Use Fretboard input for other instruments?

Dorico
1

Sorry for asking a rather unconventional question:

I’m a guitarist and I use the fretboard input often on the I-Pad version to write when I’m on the road. This is very fast for me.

My question is, if I could use this input also for non fretted instruments?

When I write for small jazz ensemble, this would be very fast for me when I’m on the road and I develop the ideas on guitar.

My first thought was to define e.g. a trumpet/saxophone also as fretted instrument. But obviously Dorico seems too intelligent that I could define strings etc. - Any way to achieve this?

The other thought was to actually use a stringed instrument and just use another sound.

I manually changed the sound on desktop as well on I-Pad but they don’t sync well until now.

In addition I ideally would just want to save the custom instrument and and every time I add it, Dorico would choose the right sound automatically.

How can I assign a default sound for a custom instrument which works on both versions?

I currently just use Halion on desktop, but playback quality is not my primary concern. I also own noteperformer.

Ideally the instrument would still “be a trumpet / saxophone” because instruments probably behave different in a few ways (grouping, brackets, rhythm section instrument). - Just with the ability added to use the fretboard input…

Thanks a lot for your help!

Johannes

2

Try this…

Create a custom instrument and save it as default (click the star icon).
Manually edit your userlibrary.xml file and find the following line.

<frettedInstrumentDataID/>

and change it to.

<frettedInstrumentDataID>frettedinstrumentdata.standard-guitar-tuning-6-strings-24-frets</frettedInstrumentDataID>

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3

The user library.xml file can be found at…

Mac
~/Library/Application Support/Steinberg/Dorico 5

Windows
%APPDATA%\Roaming\Steinberg\Dorico 5

4

Thanks a lot. - I tried this and it’s certainly a good start!!!

Unfortunately the playback changes to piano. Any idea how to keep the link to the playback sound?

5

It’s not currently possible to use the Fretboard panel for non-fretted instruments, but this is something other users have asked us for in the past (although we couldn’t say when or for definite whether that might change).

6

Hey Lilli,

Thanks for your reply!

It looks like the manual instrument edit in the userlibrary.xml file Craig_F suggested is working. I can now use the fretboard input, which is great…

Let me reframe my question:

Even if I just duplicate an instrument (e.g. trumpet) in the instrument editor without changing anything, it still plays back with a piano sound.

Is there a way to set a default sound so that the correct sound loads both on the desktop and iPad versions?

I’ve searched a bit in the manual as well as in the forum but couldn’t find a global setting for new instrument sounds. Any idea where I should look?

Best,
Johannes

7

As a first step, try re-applying the playback template for the sounds you have loaded. Playback templates let Dorico load sounds automatically.

8

Try making a New Variant of the instrument rather than a New Instrument.

9

Also, you don’t have to really make a new instrument. If you make a small adjustment say to the playable ranges which are just cursory guidelines, this will allow you to click the Save as default star. This will put the entire instrument definition into your userlibrary so you can apply the hack.

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10

Wow, this works perfectly!!! - Thanks so much!!!

This is going to save me so many hours and makes the writing process much more smoothly.

I’m always amazed that there’s often a solution for something that’s not even officially supported. The support from the forum and community is awesome!

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