I’m not sure why this is occurring but for some of my instruments, Dorico when it condenses things is not using a2 but its splitting the flag. Why is this the case and how do I fix it?
The clarinets are not behaving like the oboes, and there is a really strange looking note in the bassoons at the end\
My Flutes are also not condensing at all (flute 2 is a player that also contains pic btw)
Dorico takes one approach for each phrase, where a phrase is defined as the stuff between rests. The answer to your question about clarinets vs bassoons is probably off the left edge of your screenshot; in order to answer the question definitively we’d need to see everything between rests, not just this one system.
You can force Dorico to start a new phrase (and thus take a new condensing approach) by adding a Condensing Change from the Engrave menu. Even if you do nothing more than tick the relevant players in the left side of the dialog, this will force a new phrase.
More generally, the options in the right side of the condensing change dialog act as a local override for what’s in Notation Options > Condensing. These options (in both places) are extremely specific; expect to spend a little time experimenting in order to figure out how each option interacts with your music.
For your flutes, I have no idea what’s supposed to happen if a player appears to be playing two instruments simultaneously, such as in the fourth bar of your screenshot - or have I misunderstood? Dorico’s generally capable of condensing the first instrument held by each player, but there’s a limitation there, so if you have a Flute 1 that only plays flute, and a Flute 2 that also holds Picc, you probably want the Flute 2 player to have Flute at the top and Picc underneath, in the left panel of Setup mode. That way the two flutes will condense where possible, subject to your settings. (And quite often when pairs of instruments won’t condense at all it’s down the pitch crossing settings: by default Dorico doesn’t like instrument 1’s pitches to be below instrument 2’s pitches for more than one or two notes.)
Bar 17 bassoons: have you inadvertently given both pitches to both bassoons, perhaps? That might explain the weird double-chord.
Thanks so much for the quick response! That’s good clarity about how phrases are treated as being between rests as well as the notation options. Didn’t know about that dialog and all the options to look through:
Flutes:
Yes I’m still working out if I want to make things work with 2 flutes or 2 players. For right now I changed it to 3 players to make it easier until I figure out what I want to do
Bassoons:
Ahh yes I accidentally included both pitches in them, thanks!
Clarinets
Added the system before it. Would really like those chords to be with a single beam like the oboes and also only have one instance of the trills
Horns
Now knowing about phrases, does the reason why the horns don’t continue the a2 at bar 11 and have the double stems is because that phrase splits at the end? So this is an another example where I will need to change the condensing? However, for bar 13 I would prefer and I think its rather common to keep the majority of that bar a2 and single stem until the split
Here are the pages before including and after
Left System
Middle System
Right System
Your WT/HT trills may be what force the Clarinets apart, just as your different dynamics in the Oboes affect their stemming in the final page.
I was wondering about that too. Though I find it interesting that the Flutes did it correctly above at least for the first time, but then the second time its split for some reason. So that’s another thing I need to fix. I wonder if the slur across the barline effects it negatively?
Actually, regarding that second flute line, I just copied and pasted bars 10-11 from flute 1 to 2 and then changed the notes to make the trills and stuff identical and now it condensed properly. That has to be it that small changes and differences between condensed parts are present instead of identical. Its starting to make more sense why Dorico ties ordamenents and expressions together if you add multiple ones at the same time. Kinda seems necessary for condensing to work properly.
Just switched from finale so there is a lot of conventions I need to relearn but I can already see how great Dorico is and can become
Ok, to get a really definitive answer we’d need to see the project rather than screenshots,
a) because we don’t know what the individual staves look like, and tiny details (like where a dynamic is rhythmically attached) can make big differences
b) because we can’t see your existing Notation Options
c) because there are some rough edges in how Condensing works.
I’m guessing, though, that there’s a difference in the horn 1+2 slurs at the end of bar 13, which means that that whole phrase is split out to two stems. If you put a Condensing Change on the third beat of bar 13 with Horns 1+2 ticked that’ll probably sort the previous few bars.
You might get away with another Condensing Change for all four horns on the downbeat of bar 18, but that may cause problems with the slur over the system break - if so, move the condensing change to the last beat of 17.
@kupo15 you can also read up more on condensing in the manual here. There are related links at the bottom for further information, plus child topics in this Condensing section that you can see in the list on the left.
For instance, there is a run-down of the Notation Options available, some things that Dorico considers when condensing including some common things that prevent condensing, and examples of the sorts of results you typically see.
Okay that makes sense, how would I go about doing that if I need to? After solving the flute issue in my last post and what you said about differences in positioning and such, I’m going to try the same solutions at other problem spots and see if they get fixed too.
Regarding the trumpets in bar 11, is it possible to have the 2nd trumpet shift down to condense on the 3rd trumpet line there? Currently I have custom condense pairings between 1 and 2 and NOT 3. 3 is on their own so I guess with that rule that wouldn’t be possible.
I would have to group all 3 trumpets together in the options at the least I would imagine.
You can switch around all players in the same condensing group using manual condensing changes. So yes, if you sometimes want Tpts 1-2 and other times 2-3, you must initially must all 3 trumpets in the same group.
Great thank you, I’ll have to read up! So it does appear that having the dynamics etc exact is the key to most of my issues and that any divergence causes these double flags. That’s good to know and I have a better understanding of how to fix these issues.
The Edit > Paste Special > Duplicate to Staff Above/Below functions are invaluable for this sort of thing - do assign key commands to them (from Preferences > Key Commands). If you use these you can guarantee not only that the objects on both staves are the same, but also that they’re in exactly the same rhythmic position.
Cool that is a nice thing to know, thanks! The downside I see to that is that it doesn’t have the information that condensing rules does, for example it wouldn’t rename the staff 2,3 like condensing would. Still a neat feature!
As far as manual condensing, how would I apply that to the very start of the piece if that part doesn’t have any notes on the first bar? I’m trying to split up trumpet 3 from 1, 2 to give it its own staff but I can only select the first note to apply a condensing change. This however doesn’t do anything I assume because its not being applied to beginning of the system and you can’t add new staves in the middle of a system
No, I just meant as a means of ensuring consistency between your multiple staves.
You can attach a Condensing Change to anything: a barline, a time signature, a note or rest on any stave. Condensing Changes are effectively system-attached objects (like tempo marks, for instance), hence the tickboxes in the left side to explicitly apply them to specific players.
Ohh got it. I misread and was looking at move to different stave (alt+m/n) not duplicate to it. Thanks for the clarification
Didn’t know you can assign that anything, I see how it works. Its a flag that can encompass multiple instructions not just the instrument you want. So I could click on another instruments note for positioning and only apply it to another instrument. Neat!
And I also found out that I can reset back to auto condensing using the “reset” button under manual condensing.
However, is there a way to assign parts to a stem direction that can go both up or down? For example, if I wanted trumpets 1,2 to be on the same staff 99% of the time but occasionally need to change the pairing to 2,3. I have to create a condensing group with all 3 trumpets otherwise I don’t have this flexibility. And because I have to specify up or down in the manual condensing box for each part, this means I’ll have to create a condensing rule throughout the score to make it look right instead of creating one flag.
Essentially I guess what I’m asking with the above is can you recreate the automatic condensing flag directions with manual. If not, having an “auto stem voice” would be great!
This is the issue I was referring to with manual condensing. Tpt 1,2 are both on stem up voice which causes this ugliness. I would have to create a new condensing flag to change tpt 2 to flag down, and then another one to flag up during a2 passages. A little too messy
I did include a tip in the topic I linked you to earlier to this effect… 
It was worth specifying because in Write mode, you can’t select anything on condensed staves.
I think controlling condensing manually enough to specify which players are on which staff, but leaving the stem direction etc automatic, isn’t possible although you could try looking through the notation options that you can override in the Condensing Change dialog to see if a combination of those would get you closer.
Controlling condensing can be a little involved, working left to right and making sure the staff and voice assignments are right. I recently worked through a large suite where the 4 horns kept switching their grouping and voicing so I do understand.
Oh I actually read through it haha and just had to think what you meant because I was in Engrave mode with this. I was unable to select the rests to assign a flag in Engrave mode for some reason. I also only use Galley View so that I can interact with everything
Uhg sounds like your horn thing and enabling manual condensing at all will create a lot of manual work. Glad you understand the struggle so hopefully tools can help make it more flexible. Perhaps a solution could be to pair trumpet 1,2 together and for those rare moments where I want 2,3 together I can alt+M tpt 2 down to 3s staff line. Going to give that a try
@pianoleo I was looking through posts, is this highlighted a2 duplicate still a bug or intended? (bar 28) It seems like Dorioc mistakens a rest and creates a new phrase thus creating a new a2 where it shouldn’t I think? My only solution has been to simply hide it
It’s expected behaviour for the time being. I’m loathe to use the term “bug” here because it’s working as the developers intended it to work, but they’ve previously noted that these a2 labels are sometimes redundant, and have committed to adjusting the behaviour in future.
Hiding from the properties panel is the best solution for now.
Yep understood, I had a feeling it was intentional. Just about all my condensing issues have been solved, thanks! Though I just ran into another thing that is causing condensing issues I thought it would be fine to tag it on here instead of create a new topic.
When switching instruments, in the score it labels the new instrument in the score which is normally fine. However, in this page there is no need to have that and simply have them condensed into one stave again as “oboes.” The “Ob.” change text is preventing these two staves from condensing.
How do I remove just this instance or hide it to allow dorico to condense? I’ve tried clicking on it and toggling the “Hide prefix” button but it doesn’t hide. Also trying a blank custom text doesn’t do anything either. Delete also doesn’t work. I’ve even tried manually condensing change here and it still doesn’t work.
Bar 15
I assume your Oboe 2 player is also holding another instrument? At the moment, Dorico can only condense music belonging to the first instrument held by a player. This is obviously far from ideal and it’s something that we plan to address in a future version of the software.
Yes they are holding cor ang as well which they were playing in the previous page. However, dorico can clearly condense these two players because the page following this one has both oboes condensed on a single line because they are both playing oboe.
The only thing stopping this page I showed from being condensed is that “to ob” indication it seems. See if I place an oboe note on the previous page it condenses.
Are you saying that on this page, dorico still has the second instrument as the primary which is why its not condensing? Is there any way to trick it back into oboe without inserting a note like I did?
