Is it possible to suppress playback in the verse of a song. For example, my arrangement is for S and A voices with the Alto entering at verse 2 so I don’t want to hear it in verse 1
Welcome to the forum, Roger. It’s not possible to do this at the moment, I’m afraid, but it’s a frequently-requested feature and something we will definitely add in future.
It may not be a feature, but I think there are couple of hacks possible if you really really wanted to, depending on the details of your score. For this to work, the altos and sopranos will have to be using different instruments, or different instances of the same instrument. And they either need to be using different staffs or different voices on the same staff.
Create an expression map and assign it to the alto’s only with a couple of playing techniques that you call (let’s say) “alto’s second time only” and “add altos”.
For the “alto’s second time only” you change the Midi Channel to something that the instrument won’t use, and change it back to the normal channel on “add altos”.
There’s probably more than one solution, depending on your VST. With Opus you could instead have it trigger an articulation with a keyswitch that you have muted, etc.
Say for example you have a pickup measure before the verse. Put the “altos second time only” just before the beginning repeat sign of the verse. Put the “add alto’s” after the last note of the verse, before the repeat sign.
It will play correctly if you start before the repeat. It will play whatever was last enabled if you start in the middle of the verse. For sure not as perfect as what the Dorico team would do, but I dunno, if you need it because of practice video maybe…