did this wrong. I went to “Layout Options” and selected Note Spacing there instead of in the Engrave menu as you suggest. What I did changes the note spacing for the enitre piece instead of just in certain areas. I am not quite sure how to fix this now. Maybe go back to default spacing and start over?
I am such a rookie.