I have come from Sibelius and am struggling with the Dorico equivalent of alternative parts. For example, I have created a flow with 4 vocal parts. I would like separate parts (is that a Layout?) where the vocal lines are taken by different instruments (e.g. Trumpet in Bb). Under Layouts I see I can clef and transposition overrides, but feels like a cludge as it doesn’t seem to change the actual instrument (e.g. its sound). Or am I going about this the wrong way?
A Layout is just a visual representation of (some of) the music in the document. Creating a new Layout of one of the Players, in a different clef or transposition, is not going to change its sound.
You have two options in Dorico.
- Create a new part layout, using the vocal Players; and override the clef or transposition as necessary. Use the Layout name as a label.
The advantage of this is that if you change the music of the vocal line, then the part(s) are automatically updated. The disadvantage is that it doesn’t affect playback. Also, vocal lines will show lyrics; though it may be possible to hide them.
- Copy the vocal music to a dedicated Trumpet Player, with its own part layout. Exclude the Trumpet from the Full Score, if you want.
You can then create a “playback” score that does include the extra instruments, if you want.
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Thank you, you reassure me that I haven’t missed something. Just as a suggestion, allowing us to choose a specific instrument in a Layout rather than having to work out a transposition would be an enhancement. If the actual sound was carried over that would be a further enhancement!
A Layout is by design and on purpose just a graphical representation, with all its advantages. It keeps the technical and sound related aspects of your composition completely out. Nevertheless, you can use the clef and transposition tool as a useful way to create layouts for instruments that don’t exist in your score. If you dive into that menu a bit deeper, you will see the advantages of it.
For your case you might want to make yourself a little cheat sheet, showing instruments you like to add with their appropriate transposition and key settings.
Which does not mean that Dorico could not let us choose from its list of instruments and extract the necessary information from there.
When I already have a player holding a Clarinet in Bb it would be quite nice to ask Dorico “Hey, please make me a transposing layout for a Saxophone in Eb.” 
Which is exactly what the Transpose and Clef override feature does…
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I’m not sure we’re talking about the same thing:
I just duplicated a layout and opened the dialog. Now, where can I choose “Alto Saxophone in Eb” as my target transposition?
You’re right, you need to fill in the details (like C4 is now Eb3) and the instrument name does not get changed. But it does work 
But that was my whole point - to select from a list of instruments and Dorico will then know all those details
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Yes, it would make sense from a user point of view, I can see that. Good point.
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The functional difference between “A Layout in E flat” and “A Layout for Saxophone in E flat” is zero (but for two words).
I suppose in the case that someone knows they need to supply a doubling part of the Clarinet for a Saxophone, but they don’t know what transposition a Sax uses, then actually having the instruments listed in the Transposition dialog might be useful.
But making a Clarinet instrument actually be a Saxophone instrument in some Layouts, but not others, isn’t going to happen, IMO.
Just a personal note, to add a little explanation why I would like to select from instruments:
Dorico’s naming of octaves is totally obscure to me. What Dorico calls “middle c” or “C4”, I refer to as “c1”. I guess for people who deal with MIDI more than I do, this is totally ok. but most of German speaking musicians are used to name their octaves like this: https://www.musik-verstehen-lernen.de/images/notengrafiken/notation-03.png
So to me, this dialog is just a big guessing game, because I don’t know if entering “C3” will make the result higher or lower, as I don’t even know what the value of the current instrument would be. (Dorico telling me “No overrides” for the instrument I’m transposing from, is no further help…)
And entering “C4” just makes me think of explosives rather than something related to music
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I wish folks would start calling middle-C “C60” and associate that with any octave number they use, since anyone working with MIDI would recognize the connection.
e.g. C3=C60
I regularly use Clef and Transposition Overrides to create versions in alternative keys for my vocal students. Initially it seemed counterintuitive to set the middle C note lower when I was transposing up, but I’m used to that now.
Clef and Transposition Overrides is a really useful function that we should celebrate!
I did recently use it to transpose parts for an arrangement that included bass, vocal and alto and tenor saxes. I’ll admit that I checked the output very carefully and adjusted accordingly.
C3 and C4 are alternative definitions of middle C in MIDI (note number 60 (decimal ) or 3C (hexadecimal) . (The definition you show is new to me, but that’s likely my ignorance.)
C3 is the Yamaha standard for middle C and personally I’m used to using that in apps such as MidiFire. Dorico chose C4 as middle C be in a later version added a preference to set it to C3 (or to C5).
In reality, if one wanted to transpose up an octave, going from C3 to C4 (regardless of which was middle-C) would result in an octave transposition.
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