Dorico 2.2.10 released with improvements and bug fixes

Today Steinberg released Dorico 2.2.10, the latest update to its scoring program. The update introduces improvements across all areas of the program and addresses a number of bug fixes as well, making it a solid iteration of the program and a worthwhile update to the massive 2.2 release from November. The update is free to all registered Dorico 2.0 users.

Let’s see what’s new and improved, shall we?

Flip

Dorico 2.2.10 introduces a handy command to flip practically everything that is (vertically) flippable with a single key press. There isn’t any new functionality, but it’s a very welcome shortcut that’ll probably save you tons of time. Before, if you wanted to flip the vertical position of an object, you needed to do this either in the Properties panel or with a command from the Edit menu, depending on the type of the object — a bit strange since all those actions felt logically similar.

Now you can just select the object and press F (or whatever custom key command you care to assign). If the object has a vertical position property, then the command will set that property accordingly. If you invoke it with a note selected, then the stem direction will be flipped.

Note that ties and articulations cannot be selected individually in Write Mode so you need to be in Engrave Mode to flip them. If two or more similar objects with different vertical positions are selected, they’ll all be moved above the staff in the first go.

One thing worth bearing in mind is that flipping an item for the second time is not the same as undoing the first flip command. If you want to remove all specific vertical positions and go back to Dorico’s default, choose Reset Position (or Stem > Remove Forced Stem) from the Edit menu.

Filenames for graphic export

It is now possible to change the filenames that Dorico creates during graphic export. Thankfully, Dorico doesn’t ask the user for a filename every time. Instead a generic file name recipe is stored in Dorico’s preferences. It can be changed in the new Export Filenames dialog that is accessible via Preferences > General > Files or directly in Print Mode.

The procedure is simple: input the tokens in the Filename recipe field or click the buttons at the bottom of the dialog to append the respective components to the current recipe. You can create different recipes for each available file format, or use the Copy to All button to change them all in one go. Dorico will resolve the valid tokens for each exported file individually.

If you need some other individual text, type it directly into the recipe field. Here I can’t help wondering whether it wouldn’t have been a better idea to save changed filename recipes with each project. If you do use custom text elements, be sure to make a quick round trip to the filenames dialog before you start exporting graphics — you might have individual text elements from your last project lurking in there.

Speaking of layout related tokens, don’t miss this little timesaver: It is now possible to renumber layouts automatically according to their order in the Layouts panel in Setup Mode. This is much easier than before — you don’t need to care about individual numbers anymore. Just drag the layouts in the right order and choose Renumber Layouts from the contextual menu (or the Setup menu). Nice and quick.

One other improvement to layouts: Settings related to flow headings and tacet flows are now propagated when using Setup > Propagate Part Formatting when the Include layout options checkbox is activated in the dialog that appears.

MIDI recording

Dorico 2.2.10 brings a number of refinements to the MIDI recording feature first introduced in the 2.2 update, which on the whole make the feature much more useful.

There is a new Fill gaps option. If this option is selected, Dorico will automatically fill the gaps between short notes — to make the music more readable. When selected in Preferences > Play > Recording > Quantization Options… this applies to new MIDI recordings. When selected in Edit > Requantize, it applies to existing music that has been selected.

This is different than quantization. To illustrate, let’s take this simple passage, which has been recorded in real-time MIDI:

Because the passage was played in on the intended beats, quantizing it to the nearest 16th note using these settings does not alter the result, because quantizing only repositions the notes to the grid — it doesn’t alter their duration.

But, if I check Fill gaps…

…the result improves:

This is a welcome option, but it would be made even more useful if the Fill gaps option was independent of the quantization options — in other words, if you could replace a rest and add its value to the duration of the preceding note, and truly fill all of the gaps. Right now Fill gaps will only work as far as the shortest note duration selected in the dialog. It would be cleverer still if Fill gaps could take it to the next step — filling gaps without quantizing the music further, to achieve this result:

Other improvements to MIDI recording include a new option to import CC64 messages as pedal lines, and, in a very nice touch, an option to snap the start position of a pedal line to the previous beat, to account for the natural way of playing keyboard by depressing the sustain pedal after the keys have been pressed while conventionally notating the pedal marking on the beat.

Finally, the current setting in Write > Input Pitch is respected during MIDI recording, so that you can record in written or sounding pitch. Octave-transposing instruments will now sound at the correct octave during MIDI input.

Auto-save

If you’re not in the habit of compulsively hitting Ctrl+S every few seconds, you can breathe a little easier while using Dorico 2.2.10. Auto-save is now implemented so that if Dorico crashes while you’re working, you will be able to recover your work via a Recover Auto-saved Projects window that will appear when you restart Dorico.

You can choose the location of auto-saved projects (your user account Document folder by default) and the interval of time that Dorico auto-saves (five minutes by default). These settings are found in Preferences > General > Files.

It is worth mentioning that if you have multiple projects open, Dorico will only save the project in the foreground at the time auto-save is invoked.

Engraving Options

A few items have been added to Engraving Options:

On the Ornaments page you can now choose to show trill extension lines only for trills on tied notes. (As an aside, it is now possible to use different notehead sets for auxiliary notes — for example, to indicate that they should be played as harmonics.)

If the start of a coda coincides with a system break, the last barline in the preceding system can now optionally be drawn as a double barline automatically.

And two new options on the Rests page allow for greater control over when to display counted multi-bar rests or a tacet indication at the end of a flow or in flows where there’s nothing to do for a player.

In addition to the flipping command (ha, ha) a few other properties are now accessible with key commands, including accidental visibility (thank you!) and laissez-vibrer ties. There are no default key bindings for these but you can go to Preferences > Key commands to assign your own hotkeys.

Other improvements

The update comes with a fair number of other improvements. To mention just a few more:

Staff-attached text on multi-bar rests

Text objects that are attached to the start of a bar no longer prevent that bar from being merged into subsequent multi-bar rests. A necessary, very welcome fix!

Systemic barline

In Write > Notation Options, you can set a systemic barline to show for a single-staff system after the first system, a convention sometimes seen in hand-copied lead sheets. Because this is a notation option, this can be set separately for each of the flows in your project:

Concert pitch warning

If you’ve ever accidentally (or purposely) set a part to display in concert pitch, a warning dialog will now appear if you attempt to print or export that part. Finale has a similar warning dialog that has saved more than one disaster in the past. Dorico’s dialog takes it further, by identifying the offending part layouts and offering to change them to transposed pitch for you before printing. You can also proceed and ignore the warning if you have a good reason to do so. Steinberg product marketing manager Daniel Spreadbury said that this feature was added “in direct response to a couple of threads on the Dorico user forum”.

New flow number tokens

There are two new tokens for flow numbers displayed as roman numerals, useful for flow headings in classical scores with several movements: {@flowNumberRomanLower@} and {@flowNumberRomanUpper@}. (I wonder… maybe I’ve lived a sheltered life within the realms of highbrow classical music, but have any of you ever seen lowercase roman numerals used for titles in music notation?)

Availability and what’s next

There are still even more improvements in Dorico 2.2.10 in the areas of playback, engraving, notation, printing, and the user interface, along with dozens of good old-fashioned bug fixes. For a complete accounting, read the version history, available from Steinberg’s web site.

The update is free to all registered Dorico 2.x users, who can download Dorico 2.2.10 from Steinberg’s web site, or via Steinberg Download Assistant.

At the time of the Dorico 2.2 release, product marketing manager Daniel Spreadbury said, “Dorico 2.2 is the final planned release in the Dorico 2.x series,” so today’s 2.2.10 update is a very nice bonus for all Dorico users.

Barring any unforeseen developments, it is quite likely that Dorico 2.2.10 is indeed the last update before we see Dorico 3. Indeed, Daniel said today that “we anticipate that Dorico 2.2.10 is the final release in the Dorico 2.x series, and the next release will be a major update that introduces significant new functionality (and which will be a paid update, rather than a free one).”

About that next major release, “Although some members of the team have been focused on working towards our next major update for the last little while,” Daniel said, “we now have the whole team working on foundational work for new features, and we are entering the exciting phase of mapping out exactly how to build what comes next.”