First time using Dorico. How did I do?

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snake_cake
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First time using Dorico. How did I do?

Post by snake_cake »

score: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BSe-k1 ... sp=sharing

I've grown more and more frustrated with Sibelius, and I've decided to switch to Dorico after seeing how tedious preparing a clean copy and the parts for a fairly complicated orchestral work would be. I'm currently using the demo version and have toyed with a few imported scores, but this is the first finished project.

I also considered using large serif time signatures on top of the score instead of traditional ones, but I'm not sure they'd work for a non-orchestral piece.

Any thoughts welcome. I'll use this score for a certain project where I'd be interested in having a score as professional-looking as possible.

Thanks!
Sibelius/Noteperformer/Photoshop/Gimp/Inkscape

Engineer and self-taught composer.
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benwiggy
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Joined: 11 Apr 2016, 19:42

Re: First time using Dorico. How did I do?

Post by benwiggy »

Well done! You've certainly got the hang of it within the demo period! I hope you enjoyed it.

Have you manually adjusted the height of the top system on some pages? For instance pages 4 and 5, it's nice, but page 6 is much higher, and 10 is too high for all the text. I would remove the manual adjustments, and increase the Top Music Frame Margin (not page margin) in Layout Options.

You might want to change the Vertical Justification percentages in Layout Options. Some of the pages have large gaps between the systems. The default values are 60%, and 80%: I would suggest changing the second value to 100%. This means that staves within a system will always spread out, rather than just the gap between the systems getting bigger.

Also: Dorico's "Ideal" Gaps for Vertical Spacing are best thought of as "Minimum" Gaps. Set them to small values, and let the page justify itself.

You might want to add a Note Spacing change on bar 74, to fit the whole thing on the page. Then add a Reset on the next bar.

In a choral work, if the staves aren't changing, I wouldn't bother with abbreviated names. The Tenors will always sing the third line down. That way, you'll have a bit more space on the system.

You may have seen the discussions here about changing the default values for slurs, beams and lyric hyphens. (Dorico's default "Minimum SPACE" value for hyphens should be much smaller, which will reduce the distortion to note spacing by the lyrics.)
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snake_cake
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Joined: 05 Apr 2022, 18:10
Location: Barcelona
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Re: First time using Dorico. How did I do?

Post by snake_cake »

benwiggy wrote: 18 Apr 2022, 07:51 Well done! You've certainly got the hang of it within the demo period! I hope you enjoyed it.

Have you manually adjusted the height of the top system on some pages? For instance pages 4 and 5, it's nice, but page 6 is much higher, and 10 is too high for all the text. I would remove the manual adjustments, and increase the Top Music Frame Margin (not page margin) in Layout Options.

You might want to change the Vertical Justification percentages in Layout Options. Some of the pages have large gaps between the systems. The default values are 60%, and 80%: I would suggest changing the second value to 100%. This means that staves within a system will always spread out, rather than just the gap between the systems getting bigger.

Also: Dorico's "Ideal" Gaps for Vertical Spacing are best thought of as "Minimum" Gaps. Set them to small values, and let the page justify itself.

You might want to add a Note Spacing change on bar 74, to fit the whole thing on the page. Then add a Reset on the next bar.

In a choral work, if the staves aren't changing, I wouldn't bother with abbreviated names. The Tenors will always sing the third line down. That way, you'll have a bit more space on the system.

You may have seen the discussions here about changing the default values for slurs, beams and lyric hyphens. (Dorico's default "Minimum SPACE" value for hyphens should be much smaller, which will reduce the distortion to note spacing by the lyrics.)
Thanks a lot for the input! The 100% value for the distance between systems does wonders. I'll try to fix the slurs and maybe also modify the hyphens.

Thanks a lot!
Sibelius/Noteperformer/Photoshop/Gimp/Inkscape

Engineer and self-taught composer.
www.albertdelaf.com
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