Problem with singers when merging flows

More or less trouble: My first project in Dorico… unfortunately a big one. For full symphonic orchestra, choir and about 15 solo voices, 38 parts. All xml Import from Finale-

Because Dorico is very slow when I edit the whole piece I decided to split in 38 separate parts. I have 2 percussion players with multi instruments. Ok, as I already know, Dorico has trouble with merging multi instruments, BUT: Dorico seems to have problems with merging singers, too.

The 15 solo voices have all the same name and the same instrument name in all the 38 pieces. I did all of these from a template song. But if I import flows and asked if I want to merge the instruments if possible (yes), the new singers in the new flow are absolutely random, E.G. I have a singer „Robert“, in Flow 1, but if I import flow 2, „Robert“ gets to the staff of „Paul“.

Work around: Input of staff name as text in bar 1. Then I know where the new staff belongs.
Any better suggestions?

Thanks, Jürgen

I recall that if I assigned “Robert” to a tenor in one Finale XML export but to a baritone in another, the imports assigned the Dorico parts based on my instrument assignments rather than my character/part names. Might that be happening in your case?

No, all staves are assigned to the right players… And: It happens randomly. No problem if you have 2 or 3 pieces. But in 38… Uuuurgh!

I suspect that all of the vocal staves in each project are all of the same underlying type, so they look more or less equivalent to Dorico. I’m surprised that they are being merged if their names are different and there are more suitable instruments with identical names, but perhaps that is nevertheless happening. If you can bear it, you might find that using Change Instrument to change the instrument types used by the staves so that not all of the vocal staves are the same you might the mapping more predictable.

Yes, and: I have one choir. Even the choir staves get to different singer staves… And they are even in a group together. A miracle! But now I know ih and I can handle it.