I’m arranging a musical theatre production and just about all the music I’m working with can be organized with cohesive and informative rehearsal marks such as (verse 1), (pre-chorus1), (chorus 1), (bridge), (breakdown), (6 bar build-up), etc. I’ve already placed generic lettered rehearsal marks throughout in the appropriate places, and it seems I can edit these fairly simply by adding a “prefix” or “suffix” with the text I prefer, however the big letter (or number, or bar number) part of the rehearsal mark cannot be hidden or removed. Am I right in this assumption? I no longer need the default (A, 1, or Bar Number) in my rehearsal mark once I’ve entered my preferred text, but I don’t see a way to delete it. Is there an alternate way to accomplish this? Additionally, it would be fantastic in the future if one could simply edit a rehearsal mark by double-clicking it and typing in a preferred label.
I think you’re ignoring the “Index” switch, which allows you to set the rehearsal mark order to be V then P then C then B then B, then (using the “Sequence Type” switch) 6 etc.
See https://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=804348
I would’ve never assumed this is the preferred way to do it, but you’re right, it is certainly possible this way so thank you! It’s not elegant of efficient. At the very least – typing a “V” into the “index field” could produce the corresponding number for that letter. “Letters to Numbers” is not a conversion table I have memorized, so it will require a fair amount of scrolling with the up and down arrows to get to my starting letter. It accomplishes what I’d like to see in my score but it’s almost disproportionately cumbersome to validate the need. I’d consider this more of a ‘workaround’ than a solution, nevertheless, I thank you for providing a workaround that accomplishes my request.
Would it be an option to place markers? I haven’t worked with them yet and don’t know from memory but as far as I remember one can write custom text for them.
System text with Boxed property is an other way
That’s how we did it in Sibelius. Honestly I got a bit excited about the idea of simple customized rehearsal markers, like Dorico offers. I think it’s a better concept all around. If customization was faster and a bit more intuitive, it could potentially save a lot of time on certain types of projects. My current project has fifteen musical numbers in the first act, and each has a minimum of ten customized rehearsal marks. That’s a lot of extra switching, clicking and scrolling about in a window, just to type in a label. Double clicking on the generic rehearsal mark directly in my score (to customize it) would be far easier, so I’m sticking to my request for this feature in a future update.
I’m new to Dorico as well, but it’s my understanding that “Markers” are designed exclusively for fixed timecode events used in film scoring. I may be wrong though.
That’s right. If you change the tempo or the number of bars of music, “pseudo-rehearsal-mark” markers will move to the wrong place.
I totally agree that the future of scoring software should have customized rehearsal markers
We’re all waiting patiently for our own lists of features.
May I add the word, “reasonable”, to this, as in, “We’re all waiting patiently for our own lists of reasonable features.”?
… and, as BillScores said, “Double clicking on the generic rehearsal mark directly in my score (to customise it) would be far easier, so I’m sticking to my request for this feature in a future update.”
“That other” application allows you to double-click at the spot, and an insertion bar appears.
+1 for that.
Rehearsal marks should support free text without index.
Currently I have this workaround:
Is there a reason that system-attached text that uses a paragraph style set to show a border automatically doesn’t work in such situations?