Modify Condensing Rest Position?

I saw a bunch of old threads about condensing rest issues, but is there still no way to modify the rest position here?

I have the “Consider only notes and rests at the same position” selected in Notation Options, but I guess Dorico is considering the entire bar for a whole rest. This looks pretty poor as the rest is closer to the next staff and it’s confusing as to which staff it actually belongs too. Is there anything that can be done here?

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With some effort, it is possible to make the condensed score in your example look like this:

However, the measures with bar rests for Flute 2 and Oboe 2 will show individual bar rests rather than multi-bar rests in the parts:

Image2

Start by creating a new paragraph style with the font set to Bravura Text and the size set to 25.0pt staff-relative. Switch to galley view and in each measure in your example containing a bar rest, attach an instance of staff text using the paragraph style you just created and containing the character restWhole (U+E4E3). Now switch to engrave mode, disable collision avoidance for the fake rests and position them so they align horizontally with the real bar rests and vertically wherever you want in both the condensed score and the parts. In each measure containing a fake rest, add a whole note inside the staff, suppress its playback and hide its notehead.

To get the flutes and oboes to be condensed in the score once the whole notes are added, you need to allow unlimited pitch crossing. You also need a condensing change at the start of the third measure in your example to start new phrases for the flutes and oboes.

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Thanks @johnkprice, you always have the coolest workarounds! If the 2nd players were resting long enough to require a cue, I wouldn’t have an issue with the multibar rests breaking, but a cue will look odd and unnecessary here. I’m on a huge deadline (19 movements, 45 minutes, ballet orchestra + stage musicians, parts due in a week), so I think this is just gonna have to be as is, as I don’t have time to fiddle with all the condensing rests throughout the score.

Better control of condensing rests seems like a pretty important feature request though, in order to avoid situations like this.

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sorry to resurrect an older post, but I’m having the same issue, where whole rests for one voice are simply much too far from the staff. it looks awful.

is there no setting yet where we can adjust this?

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Nothing has changed with this as of yet. I’d really love to see this one addressed in D6 whenever that comes, as it’s one of the few areas of the program where there just isn’t an easy workaround for something that obviously looks wrong. John’s workaround is neat, but very time intensive if you have 100+ of them to do, plus the issue of it breaking the multi-bar rests in the parts.

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This bothers me in cues, too. At least in that case you can adjust the placement so slightly less problematic than condensing. Selecting them, toggliing the rest pos. property, having them jump to 0 then dialing in what you want can get tedious, though.
In general there are only extremely rare occasions where I find I need something outside of the ca. 6, -6 range. It would be nice if the extremes could be avoided as the default then be manually activated as needed. In your example above, I guess the rest is moving out of the way of the low c? but there is no chance of them colliding.