The Player/Flow/Layout triangle
Being a scoring software, one would think that Dorico creates and edits scores. It does that, but these scores are only pieces of what in Dorico’s terms is called a Project. Big deal, you might say — they call a score a project, so what?
Plenty. There is no such thing as “the” score in Dorico.
You can have multiple scores or no score at all. You can have a score that consists of other scores. You can have versions of the same piece for different types of ensembles. You can have compositional sketches that don’t appear in any actual scores at all. You can have parts that only cover a single movement. You can have parts that cover everything but a single movement. You can have completely normal parts, if you must. You can have all this and it will still be part of one of the same Project.
Think of a Project as a triangle: its three points are Players, Flows and Layouts. In a way you are probably working with the same kind of triangle in your current software, only, it is completely rigid: your staves are kind of like players (but not really), you have one single big “flow” of music, and all this is “laid out” in a score and in parts.
If you ever had to prepare a four hands piano piece in this kind of framework, you will know the limitations. Four hands piano is not really a score. It is not really a part either; it is two parts. And to make it really weird: there are two players, but only one instrument. A rigid triangle really struggles with this. The groundbreaking power of Dorico comes from the way it lets users fluidly define such relationships.
Daniel demonstrated this in yesterday’s launch event in London:
A key difference between Dorico and its primary competitors such as Sibelius or Finale is that it is organized around players instead of instruments. “Who is playing the music? The program is designed around that concept,” Daniel said. This avoids the problem of having to add, and then hide, unnecessary staves in the case of doubling instruments, for instance. Daniel said that “staves in Dorico are transitory things; the program creates them as needed.”
A flow is somewhat of an allusion to desktop publishing. Daniel said that “we deliberately chose a term that isn’t a movement, a section, or a song. It could be a 2-bar ossia or a 1200-bar movement. The existing programs don’t handle one of the simple truths very well. Much music exists in multiple sections or multiple movements. Dorico handles this all in one step.”
Once a flow is defined, it can be assigned to a layout. Generally speaking, a layout will either be a full score or a part. A layout could also be a custom score, such as a piano-vocal score or a rehearsal score, or a part with only a single movement.
Layout options can be set to have independent page, system and staff sizes, as well as margins and transposition.
The concept of extracting parts does not exist in Dorico. Daniel paraphrased Steve Jobs: “If we make Dorico so that you have to extract parts, we messed up.”
Getting the notes in: keyboard entry, MIDI entry, importing
Keyboard input
Once you’ve set up your score, you’ll want to start creating actual music. A lot of thought has been put into note input via computer keyboard. The declared goal is to enable users to input music with the limited layout of a laptop:
While Steinberg advertising makes the comparison of Dorico as a “word processor” in contrast to its competitors being “typewriters”, I am actually reminded — in a positive way — of the short-lived music typewriters from the last century. In other words, the program’s note entry is designed in such a way that users can get in their music as if they are writing a normal text document. In general, it is possible to enter large amounts of music without taking one’s hand off the keyboard once.
And I don’t just mean notes. One of the ingenious approaches for Dorico is its Popovers: quickly summoned task-specific entry fields, which will take a string and turn it into a useful notation. Most things in Dorico that are not notes are created this way.
While popovers are generally a very simple interface right now, they clearly have a lot more potential. The Text popover is an example how these versatile UI elements can be provided with extended functionality:
MIDI input
What works exceptionally well for computer keyboard entry is, ironically, a hindrance for MIDI keyboard entry. With one hand on the black-and-whites, the other one keeps jumping around between controls near the Return key (articulations, grace notes and tuplets) and the upper numbers row (note length values), with frequent unwieldy jumps to the lower left corner to reach for the S to input slurs.
I would suggest that an alternative shortcut layout be added soon as an option for MIDI-focused users. If it’s not, don’t quite discard your trusty USB keypad just yet. In the meantime, though, if you’re feeling ambitious, Dorico allows you to customize your own shortcuts in Preferences > Key Commands.
Another current shortcoming of MIDI entry is that automatic pitch spelling seems to be only implemented on the most basic level (a problem not unknown to users of existing software). It has been mentioned by the developers that the PS13 Pitch Spelling Algorithm is to be implemented, but this has apparently not happened so far.
Insert mode
I must confess something. I never understood the call from some users for Sibelius to allow notes to be inserted at some point in existing music, shuffling further to the back everything that follows. Maybe – I smugly thought – you should not input music unless you are sure what you want. Boy, was I wrong.
This is me “being sure what I want” to the point that I do not look up at the screen to check if what I type in is correct, only to then realize that I have entered three bars being an eighth note off:
This is me moving the caret back to the place where I went off-course, and switching to Insert mode (toggled by typing I):
And this is me just pressing Backspace, wondering how I have lived without this feature until now:
Import and export
During the four years of development of Dorico, the one question that I have seen to be asked the most on Daniel Spreadbury’s Making Notes blog, by a wide margin, was this one: “Will the new program open my old Sibelius files? Please?”
Since there are still people around asking this, allow me to provide the following public service announcement:
No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no!
Why would people think that? Seriously! We are talking proprietary formats owned by competing companies in a niche market. It will not happen.
So… no. You’re welcome.
What you can do is to use MusicXML as an interchange format. The main difficulty is that each existing program has its own ways of encoding MusicXML — or more precisely: what to encode — so results are bound to vary quite a bit in usefulness.
This obviously cannot be blamed on Dorico. Actually, Dorico approaches the dilemma rather boldly: first it will strip imported MusicXML data of most of the non-semantic information (page size, margins, breaks, position overrides, etc.), to then apply its own algorithms to the remaining core notation — basically as if the music is input from scratch in Dorico itself.
If you need to edit a Dorico score in another notation software, MusicXML is the way to go as well. There is a unique problem, however: MusicXML is not really prepared to handle the Flow concept (which is hardly surprising). For now, the compromise is that Dorico will simply export the first flow of a project. Thus, with a bit of patience, a whole project can be exported into several XML files by changing the flow order.
Playback
The playback section of this review was written by Andrew Noah Cap.
The demand for modern notation software with both high quality engraving standards and high quality audio capabilities has continued to increase. Composers are looking for more detailed editing capabilities to improve their audio files, exported straight out of their notation software. Publishers are looking for cost‐effective solutions to create audio demos of their catalogs.
The team behind Dorico took both engraving and playback into account and designed a modern notation software that perfectly fits the needs of today’s market.
Users who only need the engraving and printing features will find Dorico to be largely ready right from the start. For those users who are in need of detailed adjustments to playback, here’s a closer look into Dorico’s playback functionality.
Setup
In the first release, Dorico automatically assigns the detected audio and MIDI input devices. It is worth having a look at Preferences > General > Audio Device Setup… to check which audio driver is selected so that you can change it if needed.
When starting a score by adding players, Dorico will load the corresponding HALion sounds in the HALion Sonic SE player.
If you want to change an instrument sound to one that is different than what Dorico assigns by default, switch to Play mode. In the “instrument rack” on the right-hand side click the 
next to the HALion instance where the sound in question is loaded (if the player is not already open).
Once the HALion player has opened, you will find a multi-program rack where up to 16 sound programs can be loaded. Clicking into one of those allows an easy sound change via a list.
Play mode
The Play mode is well-sorted and allows the user to adjust and assign almost everything without clicking through panels and options. For those accustomed to working with DAWs, it will quite look familiar.
In the center, the user will find all tracks representing the MIDI events from every given staff of the score. On the left-hand side all needed MIDI assignments for each track can be made.
VST instruments can be loaded into the right-hand side. Dorico is fully compatible with VST3 virtual instruments and will also allow certain VST2 instruments such like Native Instruments’ Kontakt or VSL Ensemble Pro.
A timeline shown on top of the track area and a transport field in the upper-right corner complete Play mode. The mixer and a fly-out transport field are accessible via buttons. Those can be moved freely on the screen (or screens).
The best “thing,” though, is not even visible: Steinberg’s audio engine, known from Cubase and Nuendo, with 192kHZ, 32‐bit floating point clarity and quality.
VST instruments
On the VST instruments panel on the right-hand side, all VST3 instruments and compatible VST2 instruments can be loaded via a drop-down menu. The number of audio outputs for the selected VST3 instrument will be automatically added to the mixer.
A small button next to the drop down menu labeled with (known from Cubase) allows the user to open the VST3 instrument in a separate window in order to load or change instruments, or to make more detailed adjustments within the loaded VST instrument, as described earlier.
MIDI assignments (left-hand side)
On the left hand side where all instruments of a given score or flow are listed, one will find a small arrow next to the instrument label which allows the user to expand the panel.
Depending on how many instruments are assigned to one player in the Setup menu, all given staves will be represented as tracks. Every track can be assigned to a different VST3 instrument, including the corresponding MIDI channel.
The great advantage a lot of film and media composers might like is that different articulations and playing techniques can be added to one player and then assigned to different MIDI channels just like they do in a DAW.
One important feature should not go unnoticed. Based on Dorico’s flow architecture, the user can select the playback setup for every flow in use to make individual adjustments and assignments.
HALion SE and SO
Dorico includes the HALion Sonic SE player including all HSE sounds plus the HALion Symphonic Orchestra library, for a total of 8.5 GB of samples (1500 sounds).
While it’s not exactly the newest sample library available today, the full and rich sound of the Symphonic Orchestra library still does a great job, especially the so‐called combi instruments which cover a variety of articulations and playing techniques triggered via keyswitch. The instrument collection that ships with the Halion Sonic SE covers a wide range of instruments and General MIDI sounds, as well as modern and vintage synthesizers, guitars, basses, and more.
The Halion Sonic SE has already a built-in mixer that allows different routings and FX assignments. An editor allows detailed adjustments of the selected sound — cutoff filter, resonance, attack, release — to name a few.
Dorico’s mixer
Dorico’s built-in mixer in its fullness is yet another step forward in music scoring software. All outputs of the loaded VST instruments are connected automatically to the input section of the mixer, and every adjustment in the mixer actually affects a true audio signal. Steinberg’s audio engine delivers a detailed audio signal and allows export as WAV or MP3.
A mixer channel contains a channel strip including 4 sends, 4 inserts and a 4‐band parametric EQ.
Dorico already comes with a good set of VST3 plug-ins familiar to those that use Cubase or Nuendo, such as a compressor, a limiter, a convolution reverb and certain additional effects. Additional third-party VST3 plug-ins can easily be added.
Tracks
When expanding a track in the main Play mode window, an event display (commonly known as a piano roll) is shown containing all MIDI events related to the notes of the given staff. The note start and end points can easily be edited by click‐dragging the beginning or ending of the shown event bar.
Every adjustment is handled independently and does not affect the note appearance at all.
A little white line on the left next to the tracklist allows to adjust the visible height of the event display. Scrolling up or down within the event display can be done by dragging the piano keyboard at the left side up or down.
Scrolling forward and backward is done by dragging the ruler. Zooming in or out horizontally and vertically is done by holding Shift and dragging the rule or piano keyboard.
Summary
Overall, including a separate editor for playback including a piano roll to make adjustments independently from the score is something new in the world of notation software. The fly-out design (separate window) of the mixer and the transport allows the user to work in any of Dorico’s modes while adjusting the mix, especially when using a multi‐screen setup. The audio quality is nothing less than what we would expect from Steinberg. The VST plug-ins shipped with Dorico are well selected, and most of them have already been used widely in productions.
By taking advantage of the opportunity to start from scratch, the development team behind Dorico freed themselves from the limitations of other scoring software regarding playback capabilities.
Looking ahead
Although Dorico’s play mode appears in a basic state in the first release, there are hints of things to come.
We can expect steady improvements and features in future updates, such as drawing several different control command curves (CC) or articulation and playing techniques that will be controlled by an articulation map, which can be compared to the well‐known expression maps in Cubase.
Eventually we hope to be able to edit MIDI events and controllers almost in a way it is done in Cubase — now in relation to scores, of course. The foundation of Dorico’s design that can allow for this is already present.
Here is an example of audio export straight from Dorico with its default sounds, with its built-in compressor, exciter, and reverb in use. It’s the final movement of my Gallimer Saga No. 1, opus 186 (1996) for solo oboe, first chair solo violin, strings, harp, and timpani.
When more playback features are added, we will follow up with a closer look.
Wilkins
It is very disappointing that Dorico will not play Sibelius scores. So I shall not buy it!
Eek
Implementing the ability to do that would be illegal, otherwise other scoring apps would have added that YEARS ago.
Carl-Henrik Buschmann
It is very disappointing that my diesel car doesn’t run on gasoline.
Carsten
@Wilkins: There is MusicXML!
Side notes:
Even if it were not illegal to implement (in certain countries, it’s not): Sibelius’ (since the beginning) and Finale’s (since 2012) formats are encrypted. Therefore, it might be very hard, if not impossible to code such a file import…
The former Sibelius Development team knows of course, how the file format has been implemented—not everything by heard though I suppose. While they could have taken away the file format documentation from Finsbury Park at the time they left, this
would have been data theft (as this is owned by Avid).
Other less known music notation software have open data formats, which makes it easier to implement file imports—from a technical point of view…
By the way: How is Dorico’s file format “composed”? Based on XML? Compressed? Encrypted?
Max Power
It is very disappointing that I can’t play the Pink Floyd CD in my tape player. So I shall not buy it!
Henry Howey
It reads MusicXML
Sibelius can export
Steve
I hope that an early adopter will report back on how much work it actually is to export MusicXML from Sib and get it formatted correctly in Dorico! Personally I’m thinking that I’d keep Sibelius around for previously-created scores but move forward with Dorico.
Theo May
I imported a range of my Sib files via music XML into Dorico– I was shocked at how accurate the default output from Dorico was. That being said, I’m no Ferneyhough, so I would imagine that depending on the notational complexity of your scores, your milage may vary!
Chris
All the more Dorico for us!
Hans Nel
Wilkins, it’s not Dorico’s fault that it’s software cannot work with Sibelius file. Sibelius files are created (by the software itself) by encrypting all the properties and objects that make up your score in a file. The ONLY software that has Sibelius’ “decrypting”‘engine (maybe a dll file) can open Sibelius files. Sibelius owns the rights to Sibelius files and will not give other companies like MakeMusic and Avid the right to decrypt Sibelius files. So you see, it’s NOT Dorico’s fault, but Avid’s “fault”. But Dorico will do the same. Steinberg will not allow other DAW’s and Notators to open Dorico files. It’s nobody’s “fault”. Software companies have the right to protect their property, don’t they? But…you are only spiting yourself by not obtaining Dorico’s. The very Sibelius you cling on was built by the very same coders that are creating Dorico! Dorico, in the short future, will surpass ALL other notation software. So, if you are like me…one who always want the latest versions of software, you should get Dorico. In time, Sibelius won’t even come close to it. :-)
Carl-Henrik Buschmann
A absolutely wondrous review, guys. Dorico seems to be a miracle come true. Imagine the work these guys have put down, my deepest and outmost respect! I want to buy them coffee.
Philip Rothman
Thank you!
Stefan
Thanks, we like coffee (and tea incidentally).
Jean-Paul Gilles
Thank you for this exhaustive review of this wonderful software I will hasten to try.
Ron Puente
Hey Philip:
Hope all is well. One question, will “DORICO” accept all of my Sibelius work? Thanks. Ron.
Thijs
You will need to go through your Sibelius projects, export them as an XML-file, and import that into Dorico.
w^3
There’s also a Sibelius plugin that can batch process folders to convert to XML.
Donsta
Looks great! I can’t wait till they add support for chord symbols. The day they do that is the day I buy it.
Steve
Agreed, this is a must-have for me. Hope it comes soon!
Stan Martin
I pulled the trigger yesterday and bought it just to get used to it. I can’t actually use it until the chord symbols are in place. 90% of my writing uses chord symbols.
Bobby Rice
I’m 100% with you on that comment. Perhaps it will be a “jazz/commercial” version of the software?
Gordon Thornett
The boxed package is a little more expensive than the download version. Do you know if it comes with any extras (such as a printed manual)? Is there any other reason to go for the boxed version (e.g. perhaps the packaged version takes a very long time to download)?
Philip Rothman
You don’t get the USB eLicenser with the download. It’s covered in the last section of the review.
Aaron
According to a reply by Daniel in a post in the Dorico forum, the box includes: 2 DVD-ROMs (containing the sound library), an empty USB-eLicenser, and a multi-language quick start guide sheet. Dorico’s program documentation is online-only; there will be no printed manual.
Bob
I realize you can’t cover everything in one review, but I’m eagerly awaiting to hear how well Dorico imports Sibelius 8 XML files.
Tony Rickard
Great article gentlemen. Honest and with the same thoroughness as Dorico! You achieved the impossible of keeping me awake and fascinated throughout my hour-long homeward commute and on a day that had a 5:30am start!
Philip Rothman
Thanks, Tony! That is high praise, indeed. I’m hugely grateful to Alex and Andrew, who worked tirelessly at all hours with me to put together this comprehensive review.
David H. Bailey
Great review — I shall revisit it a few more times as I begin to get into the inner workings of Dorico. This is the first time I’ve ever bought a version 1.0 of any software, but knowing Daniel and his development team I can see great things coming along as Dorico matures.
Thanks for posting such an in-depth review — regarding not being able to open Sibelius or Finale scores — I don’t think that’s a big deal. My Sibelius scores will stay in Sibelius format, same for my Finale scores, until/unless I need to modernize them and then it will be a toss-up whether I try to import into Dorico or simply use their native programs to make any changes.
In the meantime I can tell that it will take a while for me to begin to get comfortable working with the various modes of Dorico so any major projects in the near future will still be done in Sibelius.
Thanks again for the great review!
Philip Rothman
Thank you, David!
Peter Roos
Excellent review, many thanks! I’m very much looking forward to getting my boxed version in the mail.
Thien Bich Hoang
Congratulation to Daniel Spreadbury and Philip Rothman and other members who were involved in this creating teams.
Well Done Mate, Big Thanks.
Philip Rothman
Thien Bich Hoang, thanks for your nice comments, and as always for reading the blog! Just to be clear, I am not on the Steinberg development team. Daniel and his colleagues at Steinberg are responsible for creating Dorico. Also, I must give the credit for this blog post to Alexander Plötz and Andrew Noah Cap, for they wrote the vast majority of it.
Bob Zawalich
Great review. Thanks to all of you!
Abraham Lee
This is an incredible review! Well done Alexander, Andrew, and Philip! Everything is exceptionally clear (especially the part about not being able to read Sibelius/Finale binary files) and was a pleasure to read with all the picture examples. I especially loved the short comparison between Dorico, Finale, and Sibelius. For me, that is a major selling point: getting to where I want to end up faster, with fewer things that need tweaking.
The Dorico team should feel very good about where they’ve been able to bring this really amazing piece of software in a few short years. The only direction to go now is UP as long as they remain responsive to user feedback. Nicely done!
Philip Rothman
Thanks, Abraham! Glad you enjoyed it.
Hannes
Will there be a trial version?
Why should I spend money on a product I didn’t even test?
Terence Jones
Near the end of the review it does mention that there will be a 30 day trial available in about a month.
randy woolf
very very well written review. sounds exciting, but for me, no cues=no sale. professional parts have cues.
Philip Rothman
Hi Randy! Absolutely, the ability to place cues is an essential feature in professional notation software. There are a number of other features missing that make Dorico unusable for many people at the moment. From what the Steinberg developers have said, we expect that they will add those items in due course.
Max Tofone
Thanks guys for this extensive review…
I really like what I have read and seen so far about Dorico but I also feel that this release should have been released later with all the important scoring features in place. At the moment for my work Dorico is not an option until they had all the missing important elements and an improved playback.
Cheers, Max
Rich Pulin
To Philip and Staff!
A HUGE Congratulations on your exciting new product!
The Early Childhood Music Education Foundation, a jazz-ed mentorship,
attached to and servicing the Las Vegas School District since 1993, would like to
participate in this launch, in ANY way that we can…PLEASE call upon us, if we can help!
Again, CONGRATULATIONS!
Kindly,
Rich Pulin
http://www.theearlychildhoodmusiceducationfoundation.org
Bob
Dorico is unusable for me till it gets chord symbols, repeat ending lines, cues, etc, but there were several cool things in tutorial video 2 that made me eager to get my hands on it. For example:
1. No meter required – very useful for educational illustrations. I don’t do this very often, so I have to look up how to do it in Sibelius every time, and the procedure is a bit of a hassle. Looks to be much easier in Dorico.
2. I’ve been longing for something like ‘Insert Mode’ for a long time. No more copy/paste to make room for new material (or notes I forgot to enter).
The intelligent dot-adding feature also looks good.
Looking forward to it!
VicDiesel
Could you also do these examples in Lilypond? In the “development diaries” for Dorico I consistently found the Lilypond output better than each of Sibelius, Finale, Dorico.
Abraham Lee
If you are referring to the two “stress test” snippets, here’s the first one ricercare-1-compare-all.pdf.
Philip Rothman
Thanks for posting this, Abraham.
Abraham Lee
For the curious, here’s the Chopin prelude that Daniel showed during the London live stream: chopin-prelude-no-7.pdf.
The only “local” adjustment I had to make was the horizontal position of the very first dynamic marking. I made two other “global” setting changes: increased the vertical space between the staves a little and allowed the slurs to be a little more curved. Everythjng else is the default appearance. It’s not a complicated score, but take it for what it’s worth.
Abraham Lee
And here’s the second of the two stress tests: ricercare-2-compare-all.pdf
Both stress tests show 100% default LilyPond spacing/layout although I’m not entirely sure I voiced each passage properly. Anyway, here it is.
Philip Rothman
Thanks for doing this, Abraham!
Abraham Lee
You’re welcome, Philip!
Abraham Lee
By the way, I used LilyPond version 2.19.36 for my additions.
@Andrew Noah Cap: which version of Sibelius and Finale were used in the stress tests?
Harvey Richardson
These examples are not really useful.
I would want to see both default output and secondly an improved/edited version. For example with the Sebelius examples I would have moved horizontal note positions and edited ties to make the score more readable.
What would be a very useful community service would be a site that would host score snippets which people could provide
default and edited renderings from so we could compare withouth having to purchase trial applications. A trial is only as useful as your ability to learn the application in time.
Sanley Auster
“There is no reason to doubt that this will happen eventually.” Hmmmm . . . I think this should be a bumper sticker or t-shirt slogan. I’m skeptical. Today, we live in a corporate environment where there is every reason to doubt that something will happen eventually or not eventually. I worked in the music business for many years and watched the corporations and start-ups run it into the ground. I’m skeptical but maybe, just maybe, this will be the exception to the rule.
Jorge Grundman
Great, Great, Great Review! It is almost a tutorial on how to use Dorico.
The only thing I miss from this review is if Dorico has script abilities like Sibelius Manuscript. Does it have this?
Brandon
A $500 notation program that lacks the ability to do standard things like *transpose a section of music* at release is…kind of unacceptable to be honest.
My understanding was that Steinberg was wanting Dorico to be taken seriously as a music notation software product. Sure, it’s coming “later”, but why is it not there at release? This is bare bones stuff.
Dan Kreider
I agree, and this was my first thought upon reading the review (which was excellent, by the way). Why not wait and release Dorico without these fundamental, glaring omissions?
As an almost 20-year Finale user, I’m very intrigued. I’ll be watching Dorico’s progress closely over the next couple months.
Steven Lebetkin
One of the nice things about Sibelius is its interface with NotePerformer whose algorhythm takes all the brain damage out of the process. Simply take the time to notate your score carefully with attention to the detail of dynamics and articulation and press the play button. The you have a really good demo of the music without programming and having to be a sound engineer.
The question is can Dorico do this? Or is there brain damage involved?
Bob Zawalich
>The only thing I miss from this review is if Dorico has script abilities like Sibelius Manuscript. Does it have this?
It does not currently have the ability to write plugins like Sibelius does. There is a Script window that will let you record and play back a single macro.
A full plugin facility, using the Lua programming language is planned for a future release, but I would not expect it to be available in the very near future. There are some threads about this on the Dorico user forum.
Fabian
Great review of a great software! Thanks a lot!
One question concerning playback: does it integrate Vst-Instruments in the articulation and dynamics of the score like it does with its own HALion instruments? In Sibelius, Vst-instruments are played with reduced dynamics…..
Thanks for an answer!
Best wishes,
Fabian
Aaron Gervais
This was so exciting until I got to the last page and saw that you can’t create cues yet. It seems really odd to release the product with no cue capability. Basically makes it useless for professional use.
Martha
I ordered the boxed version the first day. No word about it yet–what is the wait time?
I eagerly await. . . .
Chinny
I have used Sibelius for over twenty-five years and Finale since 1986. I use both for teaching. Although I settled more on Sibelius for that purpose. Since Avid took over, it has become increasingly difficult to use the product in the class. Just as soon as you boot up you are confronted with activation even though they have an automatic deduction from my credit card. Of course my students now know to steer clear of Sibelius. I was hoping that Dorico would come to the rescue. But unfortunately with the absence of chord symbols etc, and for a very heavy price tag of over $500 for an unfinished product, is unacceptable. It would seem these software companies are now writing the products for themselves.
Peter Hamlin
I spent about a week trying to figure out an activision issue with Sibelius — turns out if I activate on my Surface Pro 3 with the expansion dock plugged in, Sibelius will not launch without the dock. Or vice versa. I ended up reactivating without the dock so I can use it on the road, and when I’m home I have to unplug the dock when I launch, then plug it back in to reactivate.
A long way of agreeing with you about activation annoyances in Sibelius!
Paolo
I’m surprised they didn’t use the Apple Store, with its handy way of installing on multiple computers. Steinberg has never been too friendly with Mac users.
Paolo
Paul Rose
Can one scan sheet music on paper (printed or handwritten) and then edit it with Dorico? I don’t remember a mention of this in the review.
Abraham Lee
Not directly, but since it can import MusicXML, you can use any scanning software you want to create the MusicXML file and then load that file into Dorico.
Orion
Fine review. But haste needn’t lead to lousy grammar: “Being a scoring software, one would think that Dorico creates and edits scores.” What, is anyone out there (including the writer) a piece of software? I hope not, but the dangling modifier in that sentence does imply that at least one of us is exactly that. Eek. How about, “Since Dorico is a scoring software, anyone might think that it creates and edits scores.” Computers and software have grown powerful and precise, but our ability to write clearly and precisely has faded.
Hans
Off course you’re right about the grammar (as if I should know), but you must be an alien from Orion because we humans are fallible and do err at times. I suggest using “Grammarly” to check one’s comments because without it, MY post will look like Egyptian glyphs!! ;-)
Peter Hamlin
Well, thank you for this very thorough and enjoyable review. I bought Dorico and am in the initial stages of learning it.
For me, the flexibility of players and layout will be a big game changer.
Dorico is a very welcome new player in the music notation world. I hope it does well!
Peter Hamlin
I hope Steinberg will change the licensing. (The comments on this in the review make me cautiously optimistic.) I have a home studio and a travel computer and work on both interchangeably virtually every day. My travel computer has only one usb port.
I just ordered the dongle to see how it goes — but a two-computer e-license would be a significant improvement for me.
Martha
Somewhere in all the reviews/blogs/forums I saw a spreadsheet of key commands. Now I can’t find it. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Martha Bishop
waltmart@comcast.net
Wolfram
Hi Martha, you can find an excel file of key shortcuts on the dorico forum. It’s posted by Derrek and the thread was opened by JGM 51 under the title of “key shortcuts”.
Sanifu
Outstanding review Philip; thank you!
Dick Lopez
1. How does HALion Symphonic Sounds compare with MakeMusic’s Garrison Sounds in Finale (especially the Grand Piano sounds)?
2. Can Dorico files be saved as AIFF? Or only as WAV?
Martha Bishop
I bought Dorico specifically to do early barless music. I’ve tried my best to get NO cautionary accidentals, and that aspect simply does not work properly but is vital to early barless music.
I also very much miss the dot on the number pad for adding time to a note. It’s awkward to have to mouse it.
Additionally I’m having a great deal of difficulty in keeping the audio aspect working unless I do certain maneuvers which don’t ever seem to save. I’m working on a Mac with Keystation 49es.
I think the program will eventually be a super program, much more powerful than Sibelius which I’ve used for years. I eagerly await every upgrade in the hopes that it will meet more of my needs, but Meanwhile Sibelius works for my modern compositions.
Davis Eccott
Not impressed! No sound on playback! Can’t find any help to resolve problem anywhere! Very disappointed!
Davis Eccott
I now have sound on playback working. The fault was entirely of my own making. I didn’t realize that the “edit” referred to was the edit on the mac menu. I was looking for an edit on the play section of Dorico. As soon as I changed the device setup to use “built in audio” everything worked, all thanks to the great team in Germany!
Haven’t explored all of Dorico’s possibilities yet, but it looks to be a great piece of software with many thoughtful and interesting capabilities.
My sincere apologies if my earlier grumble caused anyone to be put off. All I can say is, don’t be put off!!!
Steve
I’m a relatively new user of notation software. I got Finale 25.1 and then 25.2, and find it maddening to use. It seems buggy, and things don’t work like the manual says it will. Is Dorico pretty stable? I’d rather have fewer features and it be robust!
Hans Nel
Ok, personal opinion so far.
Dorico is a well fed fat toddler at the moment and is quite a tough little bugger to learn, but make no mistake, it’s growing like “Smallville” and will soon be a SUPERMAN! I really like Dorico (shortcomings and all), but their has a LOT of work being done creating it so far and I see NO competition in the near future!
Hans Nel
there (Orion)
Maximumspatium
First of all, thank you for the review!
My enthusiasm for Dorico’s impressive innovations is quickly tempered by some obvious “legacies”:
1) Steinberg’s legacy high-margin low-volume business model behind Dorico plaguing users with restrictive and intrusive copy protection systems like eLicenser (do you know that you have to buy their hardware key in order to run demo?)
Steinberg‘s advertising is speaking about customer‘s freedom but what‘s about the freedom to use your legally purchased software in more than one machine? No way! This situation isn‘t likely to change soon. Otherwise, why to swallow Syncrosoft together with their nearly uncrackable copy protection if not for forcing it unto the customer to make a bunch of money?
2) I‘m quite sure Dorico is working with its own (binary, compressed and encrypted) file format like Sibelius and Finale do so it‘s subject to the same legacy like its competitors. The legitimation of this decision doesn‘t matter much. The fact is that encrypted binary formats are useless as far as their creator becomes unavailable. This is in short the old good way to lock customers to expensive proprietary products. Did you even try to switch your score library from Sibelius to smth else? Don‘t tell me about MusicXML export! It doesn‘t work that way!
What‘s about customer‘s freedom to use tools of their choice? Or even the ability to share your work/ideas with non-Steinberg customers? What do you think, what‘s the reason for not having an interchangeable, open file format for score exchange?
That‘s why I ain‘t going to buy Dorico, at least in the near future. My advise would be to wait and watch where does this journey end up. Dorico‘s price is high and there is neither „Dorico first“ nor „Dorico lite“. Dorico‘s advanced features are impressive but honestly rarely needed (unless you‘re going to publish that unnatural piece by Ferneyhough :)) There are several notation products outside of this Finale-Sibelius-Dorico circle doing less but being both cheap and good…
Kristian
Being a bit lazy I’ve never bothered to properly learn notation since I mostly write music on the guitar and use tabs (with notation attached) for composing. It seems like a simple request, but is it possible to add inputting music by tab?
Being a guitar player I find myself thinking more of the movements along the neck than as notes themselves. Harmonizing and adding melodies is alot easier if I can visualize my self playing the notes on the guitar.
I guess at some point I should just learn notation once and for all, but untill then, I’ll stay lazy :)
Deke Roberts
Maybe I’m not understanding something here, but writing a program that would allow you to feed music written on program A into program B is not illegal, only using anything that is part of either programs A or B is illegal. This is why Open Office can read documents produced on other word processing formats.
I will lay odds that somewhere, someone, probably in the open-source community, is even now working on writing a program for this very purpose, at which point the owners of the propitiatory software which they perceive as being under threat will tear the program apart searching for matching code, and if they genuinely can’t find any, they’ll rewite their code so that their next update won’t work with the ‘pirate program’.
And that’s when the phrase “Cat and mouse” will start appearing in reviews.