Request: Contrabass solo tuning

In the majority of contrabass concerti, the soloist uses special strings tuned a whole tone higher than normal to better project over the orchestra. In these works, the solo part is notated one whole step lower than sounding pitch, essentially making the solo part a contrabass in D. Dorico, sadly, does not have an option for solo tuning, and, as far I can tell, there is no way to adjust the transposition of an instrument. It would be awesome if solo tuning was supported.

What’s to stop you from using any other instrument that’s in D (such as a wind or brass instrument), changing the name and changing the sound (including transposing the patch down an octave)?

I use NotePerformer for playback. As far as I know, there is no way to make it play back down an octave.

A bit inconvenient but XML modifications can be used to create just about anything.
Contrabass in D.zip (654 Bytes)

Would adapting a Bass Clarinet instrument (w/ a Double Bass sound) to use bass clef help in this situation?

There is no Bass Clarinet in D.

Funnily enough this very thing came up only a few days ago in this thread.

You don’t have to use the default NP expression map for everything… It may not be practical for all scenarios for sure, but if you employ a limited set of articulations for the bass, you could make up a small (subset) Xmap just for the bass… and set all the techniques in it to transpose -12 …

“Horn in D” will give you the correct transposition (down a 7th). Just rename the instrument and change the sound in the NotePerformer mixer. The standard expression map works fine (well, I only tried pizz, but if nothing has got confused by the idea of a horn playing pizzicato, that’s a good start…)

Note, you want the “Horn in D”, not “Horn in D no key signature.”

Okay. I’ll do that. Thanks!