Hello Dorico team,
I have a player playing bass drum and suspended cymbal, and I wanted to put them both on a single line as it’s just one player. Is this idea possible WITHOUT having to fudge around with visual engraving settings and whatnot? The two lines are…okay I guess, but then if it’s not possible to put it on one line, how can I change the staff label not to show both instrument names and just be like “Auxilliary” or something of that nature?
Thanks!
You can change the staff label via the Edit Percussion Kit dialog. On the Grid tab, select both instruments, group them together, and then change the group name.
With this, I’m assuming the one-line staff situation is not possible at this time?
That’s right. It’s something we would like to support in future, but I’m afraid it’s not easily possible at present.
In any case, that Grid label worked wonders! I appreciate the support as always!
I write a brazilian Tamborim…one hand with stick, one hand with fingers…I don’t have any idea how to do that in Dorico because it’s not possible to do it on a single percussion stave. In Sibelius it’s super easy to do that.
Any idea of a workaround?
In Dorico it’s easy to do using a one-line pitched instrument:
I created the instrument in Library > Instruments by making a copy of the Treble staff instrument and giving the copy one staff line and a percussion clef. Then I added a single player holding this instrument and entered the notes for the RH in an up-stem voice and the LH in a down-stem voice.
You should use a percussion kit and set its 5-line staff to 1-line (in instrument editor?)
Hey John,
thanx a lot. That seems to work but I can’t reproduce it, sorry. Can you bit a bit more detailed please?
“a copy of the treble staff instrument” - of which treble staff instrument ?
“giving the copy 1 line” → which copy? How did you give it a 1 line?
Thanx for helping…
Hey Marc…that should normally work, but the problem is, that you can’t change the stem direction separately of the 2 instruments
Ohhh…now I got it…that works PERFECTLY…thanx so much ! super idea…and in my plug-in section I just assign another sound to this instrument…Fantastico !!! 
One question / problems remains:
When I try to create a percussion map for the new instrument, it doesn’t show up in my instrument list in the percussion map.
What did I do wrong please?
Because the Tamborim is a one-line pitched instrument, you can’t use a percussion map with it. However, you can enable independent voice playback for this instrument, create two copies of the Default expression map, and change the Transpose setting in the Base switch of each copy to the difference in semitones between the note the pitched instrument is generating and the note needed to get the sound you want.
Again: fantastic solution 
I created a hidden 5-line instrument on which I assigned all the needed pitches for getting the techniques/sounds which I want. But of course your solution is more elegant and I won’t need a hidden instrument…
Sorry to ask again.
So I create 2 ‘Tamborim’ Expression maps and set one of it to e.x. ‘transpose 2 halfsteps’ and the other to 4 halfsteps (dependant which technique i want?).
Hmmm…that won’t work…where do I determine ‘the note the pitched instrument is generating and the note needed to get the sound you want.’?
Thanx so much
John I got it, after reading your post 20 times…it’s about reading PRECISELY ! 
…the magic words: “independent voice playback”
Great man !! It works…thanx so much
The note generated by the RH of the Tamborim is MIDI note 65, and the note generated by the LH is MIDI note 62. To give an example, if the sound you want the RH to play is MIDI note 81, then the Transpose setting in the expression map for the RH should be set to 81 - 65 = 16.
it’s working
When you create a kit, you set the stem direction for each instrument. I don’t understand why it would be a problem 
