Steinberg has released Dorico 5.1.70, a minor update to Dorico 5, with updates in the areas of note input, printing, project templates, and tuplets. Additionally, more than 40 bugs have been fixed.
The version history documentation for this release thoroughly documents the improvements as well as the bug fixes.
Improvements
Here’s what’s new in Dorico 5.1.70, as provided by Steinberg.
Note input
Octave transposing instruments. A new option When inputting written pitches onto octave transposing instruments has been added to the MIDI Input page of Library > Note Input Options. This allows you to determine whether the octave transposition of the instrument should be considered when inputting via your MIDI keyboard when Write > Input Pitch is set to Written Pitch (the octave transposition is always applied when set to Sounding Pitch).
Chromatic mouse input. When moving the mouse over the staff, the shadow note shows diatonic or unmodified pitches by default. You can now hold Shift to see all chromatic pitches as you move over the staff and click to input that pitch.
Print mode
Page ranges. It is now possible to specify an open-ended page range, e.g. 3-, which will print from the specified page to the end of the layout.
Project templates
French horn vs. horn. Dorico’s default project templates now use instruments labeled simply as Horn, rather than French horn.
Tuplets
Default popover text. When the caret is visible and there is no selection, when you hit ; (semicolon) to open the tuplets popover, the popover is now pre-populated with 3, so if you want to create a simple triplet with the currently-selected note value, you can simply hit Return, saving a key press.
Bug fixes
The version history documentation for this release documents more than 40 bug fixes; a half-dozen of them are MusicXML-related, including one where tuplets with mixed note values in MusicXML files exported from Finale are now imported correctly, as Steinberg continues to smooth the path for Finale users migrating to Dorico.
A few other bug fixes in Dorico 5.1.70 that Steinberg specifically highlights:
- On Windows, when you reopen a project you have previously been working on, the initial view is now correctly restored, so you are taken directly to where you were last working.
- If you specify a dynamic like f (sempre) in the Shift+D popover, when it appears in the score, the closing parenthesis is no longer unexpectedly removed.
- When dragging and dropping MIDI data onto a custom percussion kit, the imported material is now correctly handled for all instruments in the kit.
- A problem affecting time signatures and special barlines that could cause the following bars not to respond as expected to changes made in Notation Options has been fully resolved.
Other news
eLicenser service ending soon
Steinberg is reminding its users that the old eLicenser technology is being mothballed and that its eLicenser servers will be shut down in early 2025. If you have Dorico 3.5 or earlier, once the eLicenser server is shut down, you will no longer be able to reactivate your Dorico license on a new computer, and nor will you be able to move your Dorico license from a Soft-eLicenser to a USB-eLicenser, according to Steinberg. Furthermore, after the eLicenser server is shut down, you will no longer be able to simply buy an update to the latest version of Dorico in the Steinberg online shop, because the update process requires that the system checks your existing license.
See this page on Steinberg’s web site for more information.
Dorico 4, released in January 2022, was the first Steinberg product to use the new Steinberg Licensing system.
Dorico 6 planned for 2025
In his post today announcing the Dorico 5.1.70 update, Steinberg product marketing manager Daniel Spreadbury summarized the year’s achievements and said, “We continue to work hard behind the scenes on the next major version of Dorico, which you can look forward to arriving in 2025.”
Availability
Dorico 5.1.70 for Windows and Mac desktop is a free update for current registered users of Dorico Pro 5, Dorico Elements 5 and Dorico SE 5 users, and is available now via the Steinberg Download Assistant.
For full coverage of Dorico 5, please read our comprehensive reviews of Dorico 5.0, Dorico 5.1, Dorico 5.1.10, Dorico 5.1.21, Dorico 5.1.30, Dorico 5.1.50, and Dorico 5.1.60.
Dorico 5.1.70 for iPad is available in the App Store. If your device hasn’t already automatically downloaded and installed the update, you can find it in the Updates section of the App Store app on your iPad.
For the latest information about compatibility for Finale, Sibelius, Dorico, and MuseScore, as well as links to the latest news and reviews about product releases, please see the Scoring Notes Product Guide.