Dorico 6.1: Select more [updated]

Steinberg has released Dorico 6.1, an intermediate update to Dorico 6, with feature enhancements to condensing and proofreading, a new piano library, a playback template overhaul, and many other improvements across the entire application, along with dozens of bug fixes. This is the first intermediate update to Dorico since the release of Dorico 6 more than five months ago on April 30, 2025, although the product received a couple of minor updates in May and July.

Some Dorico updates tend to spotlight a marquee feature or theme; Dorico 6.1 has more of an endless buffet feel to it, inviting you to “select more” at every stop along the way, keeping you full and satisfied — hence the title for this post. (There is, in fact, an update to the Select More feature itself!) 

The version history documentation for this release thoroughly documents the improvements as well as the bug fixes.

On October 13, 2025, Steinberg released Dorico 6.1.10: “We have today released a small maintenance update to Dorico 6.1, bringing the application to Dorico 6.1.10. This fixes a few important issues that have been reported since the release of Dorico 6.1, and is recommended for all Dorico 6 users.”

Condensing 

Condensing was first introduced in Dorico 3, back in 2019. It is now possible to adjust the vertical position of rests on Condensed staves, in Engrave mode. Edits to the position of rests on condensed staves do not affect the individual staff in the part or uncondensed score, as you would expect.

However, there is a caveat. First, we need to remember that most rests in Dorico are ‘implicit’: the app creates them fluidly, according to the time signature and Notation Options. If you manually alter a rest, it becomes ‘explicit’. This is essentially the same as Force Duration on a note. (Finale users might want to think of this in similar terms to ‘default’ and ‘real’ bar rests.) An explicit rest will not be combined with other rests into a larger duration: it is a fixed entity.

There are rare situations where the rest durations in a condensed staff might not be the same as those in each of the parts. If you manually force two staves with different rhythms into the same condensed stems, it’s possible for the rests in this voice to have different durations from those in the parts. If you do this; and if you then adjust the position of those condensed rests, then these explicit rests will appear in the un-condensed staff. 

The likelihood of all the stars aligning for this to occur is slim (though experience teaches that the list of ‘things people will never do’ in music notation is very small); and so it seems a reasonable compromise to achieve the functionality. It’s worth noting that you won’t see this problem with automatic condensing. 

Instrument change warnings and labels can now also be adjusted on condensed staves.

Proofreading

Several improvements have been made to proofreading logic, reducing redundant or anomalous warnings. There are also enhancements to the proofing of Repeat structures, which now checks for missing repeat markers, sections that never play, and the correct use of segno, Coda, and Fine markers. This includes multiple segno markers with the same index; the use of Dal Segno with no segno (or vice versa); markers in the middle of a bar, and so on.

Proofreading has a new category: Instrument ranges. Previously, noteheads that were outside the usual range of an instrument were optionally shown in a red color. This information is now available in Proofreading, so you can see at-a-glance whether there are any range issues in the layout.

Proofreading will also take into account the upper notes of trills, and warn if trills are unplayable by woodwind instruments. Other warnings are flagged for low notes which require an extension on the instrument, and for certain circumstances on the harp, and for organ pedal notes above G below Middle C. The full, detailed list can be found in the Version History.

The ‘ignore’ button has been made larger, making it slightly easier to click on; and the pop-up panel for Categories has been lengthened, so that all the categories can be seen without scrolling.

If you disable any categories in the Proofreading panel, this choice is now saved with the project. Dorico’s Preferences > Proofreading > Categories also let you set which categories are enabled by default. 

Notation improvements

Additions to Engraving Options and the Properties panel provide new and improved functionality to notation.

Barlines

It is now possible to set the position of key and time signatures at repeat barlines, either before or after the barline. Engraving Options > Barlines > Repeats now has an option: Change of time and key signature at coincident repeat barlines.  

If Dorico is set to show double barlines at the start of every system, it will now do so when the previous system ends with a repeat barline.

Ties

The minimum length for a tie at the start of a system can be set in Engraving Options > Ties > Length. This can improve the appearance of stubby tie ends.

Articulations

It has always been possible to choose the shape of staccatissimo articulations (wedge, stroke, etc.) in Engraving Options. This would affect all such symbols in the project. It is now possible to change the style for selected notes, using the new Staccatissimo design property in the Properties panel. 

Engraving Options > Articulations > Vertical Position > Advanced Options now contains a setting that allows Staccatissimo articulations to be positioned on the closest staff line, for notes on a space.

Harmonics

Dorico 6.1 improves the implementation of artificial harmonics. The Node property will only show valid nodes for a given partial; and the Node value affects the displayed pitch of the harmonic.

Natural harmonics can also have the Node property set (previously, artificial harmonics for stringed instruments would always be notated as if the first node was used, regardless of the state of the Node property). The playback of natural harmonics is now affected by the choice of node.

Tuplets

It is now possible to add parentheses or square brackets to the tuplet numeral, using the Ratio bracket type property in the Tuplets group of the Properties panel.

More Engraving Options

A new Engraving Option for Arpeggio Signs sets the minimum length for arpeggios on slash notation. 

There are new Engraving Options to control the alignment of pedal lines. Engraving Options > Pedal Lines > Vertical Position now has an option, Align pedal lines across width of system, which… well, aligns pedal lines across a system. Dorico also attempts to deal with overlapping pedal lines (of different pedals) in a more orderly manner to avoid collision. (Note that Galley View may show pedal lines differently, because it doesn’t align them across the entire length of the score.)

Engraving Options > Pedal Lines > Horizontal Position has a new option, Position of end of pedal line if coincident with barline, which will set pedal lines to align to either the barline, or to the first note after the barline, if they finish at the end of the bar.

There are now options for the style and placement of Guitar scoops, which can be either Straight like a checkmark or Curved like a curved arrow. These options are in Engraving Options > Guitar Techniques > Vibrato Bar and the Properties panel. 

For tablature, there are now Engraving Options for the padding around enclosures on tab numbers, and a property to adjust the vertical end position of rhythm stems. In the Ties section of the Tablature options, new options support the style used by various UK guitar magazines, where only the first note is shown, unless subsequent notes have slides, bends or similar, in which case the note is shown in square brackets.

Tremolos can now be centered between double whole notes (breves), as well as on whole notes (semibreves), if tremolos are configured to be centered in Engraving Options.

Lines

Curved lines can now be made with dotted and dashed Line Bodies, which are effective both for  displaying interesting notational effects and for getting a head start on Halloween designs for the mustache on your Super Mario costume.

Chords

It is now possible to exclude some of Dorico’s built-in chord shapes from use. Library > Chord Diagrams now has a switch, where you can turn off the chord from being matched to chords.

When the switch is on, there are two choices: All chord notes, or Some chord notes. This allows the chord diagram to be used only when all notes in the chord are represented in the diagram; or when a subset of the notes in the chord are represented by the diagram.

It is also possible to export and import chord shapes from one project to another. The Chord Diagrams dialog has Import Library and Export Library buttons at the bottom.

Playback

New piano library: Etude Elements

Dorico now comes with a new piano instrument for HALion: Etude Elements. This is a basic version of Steinberg’s Etude, which retails for $100 and samples a Yamaha C3X grand piano. (The full version comes in at 18 GB; the Dorico-bundled version is less than 3 GB.) There are 15 different presets, and there are knobs to adjust the timbre, resonance and other characteristics.

Steinberg says that “Etude Elements provides a beautiful and expressive set of grand piano patches that provide a significant increase in sound quality and timbre over the standard Yamaha S90 Piano patch used by default in previous versions of Dorico.” It works particularly nicely with the polyphonic voice balancing feature that was introduced in Dorico 5.1, which can be controlled in Playback Options > Dynamics.

Users may need to refresh the licences in Steinberg Activation Manager in order for the Etude Elements library to be authorized by clicking on the circular icon at top right hand side of the manager.

Auto Playback Template

Given all the different libraries that now come bundled with Dorico, the list of factory Playback Templates has become rather unwieldy. A new scheme has been devised to manage and assign playback templates for the bundled content. There is now a new Playback Template, called “Auto”, which controls the bundled content. When you edit this template, instead of the usual dialog, you are now shown a list of the available packages, which you can prioritize to your liking. (This will only show the packages that you have installed.) There’s also a checkbox for using Groove Agent SE for drums. (Finale users might see some similarity to the Sound Map Priority dialog.)

If Dorico uses one of the HALion factory templates by default (configured in Dorico’s Preferences), then you will be offered to switch to the new Auto template as a default on first launch.

You can reveal the old templates, with their lengthy names of all libraries that they contain, using the Show All Factory button in the Playback Template chooser. 

Any user-created Playback Templates will be unaffected; as will third-party templates, like NotePerformer. The Version History hints that we can expect more bundled content to be added to Dorico in the future: “As further sound content is added in future versions of Dorico…”

Other playback improvements

In Expression Maps, you can now control whether MIDI CCs and Note Off signals are included in any delay to an expression being triggered. 

A new setting in Playback Options > Dynamics controls whether an accent should apply to all notes of a tremolo for unpitched percussion instruments. 

Related to playback: Dorico will now automatically update the list of available audio outputs, if they change, without having to restart the application. 

Text and fonts

Smarter smart quotes

Dorico has always smartened quotes — i.e., using curly open and closed quotation marks instead of straight, ambidextrous ones) in lyrics, text frames and staff labels. Engraving Options > Text extends this practice to all other text on the page. You can also select the style of quote mark: English, French or German.

It is now possible to use tokens in Project Info to reference Character Styles. This allows you to vary the text styling within a single field (beyond the limited Markdown syntax already possible). This is done using two tags to enclose the text. For example: {@style:All Caps@} the text {@/style@}.

Crimson Pro

Since the very first version, Dorico has bundled the typeface Crimson. However, this open source project seems to have been abandoned by its creator, with several outstanding issues, and in 2018, it was superseded by a comprehensive redesign, commissioned by Google, renamed Crimson Pro.

Dorico now installs Crimson Pro instead. This new typeface comes in 16 styles/weights, with improved consistency and spacing for greater legibility. However, Crimson Pro is sufficiently different that it should be considered a new font, rather than a replacement. The old Crimson font will not be removed, but will no longer be installed anew.

The addition of Crimson Pro in Dorico means that the Scoring Express Choral & Vocal templates for both Dorico and Sibelius, which use Crimson Pro as the default text font, will appear as nice on Dorico for iPad as they do on the desktop.

Other text improvments

Dorico’s music symbol editors now support glyphs in the Unicode Musical Symbols range, U+1D100–U+1D1FF. The only font known to use this range is the OpenType version of Sonata. 

Percussion grid group names can now use rich text formatting, like other staff labels. 

To accommodate the new brackets around tuplet numerals, Bravura (and SMuFL itself) has been updated. No other music font has the necessary bracket glyphs (yet), so if you use another music font, you’ll need to make sure that Bravura is the substitute for missing glyphs in Library > Font Styles > Tuplet Font.

MusicXML

MusicXML output from Dorico includes more graphical and positional data about objects, such as stem lengths, scaling factors, and the vertical and horizontal position of a range of notation objects. There are also improvements to the export of buzz-rolls, tempo marks, and better handling of system margins.

Interface

A new setting in the application Preferences controls whether Dorico uses system breaks or frame breaks at the top of each page when locking a layout.

When switching between part layout and score layout using Window > Counterpart layout (W) in Engrave mode, Dorico now maintains the selection, so that the selection stays in view.

Dorico now has a Revert command in the File menu. This will close the current document and reload the file from disk. If there are unsaved changes, you will be asked to confirm that you want to proceed.

When using the Edit Font… menu command, Dorico now correctly selects either Dynamics Text Font or Dynamics Music Text Font, depending on the type of dynamic selected.

Two new commands have been added: Select Bar Numbers and Add Bar Numbers to Selection. These can be accessed by setting key shortcuts for them in Preferences; or by using the Jump Bar.

Selecting a graphic slice in the left-hand panel on Engrave mode brings the slice into the window view. 

Whenever Dorico sorts a list alphabetically, it now does so using ‘natural’ sorting, which treats numbers in numerical order, and treats accented characters as variants of the base letter. 

When using Select More with System or Frame Breaks, Dorico now only selects more of the same sort of break. 

If you set a value for Pre-roll before flow in Playback Options, and the project contains a video, then there is now a warning that this will affect synchronization.

On the iPad, Dorico has accommodated the latest OS, iOS26, which allows apps to be run in windows. A double-tap on the project title in the toolbar is now required to open the Project Info dialog. This leaves tap-and-hold available to move the project window around the screen.

Bug fixes

There are well over 50 listed bug fixes in the Version History notes, which fix incorrect behaviors, omissions, and crashes under a variety of circumstances.

Availability

Dorico 6.1 for Windows and Mac desktop is a free update for current registered users of Dorico Pro 6, Dorico Elements 6 and Dorico SE 6 users, and is available now via the Steinberg Download Assistant.

For full coverage of Dorico 6, please read our comprehensive review of Dorico 6; read the posts about the Dorico 6.0.1 and Dorico 6.0.2 updates; and listen to our podcast episode featuring an interview with Daniel Spreadbury.

Dorico 6.1 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.

Summary

Dorico 6.1 is a solid update to version 6, with plenty of improvements across the whole range of the application’s capabilities. Several of these address prior limitations in the notation that the software can produce, or make things easier and faster.

If you’re already on version 6, there’s no reason not to update; and if you’re on an earlier version, then this only increases the reason to upgrade. Of course, everyone will have their own list of things that they are still waiting for, but that list is only getting shorter. As if on cue, in his post announcing today’s update, Steinberg product marketing manager Daniel Spreadbury alluded to that list: “We are already hard at work on the next Dorico 6 update, and we’re looking forward to sharing more details about that in due course.”

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For the latest information about compatibility for Sibelius, Dorico, and MuseScore Studio, as well as links to the latest news and reviews about product releases, please see the Scoring Notes Product Guide.