This is my first forum post after about a year of working with Dorico Pro. Before I describe the small issue that puzzled me, I would like to thank the developers for providing such an outstanding solution to what was once my interminable sheet music notation headache/nightmare. Also the contributors to this forum who have provided many answers to problems encountered.
Ironically while preparing screen shots to demonstrate how a dotted minim bass note in lower voice 2 was causing other voices to go out of alignment, the penny dropped. I have just discovered the Engrave option ‘Rhythm dot consolidation’ which, when activated, put things straight.
That said, I’m going to share this discovery in case it helps others.
In my case I am notating a composition for solo classical guitar with dropped-d tuning. The bar in question is in 3/4 and has three voices - up-stem V1, down-stem V1 and V2. As in the first screen shot, everything looked as expected until…
The second example shows how adding a dot to the down-stem V2 minim caused the A harmonic in down-stem V1 to shift position, making it appear to be part of the first crotchet chord.
The final screen shot shows how activating ‘Rhythm dot consolidation’ brought everything back into alignment.
Incidentally, for any guitarists out there, the A harmonic is being played on the fifth string, 12th fret. With the string number indication added space is tight but in this case works when placed to the right of the note.
Ah…there’s a new, temporary issue. As a first time contributor I can only post one example image. I’ll send the outcome…
1 Like
This is how the bar appeared before activating ‘Rhythm dot consolidation’.
And before the dot was added to down voice 2…
Welcome to the forum, @nzguitarist. I’m glad you’re finding Dorico useful overall.
You’ve posted about an interesting scenario. The processor whose job it is to figure out the distance between different columns of voices and the positioning of rhythm dots is among the most complex in Dorico. There are just so many different combinations that have to be handled, and I think in an ideal world Dorico would be a bit smarter here by default, knowing that it doesn’t need to displace the harmonic noteheads just because of the presence of the rhythm dot in the down-stem voice that’s well out of the way below the staff. There’s always more for us to do and improve!
Thank you dspreadbury. Dorico is certainly proving useful. The transition was at first daunting and made tentatively but has definitely paid off. Previously, publishing scores and parts involved two separate apps and ridiculously time-consuming PDF exports, imports and processing. It’s such a relief to be able to create beautifully presented, finished PDFs from one place.
It was tempting to say that this interesting scenario was one that should be automatically corrected rather than requiring a special option to be selected. However, having come from a programming background I have an appreciation of the complexity of covering all scenarios. Not that I ever attempted to write anything as complex and specialised as Dorico but discovering exceptions to rules was a regular occurrence in my work.
Thanks again and keep up the good work!
