Rhythmic cues going down stem after 2 measures !?

I can’t figure out anything that would bring this on, I have a drumset part where I am giving a rhythmic cur for the horn line. It is OK for 2 bars, but then the stems switch to stem-down. Nothing I try in write or engrave mode can flip them.

I have stripped the file down to its essence. It is saved under Dorico 4. If I open it under Dorico 3, the cues look as expected. Under D4, they are wrong.
Drumset cues beams down D.dorico (884.1 KB)

Try this:

Select the whole bar rest underneath the first cued bar in the drumset part and press R twice.

If a slur is on the wrong side, select the slur in the Alto Sax. part and flip it (press F) until it is right - it took me two times. Also make sure that the stem directions in the Alto Sax. part are all correct - Edit > Notations > Stem > Remove Forced Stem.

Thanks. It looks like just forcing the rests to be explicit is enough to fix the problem. But then if I remove rests, it gets messed up again in a slightly different way.

I think I can work around this now, but it seems like this is clearly a bug. A rhythmic rest should not behave this way, and didn’t at D3, at least not in this example. And it does seem to be inheriting the slur position from the source part (alto sax). That doesn’t seem right.

As it turns out, I decided to put slashes in the drum part on the 4 cued bars. And the presence of slashes apparently forces the cues back above the staff. But I would have thought that is the definition of rhythmic cues – that they would always sit above the staff unless altered by the Distance property.

If it is unintended behaviour, the Dorico team will examine it - they do read, and take note of, every post on this forum.


The steps I took, in order:

  1. Select the whole Saxophone part, apply Edit > Notations > Stem > Remove Forced Stem;
  2. Flip any slurs in the Saxophone part to the correct side of the notes - using Edit > Reset Appearance;
  3. Select the (hidden) whole bar rest in the first bar of the drumset part (make sure that the cue label is not selected), press R twice (maybe 3 times);
  4. Select all the slurs in the Saxophone part and flip twice - this should fix the position of the slurs in the cue;
  5. Adjust the end point of the cue.

Drumset cues beams down D - edited.dorico (895.7 KB)

It might be the case that a cue behaves as if it is a voice, meaning that it will use defaults for placement and stem direction, etc., if there is no other voice present.

The reason for the difference in behaviour between Dorico 3.5 and Dorico 4 is that in Dorico 3.5, properties on rests in percussion kits are ignored, so when you specify that the bar rest should Ends voice: Immediately, this is ignored in Dorico 3.5, whereas it takes effect in Dorico 4.

Nevertheless Dorico ought to respect the Voice direction property on the cue, which I have made a note of and I will look into in due course, but in the meantime, taking a consistent approach to the way you handle the bar rests in the drum set should allow you to get the result you’re after.

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That seems sensible.

I am a slightly surprised about the handling of slurs in the cues. In my case, I don’t really need the slurs to appear in the rhythmic cue for the drummer. But using default behavior (I think), Dorico decided to put all the slurs on the beam side. I would have thought the default would be on the notehead side. It is a very minor nitpick, of course, more just an observation in passing.

In that case, it will put slurs on the stem/beam side because it considers that a multi-voice context, even though the bar rest is of course invisible.

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Thanks for the explanation. It makes sense, and it does allow the rhythmic cue noteheads to sit close to the staff without messiness.