Tie direction not consistent

What is the reason that the first tie has an incorrect direction?


Is there a setting that causes this to occur?

The situation is not exactly the same: in the first half, the down-stem voice (dotted half note) reaches higher than the up-stem voice. I guess Dorico then moves the tie away from the voice that’s highest. But I agree it’s better to flip the first tie, otherwise the repeated pattern starts to look irregular.

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I agree. Without knowing Dorico’s defaults by heart, I think what’s going on here is that, in the first half of the measure, since the tied voice has to appear next to the dotted-half voice instead of stacked directly on top of it, Dorico has room to tie away from the stems, the normal way to engrave ties. In the second half of the measure, though, the vertical stack of voices (and the fact that the top note in the dotted-half voice is only a third away from the tied voice) force the tie into the stem-side position.

I also agree with PjotrB: in this particular case, match the ties (both curving upward, on the stem side). Or — if you haven’t thought of this already — might a second staff be an option?

Since we do not know here what kind of voice (upstem or downstem) you are using, or even what instrument or clef is involved, we would have difficulty interpreting what Dorico would do automatically in any case.

This is the original (organ) score

Up-stem Voice 1 & Down-stem voice 1.

Dorico might be designed to handle cases as

If the Eb goes below Bb (the key is 2b) the tie curves upward in Dorico.

Perhaps there is a setting to handle this? I did not find any though.

Of your three examples, none is of the same passage, and the latter two do not show voice colors. You are making it very difficult to determine what is happening. Yes, you are probably right that Dorico will not handle these situations automatically.

#1 has voice colours.

#2, LH is #1, but reduced as some notes are not important for the behaviour in Dorico.
#2 is a scan from a 1900s edition, hence no voice colours.

#3 is a scan from a 1900s edition, hence no voice colours. The appearance in Dorico is the same until the 2nd voice goes below Bb, and then the tie change direction.

I agree that manual settings need to be done in these cases.