Dorico 6.2 gives a repeat performance with engraving refinements

Steinberg has released Dorico 6.2, an intermediate update to Dorico 6. This update brings improvements to repeat notation, expanded support for guitar notation, engraving refinements, and a large number of smaller workflow and playback enhancements, particularly in the areas of harmonics, fonts, proofreading, and note input. Additionally, dozens of bugs have been fixed.

Like previous updates, Dorico 6.2 offers a substantial menu of refinements across the entire application. Many of the changes focus on the kinds of engraving details and notation conventions that professional users notice immediately. The version history documentation for this release thoroughly documents the improvements as well as the bug fixes.

Here is a look at what’s new in Dorico 6.2.

Repeats: Cautionary and restorative items

In situations involving repeats or jumps, there can be times where a courtesy reminder of the destination clef or key signature is helpful. Elaine Gould, on page 235 of her music notation reference Behind Bars, says, “After a change in the first-time bar, a reminder in brackets of a continuing clef, key signature or time signature is helpful at the beginning of the second-time bar.”

This is now possible in Dorico 6.2:

Or for a more real-world example, with actual notes:

This kind of detail often requires manual intervention in other notation programs; however, if you’ve read this and you’re feeling this has all been repeated — er, reported — before, it’s because the first major notation application to implement this type of automatic behavior was MuseScore Studio, in its 4.5 update last year.

Dorico’s implementation is integrated with its awareness of repeat structures, allowing the program to track clef, key signature, and time signature changes throughout the repeat structure and display the appropriate reminders automatically.

Dorico can now display cautionary and restorative clefs, key signatures, and time signatures at repeat barlines, repeat endings, and repeat jumps. For example, if a first ending jumps back to a point earlier in the flow where the clef has changed in the intervening music, Dorico can display a cautionary clef at the repeat to warn the performer about the upcoming change. Likewise, when jumping forward to a later ending, Dorico can show a restorative clef if needed to clarify the effective clef after the jump.

By default, Dorico shows these cautionary and restorative items at repeats in new projects. If you are working in an existing project, you will need to set the new Clefs and key signatures in repeat structures option on the new Repeats page of Notation Options to Track. In existing projects, this option is set to Do not track to preserve their original appearance. You also have the option to show these cautionary and restorative items in parentheses in Layout Options > Repeats, with further options for parenthesis design and spacing in Engraving Options > Spacing Gaps.

Guitar tablature and techniques

Dorico has steadily expanded its support for guitar notation, and version 6.2 continues that trend with several features designed to accommodate European guitar-notation conventions, popular in magazines like Guitar Techniques and Guitarist, as well as the Trinity/Rock School guitar syllabus.

The new European-style tablature features include:

• Bends: You can now show bends as slurs in staff notation rather than as angled lines, and as BU (bend up) and BD (bend down) text in tablature. You can easily adjust these in the Staff Notation and Tablature sections, respectively, found in Engraving Options > Guitar Bends > Design.

• Harmonics: Harmonics can be displayed with enclosures around fret numbers in tablature, featuring dashed lines to show the extent of consecutive harmonics. For artificial harmonics, you can show the touched fret above the tablature, and in staff notation, you can show the sounding pitch with a diamond notehead.
• Tapping: Left- and right-hand tapping can be indicated with enclosures around noteheads in staff notation and around fret numbers in tablature. Pick-hand tapping uses a circular enclosure, while fret-hand tapping uses a square enclosure.
• Vibrato bar: Scoops and dips can now be shown as curved arrows.
• Tied notes: Tied-to notes can be shown in square brackets in tablature.

These conventions reflect the stylistic differences between American and European guitar publications, and Dorico now provides flexible engraving options so users can bend the software to their will.

Additionally, graphical adjustments to guitar bends and pre-bends can now be made in Engrave mode using the keyboard.

Harmonics improvements

Another area receiving substantial attention is harmonic notation. Dorico 6.2 introduces a new and much more powerful harmonics popover syntax.

Using the playing techniques popover (Shift+P), you can start your input with harm, harmonic, or harmonics, followed by instructions for type, partial, node, style, and string. For example, typing harm nat p4 n1 style=diamond s1 will yield a natural harmonic with explicit partial, node, style, and string index parameters. There are also shorter forms, such as nh for natural harmonics or ph for pinch harmonics.

Additional enhancements include:

• New options for displaying open string, touched pitch, and sounding pitch
• Greater control over notehead sets used for harmonic notation
• Playback improvements so natural harmonics now sound at the correct pitch on fretted instruments

New options have been added to Engraving Options > Harmonics, allowing you to specify the default notehead set that should be used for the touched, stopped, and sounding pitches for natural, artificial, and pinch harmonics on staff notation and in tablature.

Engraving refinements

Dorico 6.2 also includes a number of smaller but welcome engraving improvements that give users more control over the fine details of score appearance.

Among them:

Beam thickness controls

A new Advanced Options section on the Beams page allows users to specify the default Beam thickness and the Gap between beams. Dorico recommends keeping the combined values equal to three-quarters of a staff space to maintain optimal engraving proportions.

Hidden rhythm dots

A new Hide rhythm dot property allows individual rhythm dots to be suppressed in Engrave mode, which can help resolve collisions in complex chords.

Harp pedaling

When using note names for harp pedal changes, a new Accidentals style option lets you choose between Notation (standard accidentals) and Text (proportioned like chord symbol accidentals).

Pedal-line positioning

Pedal lines now include a new option: Position of end of pedal line relative to notehead, providing more precise control over the end of pedal markings.

Fingerings and background erasing

Fingerings placed outside the staff can now erase staff lines, barlines, and slurs, using the new Erase background behind fingerings outside the staff option, improving readability in dense passages.

Playback and audio improvements

Dorico 6.2 also introduces a few updates related to playback and audio export.

Most notably, the MP3 export dialog (File > Export > Audio) now includes a High quality (slower) encoding option, which uses a higher-quality resampling process when exporting audio.

The Auto playback template has also been improved. Dorico will now automatically prefer the full Etude Grand Piano instrument if it is installed (instead of the bundled Etude Elements), and, for harp instruments, it can use the Navia Harp Free instrument when available.

Workflow and interface improvements

Several smaller workflow improvements appear throughout the program.

Among them:

• A new Selection priority when clicking preference in Note Input and Editing > Editing allows users to Prioritize noteheads or Prioritize beams and stems when clicking at low zoom levels. The former makes it easier to select individual notes in chords; the latter is the previous default.
• New commands to insert thin spaces, hair spaces, and non-breaking spaces in the text editor.
• Improvements to the Change Paragraph Style dialog, which now includes a filtered search menu.
• New Select All / Select None buttons for player name settings in Layout Options.

Proofreading and notation checks

Dorico’s Proofreading panel continues to expand.

New checks now include:

• Playability validation for two-note tremolos
• Warnings when horn players are asked to mute and hand-stop simultaneously
• Improved detection of cautionary items around repeat structures

These checks help catch common notation issues before parts reach performers.

Fonts

Several bundled fonts have received updates.

Text fonts

Splentino is now at version 1.2, bringing improvements to diacritic characters and a new bold condensed weight.

Nepomuk has been updated to 2.7 with improved metadata and kerning. Recent Nepomuk updates, if you haven’t updated in a while:

• v.2.70: Adjustment of guillemets and diacritics.
• v2.65: Improved metadata (PANOSE codes) which should help Windows font family grouping; and minor kerning improvements.
• v2.60: Addition of tabular numerals.
• v2.51: Snagging from 2.50; kerning and fixes to punctation (brackets, quotes).
• v2.50: Major revision to the Bold and Bold Italic styles; further improvements to kerning throughout.

(If you don’t use Dorico but still wish to obtain Nepomuk, you can do so from Notation Central. Existing users should log into their Notation Central account to obtain the update, or use the Retrieve Files option, rather than placing a new order.)

Music fonts

Sebastian (version 1.3) fixes slur positioning against up-stem flags, and Golden Age (version 1.6) improves its rhythmic slash noteheads.

Numerous bug fixes

As with most Dorico maintenance updates, version 6.2 includes a large number of bug fixes and smaller refinements across engraving, playback, MusicXML import/export, and the user interface.

Among the fixes:

• Improved reliability when editing dynamics via the popover
• Correct spacing for double barlines at system breaks
• Fixes for guitar bend behavior and playback issues
• Improved MusicXML import for multi-verse lyrics from Sibelius
• Various stability and UI fixes throughout the program

The version history documentation for this release provides the complete list of fixes.

Availability

Dorico 6.2 for Windows and Mac desktop is a free update for current registered users of Dorico Pro 6, Dorico Elements 6, and Dorico SE 6, 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, Dorico 6.0.2, and Dorico 6.1 updates; and listen to our podcast episode featuring an interview with Daniel Spreadbury.

Dorico 6.2 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

Taken together, Dorico 6.2 focuses on the kinds of refinements that working engravers and composers notice most: smarter handling of repeats, expanded guitar and harmonic notation, more control over engraving details like beams and pedal lines, and a variety of workflow and playback improvements throughout the application. Collectively they continue Dorico’s steady progression toward ever more flexible and precise music notation.

Dorico 6.2 likely represents the fully realized vision for this release cycle. In his post announcing today’s update, Steinberg product marketing manager Daniel Spreadbury suggested as much and offered a hint of what lies ahead: “You can expect at least one more small update to Dorico 6, but our attention is now largely focused on the next major version of Dorico.”

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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.