I read in a recent thread where a little more had been shared about the grand scheme of laying out multiple parts on same staves, no specifics, just that this was going to be a rather groundbreaking feature.
To that end, is there any advice you can give us now to make transitioning our scores with those new features smoother?
IE, if I ultimately want 1st and 2nd clarinets to show in the score on one staff, but eventually print as separate parts. Can do you suggest if it’s better to input them now as 2 separate staves to me “merged” later, or as both parts on one staff to be “split” later.
And does that recommendation change any when I say that advanced playback, at this point, is more important than a publisher-ready score.
Thank you for any insight you might be able to give.
If advanced playback is your main preoccupation, work in a sequencer program, not a score publisher.
This advice is nothing to do with Dorico’s present state of development. I’d say the same to a Sibelius or Finale user.
From what Daniel has posted, I think Dorico’s strategy will be to “combine separate parts onto one stave in the score,” not “split one stave in the score into separate parts”.
Dorico already works like that for doubling instruments - in Galley view, each instrument has a separate stave, but in Page view they are combined on one staff, with the appropriate directions to the (human) player.
For “advanced playback”, you probably want separate MIDI channels for each instrument. Putting each instrument on a separate staff is an easy way to do that - and it’s software-independent, if you need to transfer the data to another app for more control over playback.
Edit Robs post came in while I was typing this, and to summarize, I think we both have come to the came conclusion, which gives me confidence that for now, it’s best to, ahem… “… keep 'em separated!”
I have, and I do use Cubase. But as Dorico sits poised to blur the lines between sequencer and score, at least somewhat. Knowing the best way to work in preparation for those features is something worth knowing to save work down the line. Maybe I should have just said playback, not advanced playback - I’m not expecting a miracle here.
I believe I have a fairly good handle on what the Dorico team is trying to achieve both with playback and part manipulation and re-display options. I think I’m on the right track with keeping each player on their own staves, as opposed to say all 3 trumpets on one stave - or horns compressed to players 1,3 and 2,4. To me this is an example of putting playback over notation, because I’d love to retain the future flexibility of expression maps, etc, on an individual player basis - but this sacrifices score real-estate.
At some point, I’ll be able to have both, and that - to me - is quite a miracle. I just want to make sure I’m taking the best steps now to achieve that goal as smoothly as possible.
As far as playback goes, we should soon have the ability to have separate playback per voice anyway, so this should give you flexibility if you choose to have all parts on the same stave.