I primarily work with scores for classical orchestral arrangements with medium to (very) large ensembles.
Dorico fulfills definitely its intended purpose and also provides an appealing sound output.
Making such scores printable is a challenge when many staves need to be accommodated vertically. This often requires a cramped layout.
Inevitably, performance instructions and especially dynamic symbols have to be manually repositioned to keep the score clear.
My biggest time-wasters with that are the settings for “linking” and “grouping” dynamic symbols. Both can only be changed in input mode, but the positioning takes place in layout mode.
The worst issue initially was the linking function: for example, you might discover a misaligned crescendo hairpin in an instrument. You want to correct its position, but then you realize that there are linked hiarpins in other instruments that shift along with them.
Now you have to switch to input mode, unlink them, return to layout mode, and finally position them.
With long scores of several hundred bars, the switching alone takes a considerable amount of time; you might even have to separate condensed lines to access the elements.
You then have to do this a few hundred times in a score with perhaps 40 instruments.
The same applies to horizontal alignment; for that purpose the linking often has to be changed afterward. Rework is also frequently necessary for playback if a dynamic change is supposed to occur over several levels, but simply doesn’t because the linking to the subsequent dynamic abbrev. is missing.
What should be done?
No satisfactory layout option could be found to have the elements arranged with significantly less rework.
Since my third major score, after writing, I’ve therefore taken to select all dynamic markings and turning off all linkings at once.
Users should be able to choose which setting they want for linking as a project default right from the start.
It seems that Dorico 6 still maintains the strict separation between input and layout modes in these menu items.
At least, I couldn’t find any other instructions in the manual than before, nor any indication in the “what’s new” list that this has been addressed.
For me, this has been the main reason not to update from version 5.1.
It’s urgently necessary to abandon this separation! Incidentally, changing staff bars works in both modes!
I find the existing design truly obstructive! There’s a reason why one goes to the trouble of creating and posting such a text trying to be as clear as possible!
You can Align (non grouped) dynamics in Engrave mode.
What kind of adjustment you need to do? Can you share a Dorico file with a minimal example of what you need to do? Maybe there are better/faster methods.
If you work in Galley view, you don’t need to deactivate condensing to access all items.
What Christian said (I was about to write more or less the same things), but I will add:
Since I also do the kind of work you do, this comment piqued my curiosity. There are so many factors involved in vertical spacing (page size, staff size, use of chord symbols, figured bass etc…). Old style engraving was definitely less fussy about collisions than computers are today in trying to use every bit of space, but I find that changing default settings for vertical spacing of several elements (Engraving Options), as well as modifying vertical staff spacing in Layout Options can be a better starting point before manually altering individual elements. I would be curious to gaze at one of your score to see if there are little Dorico secrets I know that you may not have yet discovered.
Absolutely this. Dorico’s layout defaults are fairly conservative, allowing ample room around everything; but it’s easy to tighten everything up, both vertically and horizontally. The Options should always be the first port of call before making any manual adjustments.
OK, thank you Christian, for digging out the option to let dynamik elements unlinked. This will help a lot avoiding unintended linkings while do subsequent corrections.
Sorry about my termini, I’m working in the German version, and yours are korrekt.
An example, even possible without ungrouping/ regrouping in most cases:
With a cresc. you have reached an f, following hairpint (to p again) normally will be grouped with the f and the p after writing. Some days after that while doing the layout, you could have the idea, that the f should be hold for a certain number of beats bevor the dim. will begin. OK, you could work on it only for the “printing appearance”, but for an effect in sounding you have to shorten the hairpin and to shift it so that its end will reach the old position again. This is only possible in writing mode, and often the hairpin has left its position in layout after that, at least you have to control it in engrave mode.
The work in writing mode is only possible with uncondensed lines, you know.
I fear, this can not be abbreviatet within the architecture of dorico.
Don’t believe, I wasn’t playing around with all the engraving options. Often it’s simply a question of how many (or less) pages you will reach with the score - binding as a book needs sheets of 4 pages and blocks with a constant number of 3, max. 5 sheets), or you might be forced to uncondense lines for a while because of overlapping voices and, at once, it will be a tight sqeeze. You can’t finally make the staves arbitrarily small!
Claude, it could be difficult to sit together at the same desc and look at each other working , but I want to show you an example with all that corrections to make the score readable you can imagine, individual line spacing, positions and so on.
On other pages bar width was to be set individually in addition or they had to be made a 2-system page.
This indeed takes a long time if you are working on a big score.
A good workaround in case you don’t know it is to keep two separate windows open, one in Engrave mode and one in Write mode, galley view. Then you will not have to wait while switching modes.
Yes, that’s definitely a very tight layout! In situations like this, what I usually do to free up some space is to hide certain dynamics in the score. Here for instance –
Yes, there are a lot of dynamics that are superfluous for the conductor, and even locally changing the dashed lines in crescendi in the score to “cresc./dim.” (but keep the lines in the parts) could help. No matter what, the score will require manual intervention because the separate divisi lines are so independent. I also work with two windows for a score like this. I have two monitors so I can switch for the Write monitor to the Engrave monitor easily, but that’s me.
, but I want to show you an example with all that corrections to make the score readable you can imagine, individual line spacing, positions and so on.