š¬Ā This article is a transcription of one of the excellent tutorial videos posted to the official Dorico YouTube channel.
Presented here in written form with the kind permission ofĀ its creator, Anthony Hughes, this tutorial is titled “How to Work With the System Track in Dorico Pro 2″ā¦
Hello, Iām Anthony Hughes, and in this video Iāll be showing you how to use the System Track here in Dorico 2, the advanced music notation software from Steinberg.
What is the System Track? (00:15)
The system track is a new user interface tool that makes it easier to add and delete bars
and to make a selection of your music across all staves in the system.
Showing and hiding the System Track (00:27)
The system track will not print out on your scores ā itās simply a transitory tool for helping you edit your music ā and is only visible in Write mode, though across both Page view and Galley view. You can choose to show or hide the system track at any time by opening the View menu and checking or unchecking the System Track menu item.
You can also use the key command Alt+T.
Making bar selections (00:55)
Now, weāve made the system track as discrete as possible, so as not to interfere with your music too much, but at the same itās easy to access and comes to the fore when you need it.
It appears above the top staff in each system and will move higher automatically in order to stay out of the way of notes and other music items.
It doesnāt affect the spacing of music ā as indeed it shouldnāt ā (but, of course the ļ¬ip side of that is that it can sometimes overlap portions of the bottom staff of the system above, where there is more than one system on a page.)
Clicking in the system track will make a bar selection in the system track itself. Hold shift and click somewhere else in the system track to extend that selection. You can also click and drag to select a region of bars.
Selections are transitory (01:49)
Selections in the system track are independent to selections in the music, though are just as transitory: in other words, as soon as you click away or make a different selection, or change layout, then the system track selection is cleared.
Select button (02:04)
When you make a selection in the system track, youāll notice that buttons appear at either end of the selected region,
and also above the system track between the end of the selection and beginning of the next bar.
Clicking this button at the right-end will select all music items across all staves in the system forĀ the chosen region.
This allows you to perform widespread edits to your music, such as transposing an entire passage, or you can use ļ¬lters to drill down to the speciļ¬c items you wish to work with.
Delete button (02:38)
The button at the left of the selection deletes that entire region, removing all music items across the system and the actual time they occupy.
This is a very easy way to remove unwanted empty bars.
Insert bar button (02:53)
Clicking this button inserts time for all staves in the system, so itās a really easy way to insert bars.
The number of bars selected in the system track determines the numbers of bars that will be added.
Holding Alt / Option for ļ¬ner grain selections (03:08)
Holding down Alt / Option displays the rhythmic grid on the system track. Now you can select a more speciļ¬c region and select, delete or insert that amount of time.
This respects the current resolution selected for the rhythmic grid.
If there is not enough space on the selected region of the system track to display the delete and select buttons, they will draw above the system track next to the insert time button,
however they still work in just the same way.
Preference for showing System Track (03:40)
Finally, if you would prefer the system track not to be shown every time you start a project, then open the Preferences dialog, by pressing Ctrl+commaāthatās Cmd+comma on Macāand on the General page, scroll down to the View section and uncheck this option to āShow system track in new projectsā.
ā¦ I’m Anthony Hughes, thanks for watching.
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I very much hope youāve found this video transcription to be helpful. If you have, please subscribe to OF NOTE and follow me on Twitter for ongoing music notation news and info. And don’t forget to subscribe to the Dorico YouTube channel to see many more excellent videos like this one.Ā ~robert puff