# Big Dorico news coming! Dorico Live Stream



## rudi

An announcement from Steinberg just popped into my inbox:



"Tune in this Wednesday 20 May at 3pm CEST / 2pm BST / 3pm CDT / 9am EDT / 6am PDT to be the first to know the latest Dorico announcements. You can watch live on YouTube, and if you can’t catch the livestream, you can watch later on demand. Click the link below to set a reminder in your time zone. We hope you find this video entertaining and useful. If you like what you see, please leave a comment and tell us what you think. Thank you. Your Steinberg YouTube Team"


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## johe

Got this in my inbox earlier today as well. Tighter Cubase integration would be nice - at least that is what I am hoping for. Looking forward to this!


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## rudi

Yes, it'll be interesting to find out what the announcement is about tomorrow... not a lot to go on so far, just plenty of speculation


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## nolotrippen

A lot sure seems to be happening on the 20th!


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## Maximvs

Thanks for sharing this announcement... I am not yet a Dorico user but interested to see what's coming next.

Cheers, Max T.


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## barteredbride

rudi said:


> Yes, it'll be interesting to find out what the announcement is about tomorrow... not a lot to go on so far, just plenty of speculation


It's a game changer for sure. A total revolution and universal....

...oh hang on, wrong thread.


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## rudi

"Hello, my name is Daniel Spreadbury, and I am moderately excited to ..."


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## dcoscina

I know, it’s customized Orchestral Tools libraries for playback, but you have to buy them all over again for a third time. Lol!


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## José Herring

rudi said:


> An announcement from Steinberg just popped into my inbox:
> 
> 
> 
> "Tune in this Wednesday 20 May at 3pm CEST / 2pm BST / 3pm CDT / 9am EDT / 6am PDT to be the first to know the latest Dorico announcements. You can watch live on YouTube, and if you can’t catch the livestream, you can watch later on demand. Click the link below to set a reminder in your time zone. We hope you find this video entertaining and useful. If you like what you see, please leave a comment and tell us what you think. Thank you. Your Steinberg YouTube Team"



Soooo......I'm I suppose to sit here and stare at this screen for 13hrs?


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## dcoscina

I would have been really excited about this news in January. Then Staffpad came out and I’m all in on that.... tho I do have Dorico 2


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## gyprock

They are replacing Cubase's piano roll with Dorico's. Likewise with the Cubase mixer.


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## MauroPantin

They're announcing a Spitfire subscription service, duh!




In all seriousness, I'm very much looking forward to this. I'm still on Sibelius but I've been eyeing Dorico for a few months now. Like Thanos, it seems inevitable.


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## rudi

josejherring said:


> Soooo......I'm I suppose to sit here and stare at this screen for 13hrs?


A near perfect description of the life of a media composer in the 21st century


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## Gingerbread

I'll put in my bet that it's something to do with partnering with top-level sample devs for better playback, like StaffPad has.


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## rudi

That would be so great!!! Let's hope!


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## Franklin

As someone suggested on the Steinberg Dorico forum, it could be a better integration of Cubase and Dorico. We'll see.


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## Anders Wall

rudi said:


> An announcement from Steinberg just popped into my inbox:
> 
> 
> 
> "Tune in this Wednesday 20 May at 3pm CEST / 2pm BST / 3pm CDT / 9am EDT / 6am PDT to be the first to know the latest Dorico announcements. You can watch live on YouTube, and if you can’t catch the livestream, you can watch later on demand. Click the link below to set a reminder in your time zone. We hope you find this video entertaining and useful. If you like what you see, please leave a comment and tell us what you think. Thank you. Your Steinberg YouTube Team"






Franklin said:


> As someone suggested on the Steinberg Dorico forum, it could be a better integration of Cubase and Dorico. We'll see.



...complete integration with the @Soundiron Team harp?


Ping @NYC Composer


Best,
Anders


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## I like music

josejherring said:


> Soooo......I'm I suppose to sit here and stare at this screen for 13hrs?


You can go bump the CSW thread.


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## fretti

Tantacrul becomes new Head of Design for Dorico?


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## rudi

Dorico 3.5!
Someone at Steingberg released the "What's New" video on Youtube.
It's been taken off since.


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## Gil

Hello!
Dorico 3.5:








Dorico 3.5 review - Scoring Notes


Steinberg has released Dorico 3.5. Pitch-before-duration note input and semantic figured bass are among the dozens of new features and improvements.




www.scoringnotes.com




New Features in Dorico 3.5 | Tutorials 11 videos Updated today playlist here:


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## Michael Antrum

I was hoping (rather ambitiously obviously) that they had partnered up with Staffpad and had developed seamless file exchange between the two programs......


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## arjanm




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## CatOrchestra

I am very fond of this


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## Audio Birdi

CatOrchestra said:


> I am very fond of this



Saw this video just now and it's great how they've made it possible to write in either mode, but have the "play mode" auto-adjust CC lanes based on the "engrave / score mode" :O :D


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## arjanm

It's a paid upgrade, even for 3.0 users (while 3.0 was only released sep 2019)
€30 for the Elements upgrade, €60 for the Pro upgrade








Dorico: Music Notation Software


Compose or publish music notation, produce teaching materials or learn the language of music — Dorico lets you make beautiful music, fast.




new.steinberg.net


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## SimonCharlesHanna

Have to say, the only reason I upgraded was so I dont have to pay 1/3 the cost of the entire app just to upgrade from 3 to 4.


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## Rob

Not an irresistible update, pitch before duration is welcome though... figured bass is also nice, but in years of pro notation working I never had to use this function. On the fence at the moment...


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## dcoscina

arjanm said:


> It's a paid upgrade, even for 3.0 users (while 3.0 was only released sep 2019)
> €30 for the Elements upgrade, €60 for the Pro upgrade
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dorico: Music Notation Software
> 
> 
> Compose or publish music notation, produce teaching materials or learn the language of music — Dorico lets you make beautiful music, fast.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> new.steinberg.net


This is what frustrates me to no end with Steinberg. They gouge users for every little update. I love their products but sheesh.. almost every other developer doesn’t have paid incremental updates.


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## rudi

Audio Birdi said:


> Saw this video just now and it's great how they've made it possible to write in either mode, but have the "play mode" auto-adjust CC lanes based on the "engrave / score mode" :O :D


Some very good stuff in there - they are integrating the notation and playback ever closer!
I like it a lot 

I also love the "search" function - there are so many settings / properties etc. in Dorico that it's hard to keep track at times... mind you REAPER has had that for a while!!!


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## Piotrek K.

So I need to pay to get better expression maps? Only few months ago I paid for last update :(

Actually does the base cost of Dorico changes? If not it means I'm paying extra for being "old customer" :/


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## peladio

arjanm said:


> It's a paid upgrade, even for 3.0 users (while 3.0 was only released sep 2019)
> €30 for the Elements upgrade, €60 for the Pro upgrade
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dorico: Music Notation Software
> 
> 
> Compose or publish music notation, produce teaching materials or learn the language of music — Dorico lets you make beautiful music, fast.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> new.steinberg.net



Classic Steinberg..they'd charge 0.1 updates if they could


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## CatOrchestra

peladio said:


> Classic Steinberg..they'd charge 0.1 updates if they could


True!

At least they don't force you to purchase "specialized" VSTs that only work for the specific App/OS.


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## MrCambiata

Just started teaching figured bass so this update come right on time for me


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## Zedcars

Is that background music new or an existing piece? Sounds very much like John Adams. Anyone know what it is?


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## joebaggan

No Cubase integration in this release. Not seeing much here worth spending more bucks on after upgrading from 2 to 3.


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## rudi

Dorico Prelude by Segun Akinola - I think it was sponsored for the Dorico 3 release:





BTW congrats on making it to the BBCSO list of demos!!!


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## Zedcars

rudi said:


> Dorico Prelude by Segun Akinola - I think it was sponsored for the Dorico 3 release:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> BTW congrats on making it to the BBCSO list of demos!!!



Cool. Thanks a lot.


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## prodigalson

Jesus. $60 for a basic functionality update and improvement of existing features. Dorico is gonna end up being EXPENSIVE so Im out for now.

Sticking with Sibelius for now.


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## JuanSebastianBach

prodigalson said:


> Jesus. $60 for a basic functionality update and improvement of existing features. Dorico is gonna end up being EXPENSIVE so Im out for now.
> 
> Sticking with Sibelius for now.



Not to mention that some of us bought Version 2 at full price, then upgraded to 3... now this?
Seems unfair for people that have been supporting the project from the beginning. Meanwhile for a first time buyer, it's the same price.


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## Zedcars

JuanSebastianBach said:


> Not to mention that some of us bought Version 2 at full price, then upgraded to 3... now this?
> Seems unfair for people that have been supporting the project from the beginning. Meanwhile for a first time buyer, it's the same price.


But the first time buyer hasn’t used it for the period which you have paid to use it. They are just stepping onto the ladder now. Seems fair to me. There is always the option to not upgrade until you feel new features added make it worth it. Personally I think the price is fine.


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## jonathanparham

Michael Antrum said:


> I was hoping (rather ambitiously obviously) that they had partnered up with Staffpad and had developed seamless file exchange between the two programs......


I'd love that. Personally that would be a 'Shut and take my money' scenario. lol


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## JuanSebastianBach

Zedcars said:


> But the first time buyer hasn’t used it for the period which you have paid to use it. They are just stepping onto the ladder now. Seems fair to me. There is always the option to not upgrade until you feel new features added make it worth it. Personally I think the price is fine.



That's true. I think I just don't like the business model that much... I'll probably end up getting the upgrade.


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## Page Lyn Turner

There are 2 competitive crossgrade options: $280 and $160, is this a flash sale?


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## prodigalson

Zedcars said:


> But the first time buyer hasn’t used it for the period which you have paid to use it. They are just stepping onto the ladder now. Seems fair to me. There is always the option to not upgrade until you feel new features added make it worth it. Personally I think the price is fine.



For some software I buy this argument. For this, I don't think so. This product was not, by their own admission, of the same level of features as the competitors when it was initially released. There weren't even chord symbols on v1.0. And many customers bought into that believing that it would be worth the investment because they were excited by the future possibilities ensuring Steinberg had the money to continue development. Then to charge for .5 upgrades that don't bring dramatically new feature sets, simply improvements to old ones inevitably punishes those who had faith in the product in the first place. 

I do believe for sample libraries and other software the value in being early adopters and using the libraries commercially often outweighs the savings later adopters often get. But not here, there was no inherent value whatsoever in using Dorico 1.0 over Sibelius/Finale in the beginning. The only value was investing in an exciting future. Those investors are being punished by constantly needing to pay for every upgrade.


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## CatOrchestra

They discuss the fee


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## dcoscina

I didn't mean to come off so negative with my initial post. Of course these updates look good and I use Dorico for my finished scores when I'm sending to orchestras. For composing however, that's all Staffpad baby.


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## CatOrchestra

I am willing to pay the upgrade price as I have been really waiting for some of these updates/upgrades.


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## richhickey

I know it's the internet but it's still quite annoying to have every thread following a paid update of software be dominated by moaning over what it cost, it should be free etc. 

Do you people have jobs? Do you get paid? Do the people who paid you last month expect you to work this month for no extra money? Do you bring your coffee mug to the coffee shop every day for a free refill because you bought coffee last week? Do you understand the people who make Dorico do it for a living, have expenses, children to feed etc? Why is software supposed to be some everlasting xmas present while every other thing costs money? 

Dorico team is shipping features at a tremendous pace. And the upgrade model is ideal - either they put enough into a new version to convince you to upgrade *or you can wait until they do*. The only other alternative that still offers a sustainable living for developers is subscription, wherein the roles are reversed - you must keep paying in order to use what they made last year and they need not put much effort into new versions. I know what I prefer - here's my $60, with pleasure, Dorico team. 

Software is made by people, not Santa's elves.


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## prodigalson

CatOrchestra said:


> They discuss the fee




It seems on hand he's arguing figured bass, guitar notation, improved expression maps and improved condensing could have justified a 4.0 release (that would have been a disappointing 4.0) and on the other is saying its not a big release which is why they're not charging an even larger fee. 

Am I crazy? He says $60 isn't a lot for the amount of features you "get" from what I can tell the only new features are figured bass (...ok...coool) and specific guitar notation. The rest are improvements to already existing features.


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## Michael Antrum

prodigalson said:


> Sticking with Sibelius for now.



Their maintenance program rather makes your post a little ironic....


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## JeffvR

Wow, a handful of "new" features and €60, no thanks...


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## prodigalson

richhickey said:


> either they put enough into a new version to convince you to upgrade *or you can wait until they do*.



100%. Not enough for me right now. Looking forward to what 4.0 brings.


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## prodigalson

Michael Antrum said:


> Their maintenance program rather makes your post a little ironic....



Lol. Daddy hits me but I still love Daddy.

I'm no fan of Avids model. its a disgrace and an offence to customers. However, I've been using Sibelius for years and know it like the back of my hand and as much as I like Dorico (I really do) Sibelius is crucial to my work for the time being. Im sticking with it for now not because their business model is more reasonable, but only because Im already paying for one subscription model.

Sibelius annual update plan is $99 per year.
Dorico updates per x.0 version is $99. 2.0 came out in 2018, 3.0 came out in 2019 and from the sounds of the interview with Daniel 4.0 is planned for 2021. This years being an admittedly smaller release of .5, hence $60. 

Dorico's model isn't far off Avids but of course they do release better features more often! I'll wait until next year to get 4.0

EDIT: In case it isn't clear from this post, I'm totally happy and of course expect to pay for significant upgrades and updates. Im happy to pay $99 when its warranted. If figured bass and guitar notation is what you need then $60 is worth it!


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## Daryl

£42.50 is peanuts. More than my yearly YouTube Royalties, admittedly, but peanuts, in the scheme of things. It's less than the price of orchestrating one page of music. I really don't get what all this moaning about price is about.


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## nilblo

I´m happy they´re not charging per month... Have been using software that I bought, only to find that after a couple of years, the company changed to monthly payment to continue using the software. Now - that I can´t take. So I just stopped using SketchUp. Period. I used Skup for creating construction detailed drawings for old loghouses that were falling apart, houses that were a couple of 100 years old. It involved huge amount of time, doing forensic "research" trying to find out how the buildings once looked. I did this, to in some extent help preserve the culture of 200 yo building techniques, which hold quite some interest for me... Over the years I´ve completed drawings on close to 15 loghouses, but no more.. I don´t rent softwares.. but this update, I have no problem with. Just don´t go subscription, please.


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## JuanSebastianBach

I don't think the price is what triggers the "moaning", I think it's their shift from a "You've paid $600 for a product that we will improve & fix until we step into the next iteration" to a "Here is a new feature, it's $60".
I'm still not sure if it is fair or not, but it's not consistent.
As Daniel said to me: "Its up to you to determine if the price is right for you or not".
Maybe the questions are: "Will they keep upgrading 3.1 for bugfixes?", "Will bugfixes from 3.5 be backward compatible with 3.1?" "Should software companies charge for bugfixes?".


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## richhickey

I'm excited about the add-on switch types for expression maps. This may seem like a small feature but it could make for a big reduction in the size and complexity of expression maps, which otherwise suffer from a combinatorial explosion problem. It would make a great enhancement for Cubase emaps too.


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## Robin

I really don't get the outrage about an update fee. What everybody here is complaining about as "only a handful of features" would be enough for at least 5 new Sibelius versions at the rate it is currently being developed.



prodigalson said:


> For some software I buy this argument. For this, I don't think so. This product was not, by their own admission, of the same level of features as the competitors when it was initially released.



Yes, 1.0 was rather incomplete but you got all essential features in the following updates up to 1.3 which all were free, so that argument doesn't hold any ground.

I'm using Dorico on a daily basis and really, spending 60 bucks per year on a new update is peanuts compared to the money I need to invest in order to stay on the top of the game with sample libraries.


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## Sean J

The next generation of composers will be on StaffPad.

Even if 3rd party libraries came to Halion in an in-app sample store, I wouldn't use Dorico to compose. I took Spitfire, Berlin, Cinesamples, Scoring Synths, and Vintage Keys to the doctor's office last week. That sounds impressive. But what I loved most was using StaffPad. The features are organized for composing, not engraving. Dorico is like a TARDIS full of abilities but near-impossible to steer. Tremolos are under lines. To me, it's a musical function, not a paper representation. Before StaffPad, I used Notion more than Dorico simply because each click and keystroke made sense.

Dorico is a beautiful looking movie with a very difficult plot and so-so sound quality. It's worth owning. I'll appreciate it and use it for what it does best. I just won't compose with it.


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## Gene Pool

scoredfilms said:


> The next generation of composers will be on StaffPad.



I have no idea what the next generation of composers will be using since that's still a generation away and it's not like notation software is going to remain static in the meantime. Staffpad is great for what it is, but I could not produce a score and parts for real musicians with it even by half of half of half. I still use Sibelius since Dorico is too cumbersome for me, but this new version gets it closer and I can finally purchase it and patiently work through it on the side while they work out the more counter intuitive issues. But I'm glad that Staffpad's implementation of playback will put pressure on Dorico in that regard.


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## Piotrek K.

It's not about money. FL Studio somehow can manage lifetime updates for free. Miracle? Maybe. Or maybe Steinberg is just milking their customers here?

Anyway will wait for next update.


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## zolhof

This is like comparing apples to oranges. StaffPad has a different target audience in mind and I have nothing but praise for what it tries to accomplish but imho it's still in cool gimmick land. Dorico is a workhorse notation software with great playback if you own NP3. They complement each other instead of competing. And I always end up in Cubase anyway for serious mockups. 

There's a lot to like about this update and features that will make life a lot easier:

Condensing for divisi and section players
Rhythm dot and articulations *after* inputting (this is much more intuitive to me)
Pitch before duration
Properties search (with highlighted results, ctrl+L to search)
Graphic slices (for all your dirty aleatoric needs)
Line editors
Manual/individual staff visibility (!!!)
Expression maps improvements
Print preview in Engrave mode
Erase background x collision
Hide text items (awesome for parts instructions)
Octave shift for clefs
Fill frame with blank staves (aka Hollywood style)
Blank staves in musical frames

Also, condensing is now faster and large projects with multiple flows (think cues) perform better.

Things I still miss:

Full Cubase integration
Performance notes (text, notation, and graphics)
Number ranges for staff names (ie. Hn 1-12 instead of Hn. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 )

I don't expect anyone to work for free and it's up to the user to judge if there's enough content to justify another $60. For me it certainly does and I'm happy to support the development of this great software.


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## ptram

I'm a bit shocked by the amount of moaning following this upgrade. What some are calling small fixes, I find to be long-awaited revolutionary features.

Paolo


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## styledelk

I'm only going to moan that I just upgraded from Dorico 2 Elements to Elements 3 last week. The price is the same for the upgrade to 3.5 from 2. You'd think they'd honor a grace period of a month or so with an upgrade like that.

Otherwise the performance stuff looks great.


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## Michael Antrum

For me Staffpad is an absolute joy, because I travel a great deal and an iPad is just so portable. I can carry it around like a paperback book, I can use it on an airplane, at a restaurant table when I’m often dining alone, or sitting in an airport lounge. there are so many hours that I can use to work that would otherwise go wasted.

I do like Dorico, and the workflow of Staffpad for initially working out the idea - to Dorico for ‘finishing’ (or should that be finessing ?) seems to me to be a most practicable work method.

I’m no professional composer, merely an enthusiastic amateur, so it might seem odd to you who do this for a living, but in using the pencil I do feel more ‘connected’ to what I’m writing. Or perhaps that is just a mere placebo that will wear off in time.

But £50 for this upgrade ? Go and park your car at an airport for a couple of days and then tell me it’s price gouging.....


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## SuperD

styledelk said:


> I'm only going to moan that I just upgraded from Dorico 2 Elements to Elements 3 last week. The price is the same for the upgrade to 3.5 from 2. You'd think they'd honor a grace period of a month or so with an upgrade like that.
> 
> Otherwise the performance stuff looks great.


Have you checked here? https://www.steinberg.net/en/support/grace_period.html

I upgraded from 2 to 3 yesterday. Glad I could be eligible for 3.5 today.


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## styledelk

SuperD said:


> Have you checked here? https://www.steinberg.net/en/support/grace_period.html
> 
> I upgraded from 2 to 3 yesterday. Glad I could be eligible for 3.5 today.



Well shit, I wish I knew about that before I just paid for the upgrade 5 minutes ago.

You win some $30 and you lose some $30.


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## José Herring

Rob said:


> Not an irresistible update, pitch before duration is welcome though... figured bass is also nice, but in years of pro notation working I never had to use this function. On the fence at the moment...





dcoscina said:


> I would have been really excited about this news in January. Then Staffpad came out and I’m all in on that.... tho I do have Dorico 2



How does staff pad compare to Dorico+Note Peformer?


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## Dewdman42

I don't love Steinberg's upgrade pace and fees, but I still paid for Dorico 3.5; as I feel the Dorico Team is small and they are earning their keep at Steinberg and I want to promote the development of this program! Any future notational tasks I do will definitely be with Dorico. I love what they are doing. I have had nothing but a hate-hate relationship with Finale/Sibelius over many years where I used them infrequently enough to never master them. 

Dorico is on the right path and it takes money to develop stuff. 

$60 now, only like 6 months since the last update...is definitely a bit shocking, but Daniel noted in the above video that they are trying to reset the annual date to this time of year, so I guess it was either this...or wait until this time in 2021 to get the next update. I myself would probably prefer to wait until next year to get it as a larger update...but on the other hand the way Steinberg works is that if they did that the update next year would be $159 instead of $59, so you're gonna pay no matter what, probably on average something like $75/year, to keep up with Dorico updates. That is the steinberg way...which I don't love....compared to some other vendors...but on the other hand...I love it even less with Cubase..that feels more like we're being milked. With Dorico I know its a small team, new at Steinberg and they are developing something new. Well worth it to to me to give them $60 for another year of development on it.


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## dcoscina

josejherring said:


> How does staff pad compare to Dorico+Note Peformer?


From a compositional and playback standpoint, fan-freaking-tastic. Also, I'm not chained to my computer or laptop. I literally can compose pretty good sounding music anywhere I can take my iPad. I can bounce stems and mix further in a DAW (I tend to use UA Luna now).

Is it as powerful at layout and print features? No. But that's not its purpose. It's to compose and produce very exceptional mock ups with very little tweaking, thus allowing you focus on the music first and foremost. Is it for film composers? Well, for sketching, yeah. Not finished product. 

For concert composers, students, hobbyists, and academia, I think it's amazing. And after speaking with David who exists in the film score world, Staffpad WILL be a force to be reckoned with for that outlet as well.


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## José Herring

dcoscina said:


> From a compositional and playback standpoint, fan-freaking-tastic. Also, I'm not chained to my computer or laptop. I literally can compose pretty good sounding music anywhere I can take my iPad. I can bounce stems and mix further in a DAW (I tend to use Luma now).
> 
> Is it as powerful at layout and print features? No. But that's not its purpose. It's to composer and produce very exceptional mock ups with very little tweaking, thus you focus on the music first and foremost. Is it for film composers? Well, for sketching, yeah. Not finished product.
> 
> For concert composers, students, hobbyists, and academia, I think it's amazing. And after speaking with David who exists in the film score world, Staffpad WILL be a force to be reckoned with for that outlet as well.


That's cool. 

Yeah like i said before, I've been on the fence about notation programs for 25 years .

Personally I'd love to use it as a sketch tool. I still sketch on paper. I'm not worried about the sounds. They would be mostly distracting to me.

In cases that I would need to print out parts for concert works I'm sure I could probably do it from there. I'm not writing symphonies yet, just smaller chamber pieces.


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## Sean J

josejherring said:


> How does staff pad compare to Dorico+Note Peformer?



Note Performer has nothing on what you can do with Spitfire in a DAW. Not even close. StaffPad editions of Spitfire/Berlin/CineSamples have been wowing people with tons of remarks like "wait, how does this sound better than the Kontakt version?!" Just Youtube StaffPad and each library name and you'll find plenty of examples, plus a few on the StaffPad channel.

The top 3 sample devs for film all worked with David on this. Why? Because he has the right idea about what a composing tool needs to be for modern composers. I mean, sure... if you're a teacher, hobbyist, or any number of all legitimate and capable people outside of needing to make a good mock-up, then use Finale or even Noteworthy Composer for all I care. But for a good mock-up, StaffPad is a years ahead of everyone right now. Easily.


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## jamwerks

Watched all the videos and am impressed. Great features!


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## MGdepp

CatOrchestra said:


> I am very fond of this



I hope this will also enable further progress for NotePerformer! I get, that in the future it will probably be possible to have a better sound with libraries. But I doubt, anything sample-based is gonna be as flexible as Noteperformer - especially, if you just wanna write your score and expect it to sound pretty decent without having to put additional work into it. Noteperformer is just unbeatable at that.


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## MGdepp

prodigalson said:


> Jesus. $60 for a basic functionality update and improvement of existing features. Dorico is gonna end up being EXPENSIVE so Im out for now.
> 
> Sticking with Sibelius for now.


Well, consider what you have to pay for a Sibelius subscription and that is a permanent payment! The cheapest way for Sibelius is to always buy the 3-year plan and that is 260€ -- that is not cheaper than always updating to the latest Dorico over 3 years! And in case you want to skip a year, you have to dig way deeper in your pockets with Sibelius!

Also, you can buy this 3.5 upgrade now, but continue using v3. Then, at any moment in time, when you think the latest upgrade is great, you get the grace update for that version. This way, you can pay 60 bucks now, and get the latest version in 3 years or whenever you want to. This is the smart way to deal with any Steinberg product, in case you do not always need or want the latest version.


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## Gene Pool

MGdepp said:


> I hope this will also enable further progress for NotePerformer!



Right. NP is a niche product. It's not for producing final audio by any stretch. It's for when you have to produce a score and parts and all you need besides that is a reference track. You don't have to do anything extra besides export to audio. It's incomparable in that regard.


----------



## Sean J

MGdepp said:


> I hope this will also enable further progress for NotePerformer! I get, that in the future it will probably be possible to have a better sound with libraries. But I doubt, anything sample-based is gonna be as flexible as Noteperformer - especially, if you just wanna write your score and expect it to sound pretty decent without having to put additional work into it. Noteperformer is just unbeatable at that.



I disagree.

I spent the time diving into XML maps for Dorico, Notion, Cubase, and even Overture. I made mappers for them and came to understand them pretty well (including features found in the XML but not the GUI editors). In that time, I ended up getting a good feel for how each program performed. Notion always had the best rules abilities for playback because of conditions. During that time I also scripted my own Kontakt multiscript that humanized velocity, CC, tuning, delay, per KS selected. Then I jumped on board with Aaron Venture's libraries, which are astounding at playback agility.

Now, I used to love Noteperformer in the early days. It's great. But I've found that humanizing velocity based on downbeat patterns, per the time signature, is alone enough to make a world of difference in a performance. There's not really a lot required to getting a good performance. It's just that these programs don't... really... do anything. They are very flat by default.

Spitfire sounds amazing. There's just no denying what a hall does for a sound, let alone a good hall and great audio engineering, etc, etc. The better the ingredients, the better the outcome.

Noteperformer is great. But I strongly suspect these conditions in Dorico 3.5 and a great sample library will lead to far better results. Your experiences are valid and based on things I haven't experienced. So maybe you're right. But there's at least a case for the opposite point too. I'd love to see someone map out Spitfire for Dorico 3.5 using Conditions and map features to their fullest, plus the humanizing built into Dorico. It can't compare with StaffPad on sample library file size and hardware requirements, but maybe the performance could. It would be interesting to see.


----------



## MaxOctane

I also want to chime in on the upgrade pricing...

I usually load up a piano track and just improvise for 15 minutes, then scan through the recording and pick out sections worth developing. What I _want _is to be able to quickly delete out the crappy parts, and then indicate the beginnings of bars (my tempo will be very sloppy) and have notation software fit the recorded midi cleanly (best-effort) into 4-bar measures. I've never had much luck with Live Tempo in Sibelius, or with Logic tempo maps.

Does Dorico in any way help clean up an improvisation?


----------



## brek

The speedy entry looks nice, but the only feature update I'm looking for is a replacement to elicenser - which they said was in the works a year ago. 
Since it's likely this will be a Steinberg thing and not a Dorico thing, I'm pinning my hopes on it coming out with the next version of Cubase.


----------



## joebaggan

I'm shocked at those who downplay the cost of $60 every 6 months for a .5 upgrade considering you're shelling out $600 to buy it originally. Why wouldn't $600 bucks be good for a few years of free updates like other software products? Because Steinberg says it isn't. If you add up $120 a year on top of the original asking price, this is going to add up real quick over the years. Of course you don't have to buy upgrades, and in this case am not seeing enough here as a composer, though engravers must be real happy.


----------



## koolkeys

I'm ok with the upgrade price. The Dorico devs tend to give multiple point releases with several great improvements in them between paid upgrades. 

But it's not like Steinberg price models are a surprise. Generally, they release a version each year. With Cubase, the .5 releases are every other year and cost less, like around $60, and the other years it is a full release, which costs about $100. Looks like Dorico has pretty much followed this model lately. 

The good news is that Dorico, while quite lacking in the original release, has SCREAMED ahead since then. Yes, some of those new features were things that were missing and were needed to catch up to the competition, but some features went far beyond the competition, or did things in better ways (IMO). They are certainly listening to users and Dorico is turning into a powerhouse. 

Heck, even Cubase, while not having anything groundbreaking in most releases, has pretty much added features that were actually requested. Steinberg, in general, has been doing a pretty good job of listening. 

So it isn't a surprise, or shouldn't be, about the upgrade costs. No, nobody should be entitled to more upgrades because they bought in early. Not anymore, at least. This is a full-fledged software that deserves to be supported, IMO. And I'm happy to hand over the upgrade fee, just as I do with Cubase each year. 

Brent


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## Sean J

brek said:


> ...a replacement to elicenser... I'm pinning my hopes on it...



You know that story your parents told you about the dog running away, when they said "maybe he'll come back after a while".... Yeah, he's not coming back. :(



joebaggan said:


> I'm shocked at those who downplay...
> Why wouldn't $600 bucks be good for a few years of free updates like other software...
> not seeing enough here as a composer, though engravers must be real happy.



We feel more comfortable sticking to what we have by nature. Downplaying the reality of a situation often is like saying "I'll stay on my Titanic with trusty tech. That helicopter looks sketchy to me. Hmm.. maybe it's cool actually... but I trust my boat to serve me well." That's how defending dongles and subscriptions often comes across to me. I can appreciate Splice. That's about it.



koolkeys said:


> Heck, even Cubase... has pretty much added features that were actually requested. Steinberg, in general, has been doing a pretty good job of listening.



Dorico has done well. Cubase 10.5 though has been a copycat of many things from the changelog of Studio One v4. PreSonus actually has a voting based system for feature requests. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see Steinberg do a 180 on UX. I truly would. I'm just not sure that's happened yet. Dorico is a great step in that direction in general, but Cubase doesn't seem to have matured to that level yet. I hope it does, as that would benefit a lot of composers.


----------



## Thundercat

styledelk said:


> Well shit, I wish I knew about that before I just paid for the upgrade 5 minutes ago.
> 
> You win some $30 and you lose some $30.


I would contact them and explain the situation. They are good folks. Good luck!


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## Thundercat

Gene Pool said:


> Words can't describe my unrelenting hatred for the concept of renting software. That scheme is an insult. They're holding you hostage, as in:
> 
> _"Nice little cluster of folders you have there with thousands of Sibelius files you have there. Sure would be a shame for anything to happen to them."_
> 
> That's why I've remained on Sibelius 8.6 for the last couple of years. Some of the features they've implemented since then look nice, but I'm not going to rent their damn software. They offered me a rental discount a couple weeks ago. I'm guessing a little birdie told them Dorico was about to further close the gap.


I'm with you. I'm still on Sib 7.5 and holding. I "upgraded" for a year - there was not one new feature I used. So, $120 down the drain, literally.

And to add insult to injury, I could no longer open my old files because I had "updated" them into the next version. Thank God I had the foresight to re-save them all before I lost the rental. Then I would have had to keep paying just to access my own damn music! What a joke.

And I used to just LOVE Sibelius! Now, not so much...


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## Thundercat

MGdepp said:


> Well, consider what you have to pay for a Sibelius subscription and that is a permanent payment! The cheapest way for Sibelius is to always buy the 3-year plan and that is 260€ -- that is not cheaper than always updating to the latest Dorico over 3 years! And in case you want to skip a year, you have to dig way deeper in your pockets with Sibelius!
> 
> Also, you can buy this 3.5 upgrade now, but continue using v3. Then, at any moment in time, when you think the latest upgrade is great, you get the grace update for that version. This way, you can pay 60 bucks now, and get the latest version in 3 years or whenever you want to. This is the smart way to deal with any Steinberg product, in case you do not always need or want the latest version.


OH! Wish I'd known this! GREAT tip! Sigh. Maybe for next round...you live/learn.


----------



## Thundercat

joebaggan said:


> I'm shocked at those who downplay the cost of $60 every 6 months for a .5 upgrade considering you're shelling out $600 to buy it originally. Why wouldn't $600 bucks be good for a few years of free updates like other software products? Because Steinberg says it isn't. If you add up $120 a year on top of the original asking price, this is going to add up real quick over the years. Of course you don't have to buy upgrades, and in this case am not seeing enough here as a composer, though engravers must be real happy.


I hear you. I guess to me, I don't mind paying the fee for a 0.5 update. Keep in mind, they provide several smaller point updates for free anyway. Dorico 3.0 became 3.1 became 3.110 or something...

Anyway, I don't begrudge them charging what I consider a nominal fee for great new features. But that's just me I suppose.


----------



## Daryl

Thundercat said:


> I hear you. I guess to me, I don't mind paying the fee for a 0.5 update. Keep in mind, they provide several smaller point updates for free anyway. Dorico 3.0 became 3.1 became 3.110 or something...
> 
> Anyway, I don't begrudge them charging what I consider a nominal fee for great new features. But that's just me I suppose.


I guess it all depends on why you are using Dorico. I didn't even use the first two versions, but I bought four copies and supported the team, because right from the start I knew that it would eventually knock Sibelius on its head. However, I understand that I am a successful business owner, and professional composer, so a few quid is nothing, in the scheme of things. I also understand that this is professional software, and therefore is likely to attract a professional price tag.


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## nilblo

When Avid bought Sibelius, I left... Pity, as Sibelius was a nice software.


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## Rob

ok so I bought the upgrade, mainly for the "pitch before duration" input method... but I wonder why, didn't they also implement the "if no note played by the midi device, duration inputs rest" command? Why do I have to take my hand away from the keyboard to insert a rest... unless there's something I haven't seen. I'm really fast at writing in Finale in speed entry mode, and that way of inputting rests is perfect. Here instead, pressing the duration inputs the last played note. Totally counterintuitive for me... well, too bad


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## Bollen

I'm on the "moaning" bandwagon, but mostly because until now it always felt like: £80 for that, that's cheap! Gimme two please! But now it felt like hmmm... This feels like a really small update for £50. It's mostly because the only two features that have any use for me are the extended condensing for divisi instruments and pitch before duration. I don't and never have used the other stuff.

However, I would've happily paid the full £80 if they had finally improved the hideous Play window... i.e. less buggy, zoom with mouse wheel, tools on right click, etc. And for god's sake, full window for the piano roll!!!


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## Sean J

Bollen said:


> However, I would've happily paid the full £80 if they had finally improved the hideous Play window... i.e. less buggy, zoom with mouse wheel, tools on right click, etc. And for god's sake, full window for the piano roll!!!



HA! I'm pretty sure you and I were meant to be best friends or something...

*The good: *Dorico is great. Beautiful. It's nearly flawless in almost every way to me. As someone who isn't focused on engraving, I look at all the engraving it does and think "geez that's a masterpiece of software design and a milestone in the music world". The Expression Maps improvements are great... really really great. They've just built up some debt in the Play Tab.

*The fixes needed: *Play tab scrolling behavior is inconsistent with Dorico's Write tab, Cubase's Seq window, and Cubase's Piano Roll. Zooming via mouse wheel... Highlight/edit multiple instruments... remembering user track resizing... single clicking track by track to expand every CC... the entire Play Tab is a UX faux paus. A beautiful looking piano, even if you add the best sound to it, isn't useful if the keys are stuck. Like driving a Rolls with a bumper car steering wheel. 

*Dorico's proactive history:* To be fair, they did listen when everyone said they were engraver focused. They added TONS of film features. Remarkable efforts. But if the UX is as slow as Sibelius to improve, that debt will take another 10 years of dev to get over. So yeah, for now I'll use StaffPad. Could Dorico win composers back? Anyone can. It's just a matter of what they choose to develop. Priorities.

Dorico will get there, but in 3 years David is going to be upping StaffPad's game and it's already ahead for me. He's a composer with composer goals. Dorico's priorities are spread more thin. So even when Dorico does get there, I'll probably stick with StaffPad and use Dorico for the paper side. May as well use each tool for what it does best. Using a hammer on screws is possible, sure. But I don't think that way I guess. I've got too much Aristotle OCD in me for that. Get the job done quick with the right tool.


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## Gingerbread

Dorico Pro looks pretty cool, but there's no way I can afford $560 for it currently. Does it ever go on sale, and if so, at what level of discount?


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## Bollen

scoredfilms said:


> HA! I'm pretty sure you and I were meant to be best friends or something...


Well that much is obvious...😜❤



scoredfilms said:


> Play tab scrolling behavior is inconsistent with Dorico's Write tab, Cubase's Seq window, and Cubase's Piano Roll. Zooming via mouse wheel... Highlight/edit multiple instruments... remembering user track resizing... single clicking track by track to expand every CC... the entire Play Tab is a UX faux paus



I think not enough of us are saying this in their forum. I usually don't want to write it too close to a release because I know they'll be focusing on bugs, but then I usually forget... And now we have 3.5!



Gingerbread said:


> Dorico Pro looks pretty cool, but there's no way I can afford $560 for it currently. Does it ever go on sale, and if so, at what level of discount?



Do you have another Notation program? They offer some reasonable crossgrade prices...


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## Duncan Krummel

Honestly, while I certainly won't bemoan any work done on the playback side of things, I really hope they _don't _move away from an engraving focus. DAWs have always existed for playback, and while notation softwares have worked hard to integrate better playback and external VI support, the core function of a notation software is to engrave.

I stopped at Sibelius 6 since 7+ wrecked the whole workflow and capabilities. When I learned it would no longer be supported on OS X Catalina, I immediately bought Dorico (v2 at the time). Still haven't updated to Catalina since there's a lot still a lot of unknowns with 3rd party software on the DAW side of things for me, but Dorico has fixed a LOT of what I struggled with in Sibelius. Especially now the custom lines and line erasures.

The last thing I'm worried about is playback, though that's certainly nice. Just my 2¢.


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## JohnG

MaxOctane said:


> I also want to chime in on the upgrade pricing...
> 
> I usually load up a piano track and just improvise for 15 minutes, then scan through the recording and pick out sections worth developing. What I _want _is to be able to quickly delete out the crappy parts, and then indicate the beginnings of bars (my tempo will be very sloppy) and have notation software fit the recorded midi cleanly (best-effort) into 4-bar measures. I've never had much luck with Live Tempo in Sibelius, or with Logic tempo maps.
> 
> Does Dorico in any way help clean up an improvisation?



Digital Performer is great for what you want to do.


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## Sean J

Duncan Krummel said:


> the core function of a notation software is to engrave.



Notion and StaffPad are notation and their core function isn't engraving. They avoid it even.
Sibelius and Finale are engraving focused, with minimal playback functionality.
Dorico has been sold as a hybrid, with early and ongoing effort in both camps.

I don't think they should get away from engraving. I just wouldn't dismiss the Play Tab's need for extra attention right now. Imagine how you'd feel if Playback worked brilliantly, but the Engrave tab had zoom/scroll and mouse selection issues, so that even simple use in the tab was very cumbersome? You wouldn't even want to use the program. Now... (here's the real point) ...imagine them adding 10 more engraving features that wow everyone, but without fixing those issues. You might start developing an eye twitch before having a mental breakdown. Map and Playback improvements are welcome to me. Dorico already has plenty of film features. With a couple more big items (rewire or Cubase integration), there's not much more they'd ever need to add. So I'm not trying to push hard on letting engraving take a back seat. I just hope they work more on balancing UX for both user types in how the program gets used in general. Tremolos under lines? I had to look that up. It made no sense to me to think it would be found there. That doesn't mean it should be composer oriented.

I once requested that they make Playing Techniques filterable to only show me the ones I have mapped to actual playback. That would speed up film scoring workflow a lot, not having to hunt through a list for each performance tweak. A simple list filter option would allow an engraver, and someone like me, to use the same feature with ease.

Both users matter. And with care, both users can use the program. Right now, I'm using StaffPad because engraving is Dorico's forte. So I think it's fair to say the balance could shift a little more towards composers than it has. The Play Tab in 3.5 still has scrolling issues? It's overdue IMHO.


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## Michael Antrum

scoredfilms said:


> Notion is on sale until the 31st. Dorico offers a crossgrade from Notion, Finale, and Sibelius. Educational is still probably the cheapest route if you can do that one. Dorico SE isn't half bad if you can handle the limitations.



Be careful - you can't crossgrade from Notion to Dorico. You used to be able to but no longer.


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## Duncan Krummel

scoredfilms said:


> Notion and StaffPad are notation and their core function isn't engraving. They avoid it even.
> Sibelius and Finale are engraving focused, with minimal playback functionality.
> Dorico has been sold as a hybrid, with early and ongoing effort in both camps.



Oh I agree with most of what you said. Apologies if I came across a bit hard about wanting an engraving focus. Sibelius and Finale both work much better for engraving than playback, but I would not want to trade Dorico's engraving capabilities for either. For me, Dorico _is_ engraving, just like Finale and Sibelius, but I know that's not everyone's use (this is obvious to me, but I don't know if I made my perspective here clear before). Also, I agree there's a steep learning curve to identify where certain features are, but that's true with any deep program. Logic 10.15 changed a LOT of shortcuts and key commands, which is messing me up big time until I learn the new ones, but I want to learn them because I can see where the benefit will be in having them mapped this way. It's the same switching from Sibelius to Dorico.



scoredfilms said:


> So I think it's fair to say the balance could shift a little more towards composers than it has.



This is my one quibble, and I know this is pedantic, but it just rubs me slightly the wrong way. I'm a composer. I work primarily in the concert music sphere. This means engraving is _part_ of the composition process. It's not something I send out for someone else to do (of course others in this sphere of music do this, but many if not most prepare their own final materials). I know this was probably not your intention, and we may even agree here, but having Dorico's primary focus be on engraving is not because I'm more of an engraver than a composer. The two are not separate for me. In fact, most of what I write necessitates a huge level of customization and often graphic design. Film scoring has been my primary source of money from music, but it's not my main schtick, which is slightly off focus for this forum. Okay, rant over on that.

So Dorico has so far been heading in the right direction for me, but I completely agree that playback can see some upgrading, both in usability and sound! Even if I were to get StaffPad, I would not replace using a DAW for mockups and serious ITB writing. Any popular DAW is going to be an absolute powerhouse compared to notation softwares. But I do love hearing my music play with Noteperformer without having to mock things up, so believe me when I say I'm not against better playback features! Different use cases between composers, I totally get that. Like I said, just my 2¢ (and I did try to play devil's advocate a little!).

P.S. I hope none of that came off as aggressive, I just like the banter


----------



## Daryl

Duncan Krummel said:


> This is my one quibble, and I know this is pedantic, but it just rubs me slightly the wrong way. I'm a composer. I work primarily in the concert music sphere. This means engraving is _part_ of the composition process. It's not something I send out for someone else to do (of course others in this sphere of music do this, but many if not most prepare their own final materials).


I think that when people say "composer" they assume that one would be using samples. Probably because this is a virtual instrument forum...! However, something like Staffpad is useless to me, as I always work with live ensembles.


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## Thundercat

Gingerbread said:


> Dorico Pro looks pretty cool, but there's no way I can afford $560 for it currently. Does it ever go on sale, and if so, at what level of discount?


They have education and cross grade discounts...


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## Duncan Krummel

Daryl said:


> I think that when people say "composer" they assume that one would be using samples. Probably because this is a virtual instrument forum...! However, something like Staffpad is useless to me, as I always work with live ensembles.



Sure, and that large part of the music I write that requires or otherwise ends up using samples is the reason I joined this forum in the first place (though I still mostly lurk, I'm still on the fence about getting involved in even this conversation). So the one thing I'm _not_ doing is trying to tell people what a composer is. Just to be clear since that's easy to lose in translation! 

Anecdote: I remember a friend in undergrad showing me StaffPad on his Surface not long after it came out, this was 2014 maybe? I remember being so excited to try it entirely because it could solve a lot of problems with paper and pencil: no more losing important pages, no more needing different sized/oriented pages, after you're done writing you can instantly hear the approximate result. It was such an exciting potential, and I just remember being horribly let down by it. Granted, it was in it's infancy then, and as a Dorico user now I know _all _too well about the large leaps a software can make after a year or two to mature. Still, I'm too fond of pencil and paper at this point! Some kind of biblichor or something...


----------



## Sean J

Duncan Krummel said:


> P.S. I hope none of that came off as aggressive, I just like the banter



Not at all. I see your point, but I think I have a better argument for you now. 

Dorico's purpose:

So I learned notation basics, much more by ear, composed, more notation, then some theory, counterpoint, much nonsense, some nuggets, etc. Music is aural to me first, always. I value notation, but I'm not a textbook guy until it's time to read a manual. I first hear. Notation can change. It's a system. It isn't music. Moving noise that pleases us is music. Piano rolls give me a lot. Notation gives an overview and pitches that match what I hear in my head. Dorico's core purpose is at least closer to middle than Sibelius and Finale ever were.

What I'm asserting most:

The Play tab isn't a feature. It's a gateway to features used by an entire user base. Thanks to Steinberg, that's a pretty big crowd who wants that tab to work right. If the entire tab didn't open when clicked, that would be a big enough issue that no new engraving feature could become a priority. No new composing feature could be a priority over the Engrave tab not being clickable either. I am NOT arguing that composing features should come first. As the Play window behaviors are cumbersome enough to render any efficient mock-up workflow non-existent right now, the entire tab itself is no better than it not being clickable. That to me is a greater priority than new Expression Map features, new playback features, new humanizing features, etc. It's more important than a tie crossing a time signature looking more clean automatically. It's more important than superficial improvements. Nice? Yeah, I like that tie now. But superficial compared to the Play Tab problems.

Dorico needs to grow up:

That said, I realize that improvements take time. No one should expect great workflow from day one. But engravers have had a significantly better workflow from the start than those trying to make a solid mock-up with Dorico. The number of composers writing for film is sizeable enough to rake in a lot more money for Dorico development than without it. Oddly enough, more people watch movies than visit concert halls (true before Covid-19 obviously). So it's not like it would hurt engraving features to get the Play Tab right. It would help a lot more. That's a long-game argument, but one based one of Steinberg's (and most other DAW companies) most regular sources of income.

Anyway, I'm friendly. I just think there's a case to be made not to let these problems lag more.


----------



## Dewdman42

I view dorico as the near perfect Middle of the road tool that covers articulation management better then ANY daw currently in existence though still not perfectly. For film scoring it’s developing into THE tool to use. You can map your tempos to video hit points, compose with sounds, make a decent mockup and produce the final print if you need to record with musicians. All cues for a film can be in one project by using flows. 

there are still things they are working on and the team seems motivated to make it the perfect tool for composing and mocking up for orchestra with or without the intent to print paper for musicians. It’s expressionmaps are already better then cubase in several key ways.

it can still use some improvement to completely take over the daw role but I believe it will. daws will still be the tool of choice when you need to work with actual audio tracks, loops, step sequencers and stuff like that but for ensemble composing and virtual instruments I feel dorico is the future and on the right track.


----------



## Bollen

scoredfilms said:


> Not at all. I see your point, but I think I have a better argument for you now.
> 
> Dorico's purpose:
> 
> So I learned notation basics, much more by ear, composed, more notation, then some theory, counterpoint, much nonsense, some nuggets, etc. Music is aural to me first, always. I value notation, but I'm not a textbook guy until it's time to read a manual. I first hear. Notation can change. It's a system. It isn't music. Moving noise that pleases us is music. Piano rolls give me a lot. Notation gives an overview and pitches that match what I hear in my head. Dorico's core purpose is at least closer to middle than Sibelius and Finale ever were.
> 
> What I'm asserting most:
> 
> The Play tab isn't a feature. It's a gateway to features used by an entire user base. Thanks to Steinberg, that's a pretty big crowd who wants that tab to work right. If the entire tab didn't open when clicked, that would be a big enough issue that no new engraving feature could become a priority. No new composing feature could be a priority over the Engrave tab not being clickable either. I am NOT arguing that composing features should come first. As the Play window behaviors are cumbersome enough to render any efficient mock-up workflow non-existent right now, the entire tab itself is no better than it not being clickable. That to me is a greater priority than new Expression Map features, new playback features, new humanizing features, etc. It's more important than a tie crossing a time signature looking more clean automatically. It's more important than superficial improvements. Nice? Yeah, I like that tie now. But superficial compared to the Play Tab problems.
> 
> Dorico needs to grow up:
> 
> That said, I realize that improvements take time. No one should expect great workflow from day one. But engravers have had a significantly better workflow from the start than those trying to make a solid mock-up with Dorico. The number of composers writing for film is sizeable enough to rake in a lot more money for Dorico development than without it. Oddly enough, more people watch movies than visit concert halls (true before Covid-19 obviously). So it's not like it would hurt engraving features to get the Play Tab right. It would help a lot more. That's a long-game argument, but one based one of Steinberg's (and most other DAW companies) most regular sources of income.
> 
> Anyway, I'm friendly. I just think there's a case to be made not to let these problems lag more.


Marry me! 😍

No, but seriously... I'm surprised you read more music in a piano roll than in notation. For me it's the very opposite, I get a lot more information from a score... Maybe it's the many years of analysing orchestral scores or the 20 years I was a jazz musician where you have to interpret a lot from just a lead sheet. Anyway, spot on about the new features, I think it's because this lovely team doesn't have a clue about piano rolls, DAWs or anything to do with that side of music production. They were and have always been notation/engraving people since the days of Sibelius. They just don't understand it... Which is obvious by the small improvements they've done on the Play window... I mean seriously, you have velocity edits that you can't select??? A dynamics lane when you have the CC right there??? They clearly don't know what they're doing...

PS: I have done some serious Mockups in Dorico and in fact even won an international competition last year purely produced in Dorico! It's a pain in the arse, but it does do the job, albeit cumbersomely...


----------



## Dewdman42

what specifically are the things that you feel are most cumbersome? I'm genuinely interested...

I think the point of the dynamics lane is that while they are adding the ability to tweak the CC values if we want, they are also attempting to abstract everything from the notation as much as possible and I admire this approach. The point of the dynamics lane is so that you never have know which CC to edit, the expression map automatically handles that for you, the notation hairpins will automatically do a lot of it and only sometimes you might tweak it a little bit here in the dynamics lane without worrying which CC's it is (there could even be two CC's effected by it). I think this is quite brilliant actually and goes beyond what is done in DAW's.


----------



## Duncan Krummel

scoredfilms said:


> Not at all. I see your point, but I think I have a better argument for you now.
> 
> Dorico's purpose:
> 
> Notation can change. It's a system. It isn't music. Moving noise that pleases us is music.



I won't argue what is or isn't music, but if I had to choose between a score rendered poorly in MuseScore (which I have had to countless times) and one professionally done, the choice is obvious. Throughout school that has been the case as well. I mean I can't understate the importance of a beautiful score. It changes how musicians play and interact with the music. This is why I also like to use handwritten scores as well, a piece of advice originally given to me by Peter Sheppard Skaerved. It captures something in the composers intention that you otherwise don't get without careful thought and self reflection. I'd argue that, while a bit of a different art perhaps, that engraving IS an art in itself. We need tools that allow us to create that art how we want to, which is something that - completely personally here - Sibelius and Finale don't do. Dorico has come closest.



scoredfilms said:


> The Play tab isn't a feature. It's a gateway to features used by an entire user base. Thanks to Steinberg, that's a pretty big crowd who wants that tab to work right. If the entire tab didn't open when clicked, that would be a big enough issue that no new engraving feature could become a priority. No new composing feature could be a priority over the Engrave tab not being clickable either. I am NOT arguing that composing features should come first. As the Play window behaviors are cumbersome enough to render any efficient mock-up workflow non-existent right now, the entire tab itself is no better than it not being clickable.



I _completely_ agree that the Play tab is pretty unrelenting right now. I don't mess with playback much as it is, but especially with how Dorico presents it right now, I ain't touching that with a ten foot pole. So I'd certainly welcome many, many improvements there! Just not at the expense of the critical engraving tools 



scoredfilms said:


> That to me is a greater priority than new Expression Map features, new playback features, new humanizing features, etc. It's more important than a tie crossing a time signature looking more clean automatically. It's more important than superficial improvements. Nice? Yeah, I like that tie now. But superficial compared to the Play Tab problems.
> 
> [...]
> 
> The number of composers writing for film is sizeable enough to rake in a lot more money for Dorico development than without it. Oddly enough, more people watch movies than visit concert halls (true before Covid-19 obviously). So it's not like it would hurt engraving features to get the Play Tab right. It would help a lot more. That's a long-game argument, but one based one of Steinberg's (and most other DAW companies) most regular sources of income.



Eh, I know you said this so this ain't me "stickin' it to ya" or anything, just reiterating, but that's more important to _you_, and probably many others just like you. But it is bottom of the list for me, and most people I know (which is worthless info, admittedly, but it's the reality that I live in).

I also think it needs to be pointed out that, sure, more people go to the movies than the concert hall, BUT, that doesn't mean there are more composers working in film than concert! I wouldn't know the numbers either way, but the way I see it:

DAWs fulfill the need to score to film. There are many, many solid DAW options out there that get better every year. Notation programs are much scarcer, at least high quality ones. The need is there for a notation program that gives you engraving power on par with the audio production power modern DAWs provide. Personally, I would rather see much better support for communication between notation program and DAW than combining the two. BUT, I realize that's at least just me. Still, there's a clear divide in what's available for people to choose from between the two.



scoredfilms said:


> Anyway, I'm friendly. I just think there's a case to be made not to let these problems lag more.



We can both agree there no matter what!


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## Dewdman42

Duncan Krummel said:


> DAWs fulfill the need to score to film. There are many, many solid DAW options out there that get better every year. Notation programs are much scarcer, at least high quality ones. The need is there for a notation program that gives you engraving power on par with the audio production power modern DAWs provide. Personally, I would rather see much better support for communication between notation program and DAW than combining the two. BUT, I realize that's at least just me. Still, there's a clear divide in what's available for people to choose from between the two.



This part, no they don't. Many films have to be played by real players eventually just like concert works. Also, DAW's are mostly not handling articulation management very well and Dorico is handling it much better... So Dorico is starting to stand out as the best tool for both printing your score as well as for ensemble mockups.. It may not be important to you to be able to mock it up, but its most definitely is to most film score composers...regardless of whether it will be eventually printed and performed by real musicians..so this is definitely a very important feature for them...I would argue just as important as the printing...and probably there is a much wider audience for the mockup side...an awful lot of people will never have their work performed by real musicians...so Dorico as a tool for them...ie...marketshare for steinberg...is contingent on the PLAY feature working, the more the better. It all matters.

I don't disagree with you about the printing aspect needing to be spot on as well. I do not doubt for a second that Daniel and his team will get that part of it right. The PLAY part is the part that seems to be a advancing perhaps a bit slowly, not withstanding the immense potential. Just imagine, if they can get the PLAY aspect to a certain point, thousands of users will flock to Dorico, even many that never need to print a score, just because the PLAY engine with the more advanced expression maps is being handled so much better then any of the DAW's. more market share means more development spent on Dorico and the better the product will become. Don't be afraid it will depart from its notational roots, that has always been Daniel's forte, that is clearly where Dorico sits in the steinberg universe and that is not going to change, regardless of the progress they make with PLAY.


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## Duncan Krummel

Dewdman42 said:


> This part, no they don't. Many films have to be played by real players eventually just like concert works.



Right, and conceivably many studios utilize a DAW in some way, shape, or form to process the audio fo these live recordings. Even with outboard gear a DAW environment is part of the puzzle here.



Dewdman42 said:


> I would argue just as important as the printing...and probably there is a much wider audience for the mockup side...an awful lot of people will never have their work performed by real musicians...



Many people won't, sure. I have mixed feelings here, though, and I'm not sure if that's just because I only have, and will only have, my own experiences and perceptions to go off of for the rest of my life. But, I have known a lot of composers, and a lot of performers. Both groups are looking for the other. I'm not about to discount _any_one's experiences, but I have always found it to be the case that if you really look online or around your community, you'll find musicians you can reach out to. It may not be the Oregon Symphony Orchestra, or the MIVOS Quartet, but you can find musicians to work with, and you build relationships. I don't know, I'm rereading this now and it seems off topic but I also feel passionate enough about it to leave it stay... Feel free to ignore this part!

In any case, no ill will towards anyone here! I do hope they develop the playback engine a lot more, and I am NOT going to bemoan the possibility for high quality mockups without the need for a lot of editing. That would be a dream come true. It's just not my primary dream. Still, _ALL_ this is just to say I dig the update, and I hope they continue to listen to feedback and improve ALL aspects of the software!


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## Vik

Duncan Krummel said:


> Personally, I would rather see much better support for communication between notation program and DAW than combining the two.


If they combined the two in a way which allowed those who, most of the time, only needed either the notation/engraving functions or the DAW functions, they wouldn't notice that the other options were in there. 

I bought Cubase and Dorico at some point, hoping that they they could replace Logic (which doesn't focus much on score and composition features), but I found both o them, Dorico in particular, to be Kings of Cumbersome - at least for someone like me, who only wanted to use them part time to start with. They have both improved since then, of course, but Dorico still has a lot to learn about user-friendliness, built in help functions, contextual menus everywhere and pretty much all functions available both with muse control, as key commands and menu/contextual functions.

Separating music making and notation in two different apps is IMO a complete outdated concept. Someone will come out with a brilliant easy-to-use, combined DAW/pro Notation program one day and make a fortune on doing that...meanwhile, I'll wait patiently.


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## joebaggan

Vik said:


> Separating music making and notation in two different apps is IMO a complete outdated concept. Someone will come out with a brilliant easy-to-use, combined DAW/pro Notation program one day and make a fortune on doing that...meanwhile, I'll wait patiently.



Agreed. The only reason why notation and DAW programs are separate is because that's the way it has always been, not due to any technical limitations. There's nothing more natural than one integrated environment for notation and DAW recording/playback, and when it comes, it will be a big disrupter to this old fashioned model of needing to buy 2 separate (and expensive) programs to do it.


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## Sean J

Michael Antrum said:


> Be careful - you can't crossgrade from Notion to Dorico. You used to be able to but no longer.



Thanks. I deleted my post.



Dewdman42 said:


> Don't be afraid it will depart from its notational roots, that has always been Daniel's forte...



It's sensible to be concerned about the quality of Dorico remaining as consistent as possible with each update. Any software can become a Frankenstein of messy features. I think we all know that one. lol But fortunately Dorico was designed for 100x more modularity than Sibelius ever was. It's at least easier to make big UI changes without breaking features than it used to be. Software dev has significantly improved there. Under Play, they could do FL Studio note editing, Cubase velocity editing, Cubase adjustable curve shapes, and Studio One's tabbed CC editing... the best from each company... and it probably wouldn't cause any issues for engravers at all, in terms of reliable code.

Something I hadn't thought of until now...

As a matter of focus and how much devs goes into what... the Dorico team has dedicated devs in each area already. Paul is their map guy. Very smart guy for that matter. Anyway, maps link to custom techniques and can save within playback templates to be shared. In English, it does the same thing as StaffPad, just not as high-level for UX yet. So... asking him to focus more on Play Tab UI improvements won't actually effect engraving feature dev speed at all. It would just mean less new features in playback until UI is improved. I'd be more than fine with that. At this point, I'd rather see the tab made amazingly clean with lightning fast workflow before more backend playback functionality is added. Once optimized for usage, then I'd just enjoy what each update brought, instead of fighting the UI.


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## mducharme

Rob said:


> ok so I bought the upgrade, mainly for the "pitch before duration" input method... but I wonder why, didn't they also implement the "if no note played by the midi device, duration inputs rest" command? Why do I have to take my hand away from the keyboard to insert a rest... unless there's something I haven't seen. I'm really fast at writing in Finale in speed entry mode, and that way of inputting rests is perfect. Here instead, pressing the duration inputs the last played note. Totally counterintuitive for me... well, too bad



Hi Rob,

I'm a little confused - why do you have to take your hand away from the keyboard? The spacebar advances you forward ("adds a rest") and I find it is pretty easy to hit the spacebar with my thumb without looking when my fingers are up in the numbers row on the keyboard to select durations. Or am I not understanding something?


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## Rob

mducharme said:


> Hi Rob,
> 
> I'm a little confused - why do you have to take your hand away from the keyboard? The spacebar advances you forward ("adds a rest") and I find it is pretty easy to hit the spacebar with my thumb without looking when my fingers are up in the numbers row on the keyboard to select durations. Or am I not understanding something?


I don't use the upper numbers, but the numeric keypad instead... done so for many years, much easier for me. Anyway, hitting a number and then pressing the spacebar is two moves, while the way Finale and Sibelius manage it, i.e. simply pressing the duration number is much faster. This leaves me the impression that Dorico isn't aimed at professional copysts


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## mducharme

Rob said:


> I don't use the upper numbers, but the numeric keypad instead... done so for many years, much easier for me.



You can ask them to add the option to have entering the duration to advance the cursor by that amount instead of entering a note again, it sounds like it wouldn't be hard to do and might make it into the next minor update if they are agreeable (and it sounds like you have good justification). So I would ask on the Dorico forum for that feature.

Dorico doesn't really have rest entry or rests (unless you 'force' rests). It is designed to treat notation similarly to the piano roll when it comes to a tied note being a single entity (a single rectangle on the piano roll), and rests as simply being the absence of notes (as on the piano roll). You might be able to map another key on the numeric keypad that you otherwise aren't using, instead of using space to advance.


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## Thundercat

joebaggan said:


> Agreed. The only reason why notation and DAW programs are separate is because that's the way it has always been, not due to any technical limitations. There's nothing more natural than one integrated environment for notation and DAW recording/playback, and when it comes, it will be a big disrupter to this old fashioned model of needing to buy 2 separate (and expensive) programs to do it.


um, no, just no.

there are HUGE technical hurdles to making this work. I think it will be done eventually but it’s a ways off.

think of the incredible complexity of taking sounds - any sounds mind you - and attaching them to both DAW and notation environments where they match each other and don’t make a horrendous mess out of each. This is waaaay more complicated than one might think.

And no I don’t think it’s a nefarious plot to sell two programs instead of one.

I hope it does happen eventually but there’s a lot to figure out.


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## richhickey

I've had Dorico for a couple of years now, interesting in composing with playback from my expensive sample libs (I know about and own NotePerformer, not what I want), not at all interested in engraving. Every new release I upgrade and spend/waste a few hours trying out the current state of expression maps and the play window. And every time I trip over things that just don't work or are missing. Then I give up and wait for the next release.

Today I tried 3.5 only to discover and confirm that Dorico still doesn't move emap ccs when moving the note in the piano roll, so if you move a note earlier the cc/ks comes too late.

Given the marketing lead for Dorico:



> Dorico helps you to write music notation, automatically producing printed results of exceptional quality — _and plays it back with breathtaking realism_.



the playback features desperately need more time, attention and prioritization. 

Notion is still way ahead for notation-driven playback, in providing


Explicit (independent) maps of dynamics to CC and velocity (Dorico has an inflexible sigmoid expression)
Correct moving of controls with notes
Much better handling of slurs (distinguishing begins under slur, ends under slur etc)
Much better handling of gaps (fixed and relative in absolute time not just percent)
Conditions for before/after other notes
Much more flexible rules vs emaps, even after Dorico's recent addition of "add-ons"
Sending commands before/after note start/end
Rewire sync - Dorico still can't do a single thing with any DAW, including Cubase
Conduct tempo
Edit MIDI velocity/duration/position right on the score, no 'go to play mode, open lanes, find notes...'
etc

It's far from perfect but it's way more powerful and fun for composing and triggering libraries than Dorico. 

Dorico is light years ahead on engraving of course. But is it too much to ask that playback be as good as harp pedaling or guitar whammy-bar notation, giving it's 50% of their marketing pitch? My guess is that there are far more of their customers like me, waiting for playback to be even close to what they promised, than there are professional engravers, whom we are subsidizing so they can have figured bass and squiggly line customization.

It _is_ cool that Dorico provides integrated piano roll, CC lane and velocity editing, but they are pretty terrible compared to any DAW. And having to use them to get anything done is a bear.

Now that it looks like the next major Dorico update, and chance for significant playback enhancements, is a year away, I'm quite disheartened and disappointed that I still can't use it.


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## Dewdman42

Thanks for that review. Interesting about cc’d not moving with notes. One of the advertised advantages of dorico is that things like hairpins are not attached to notes they are attached to rythmn position which they see as an advantage but in this case it seems to be a disadvantage since Mick g the notes means you have to manually move the hairpins also.


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## Dewdman42

richhickey said:


> Notion is still way ahead for notation-driven playback, in providing
> 
> 
> Explicit (independent) maps of dynamics to CC and velocity (Dorico has an inflexible sigmoid expression)
> Correct moving of controls with notes
> Much better handling of slurs (distinguishing begins under slur, ends under slur etc)
> Much better handling of gaps (fixed and relative in absolute time not just percent)
> Conditions for before/after other notes
> Much more flexible rules vs emaps, even after Dorico's recent addition of "add-ons"
> Sending commands before/after note start/end
> Rewire sync - Dorico still can't do a single thing with any DAW, including Cubase
> Conduct tempo
> Edit MIDI velocity/duration/position right on the score, no 'go to play mode, open lanes, find notes...'
> etc



You have inspired me to take a closer look at Notion, which I bought when it first came out and have largely ignored other than a few simple projects. i have not even tried at all to dive in to what it could potentially do with third party sample libraries and VST instruments and it sounds like I need to take a closer look. Its engraving facilities are not good enough for me. But...as a notation based composing platform it very well may be enough for me.


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## richhickey

Gene Pool said:


> This is intended as a non-confrontational post. I'm including lots of info you already know, but it's for those who may be a little newer and happen to be reading.
> 
> So...



Points taken. There's no disagreement here. I don't mean to create a false dichotomy between notation, engraving and playback. Obviously people looking for playback from Dorico, myself included, care very much about notation and its ability to compactly and elegantly express musical ideas (whether or not we ever print out scores or parts), else we would just use DAWs to compose. 

And the subsidization bit is pure speculation on my part, which I'll also clarify by saying I don't think non-professionals, whatever their numbers, should ever _dominate_ the design of professional tools. I loathe a world e.g. where DAWs get dumber and dumber in pursuit of non-musicians, who outnumber musicians, who'd like to make music. But the marketing is what it is and customers have bought it on that basis.

Nor should I elide in this conversation my tremendous enthusiasm and respect for what Dorico team has produced in the notation area, which I've expressed often elsewhere. These are experts producing at a _stunning_ rate, and the results are elegant, practical, and beautiful. 

It is in fact the deep thinking evidenced by things like the percussion or (quite sophisticated) guitar notation additions that make me woe all the more the approach to playback, which reflects neither expertise in an admittedly quite different domain, the arcane world of sample libraries we inhabit at vi-control, nor a deep long-term plan, seeming instead to be a product of incrementalism and discovery that may or may not yield a coherent result. 

E.g. I have made arguments elsewhere against the suitability of Cubase-style expression maps for this task, which they adopted as a de facto starting point. Now we have that plus some kind of rule system being tacked on. This could just be the result of needing to have _something_ for playback, vs say guitar notation where they could have nothing at all until they had something great. But where is it going, and when will it get there?

I honestly do not believe there is, nor need be, some tradeoff between playback and the rest of Dorico. But there _is_ a stark difference between that area of the program and the rest of Dorico, the reasons for which are likely known only by the team.


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## Rob

richhickey said:


> ...
> 
> Correct moving of controls with notes


me, I wouldn't want ccs to move with notes... it'd need to be a switchable option for me. Like it is in cubase.


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## richhickey

Rob said:


> me, I wouldn't want ccs to move with notes... it'd need to be a switchable option for me. Like it is in cubase.



To be clear, I'm not talking about generic movement of surrounding CCs. I'm talking specifically about the CCs and/or keyswtiches associated with and generated by the note articulation. If they don't come before the note on, they don't work. In Dorico currently (3.5) if you move the note ahead of the beat, the controls stay where they were and don't work.


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## Bollen

Dewdman42 said:


> what specifically are the things that you feel are most cumbersome? I'm genuinely interested...
> 
> I think the point of the dynamics lane is that while they are adding the ability to tweak the CC values if we want, they are also attempting to abstract everything from the notation as much as possible and I admire this approach. The point of the dynamics lane is so that you never have know which CC to edit, the expression map automatically handles that for you, the notation hairpins will automatically do a lot of it and only sometimes you might tweak it a little bit here in the dynamics lane without worrying which CC's it is (there could even be two CC's effected by it). I think this is quite brilliant actually and goes beyond what is done in DAW's.


This quite difficult to answer in a short message, but in a nutshell I feel there are two underlying premises that make the whole ordeal cumbersome:

1.- as I said above, the team don't have any experience with this side of music production and they're obsessed with expression maps (more on this below).

2.- users are not necessarily the ideal guides to steer development. Most if not all have learned to achieve what they want by using already existing and limited software. Consequently they want to continue doing things in the manner in which they have been conditioned by said programs.

Whether I look at these issues as a film composer, concert hall composer, instrumentalist, educator, sample library developer or conductor they all attest to the same problem: there needs to be a human mind behind nearly all decisions. We are still a century away from having AI that can make the types of decisions that takes at least three humans to produce the result, usually composer > instrumentalist > conductor/producer.

So take for example a couple of bars of any ordinary music, the score itself might have no markings except a dolce from the composer. The performer would then choose how to execute those notes with all manners of techniques and many of those are also imposed by the physical properties of the instrument as well e.g. some notes are played on the same string, others have to cross, some are legato, some are not, some are tongued, some are not. Then there's the issue of context, in "dolce" the whole ensemble would be told by the conductor to play gently, hence even if the score has a marking of forte, the actual performers never go above a mp. None of this issues can be addressed by a so-called expression map or the notation program itself i.e. the program will just trigger a sustain patch and play the dynamic at CC 100 or something.

Then of course there's the issue of compatibility between libraries: dynamic layers don't align, articulations don't match (one library has patches called shorts while others have stacatto and spicatto), some just have sustain and legato while others have many different sustain contexts or "arcs" and other have on the string legato and crossed legato... Damn! Some of them even have tongued or bowed legato which is a contradiction in terms...

So to conclude, for me every aspect needs to be programmed manually and Dorico is a pain in the arse to work like this. And expression maps will never ever work for anything but robotic music...


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## Dewdman42

Why is dorico a PITA? You described very eloquently about why AI is a long ways off from being able to handle all the various aspects, but dorico is not trying to be AI.

I think you are probably meaning to talk about rule based articulation management, ie expression maps; which has nothing to do with AI. But it is true thst using rules to automatically handle articulations is what dorico is attempting to do, I think better then cubase at this point. But perhaps you are saying that the expression maps are currently not flexible enough to control things the way you would like to control?

doing things manually without expression maps or articulation sets or any automated articulation management is something you can do easily, though laboriously, with most any daw. There are draw backs to that too.

Can you give us some concrete examples and how and why dorico is difficult to bend to your will in terms of manually handling things or specific cases where the existing expression map facilities are inadequate for you to control things or how specifically they are a pita to setup?


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## Dewdman42

richhickey said:


> To be clear, I'm not talking about generic movement of surrounding CCs. I'm talking specifically about the CCs and/or keyswtiches associated with and generated by the note articulation. If they don't come before the note on, they don't work. In Dorico currently (3.5) if you move the note ahead of the beat, the controls stay where they were and don't work.



have you submitted a bug report about that? That seems Like a simple bug that shouldn’t be that hard to fix. You are saying that when the piano roll is used to alter the performance of a note to an early attack while leaving the notation as is, the expressionmap keyswitches are being triggered by the notation rather then by the note itself, which is definitely an oversight that could be fixed pretty easily I would think. I don’t see that as major design flaw.

i started looking into Notion last night and indeed their rule set approach looks to be much more complex and capable then expressionmaps, though also complex enough That i think most of the target audience, ie composers, would be turned off by it at the best and many probably would not even be able to fully utilize it due to its depth and complexity. It’s kind of lurking there for years and you don’t see really any relevant example rulesets for modern sample libraries. I can’t get any of my Vsl products to work with notion due to elicenser problems so there is that too, but anyway presonus may be on to something there if they put a little more effort into it. They should add their rule set capability to S1 also which has zero articulation management right now.

i get why you are trying to get the dorico team to pay attention to notion for ideas though as it seems the notion folks have thought through the playback issues better then anyone, which isn’t surprising; notion was really the first notational program to offer any kind of reasonable sample playback quite a few years ago andI remember having conversations with the original founder of the product where he discussed that primary focus. So they really were the pioneers. But it never got off the ground really, then sold to presonus who hasn’t really done much with it since. So notion is not without its own faults I’m afraid and somehow whatever lessons they learned about notional playback have flown under the radar with hardly anyone noticing. Meanwhile steinberg is reinventing it all over again, but painfully slowly it would seem.


----------



## Gene Pool

richhickey said:


> I honestly do not believe there is, nor need be, some tradeoff between playback and the rest of Dorico.



Molto agreement, bro.


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## mducharme

It is just very awkward to do the kind of CC shaping and humanization in Dorico that you can do with a DAW, and the mixer cannot compete with the Cubase mixer. These are mostly UI-related deficiencies at this point. I was pleased to see in 3.5 that now when you record from a MIDI keyboard it actually retains the offset "errors" from the performance instead of quantizing everything and requiring manual de-quantizing with the mouse to prevent a robotic performance. This solution means that when you record from a MIDI keyboard you keep the imperfections of the performance like in a DAW, while the notation is correct - kind of the exact opposite approach of Cubase's "display quantize".

I think Dorico would have to adopt most aspects of the Cubase piano roll UI in the Play tab in order to really be a viable place to do mockups, plus the mixer UI. I'm not sure they are going to want to do this since it might cause it to eat into Cubase's market share for certain kinds of composers.


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## richhickey

Dewdman42 said:


> have you submitted a bug report about that? That seems Like a simple bug that shouldn’t be that hard to fix. You are saying that when the piano roll is used to alter the performance of a note to an early attack while leaving the notation as is, the expressionmap keyswitches are being triggered by the notation rather then by the note itself, which is definitely an oversight that could be fixed pretty easily I would think. I don’t see that as major design flaw.



I did report it. It is currently a 'missing feature'.



Dewdman42 said:


> i started looking into Notion last night and indeed their rule set approach looks to be much more complex and capable then expressionmaps, though also complex enough That i think most of the target audience, ie composers, would be turned off by it at the best and many probably would not even be able to fully utilize it due to its depth and complexity.



I think the simple fact is that making good, complete expression maps (esp. from scratch) is not really in the wheelhouse of many musicians or composers. That said, there are plenty of people in the community for whom it is interesting and doable, and it only takes one or a few per library to provide basic support everyone else can use. There is a definite tension between easy and powerful tooling, for sure.


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## Dewdman42

I mean I even see that most expression map usage is very simplistic not even using the full capabilities of cubase expression maps as limited as they are and many people just avoiding them because they can’t figure them out. There is kind of a user wall there


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## richhickey

Dewdman42 said:


> I mean I even see that most expression map usage is very simplistic not even using the full capabilities of cubase expression maps as limited as they are and many people just avoiding them because they can’t figure them out. There is kind of a user wall there



Well, I think you'd agree that we'd be better off if more things were scriptable, e.g. via JavaScript. Most of the rest of the world can improve their own lot via scripting while music software still relies on bespoke interfaces and tools. Plenty of musicians can wrangle JS, and then you have the full expressivity of a programming language. I.e. Dorico just added 'conditions' to their expression map dialog box, with 'Any of' (OR) and 'All of' (AND) radio buttons. But no NOT, no parens/grouping etc. You quickly come up with things you want to say but can't. Notion went much further with their flags system but it's still not as good as proper logic.


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## mducharme

I use Cubase expression maps extensively. My own orchestral template has a 1:1 mapping between tracks and staves on an orchestral score. I made my own to put Spitfire Chamber Strings and Spitfire Solo Strings into my template with each section on one track only, rather than a track per articulation. One of the biggest problems I have with expression maps in Cubase is how many lanes I end up with. I have to make the articulations change lane super tall just to see the names of all of the articulations and to use my mouse to switch. I hope that whatever enhancements Dorico comes up with in this regard are integrated into Cubase as well.


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## Dewdman42

of course the nerd in me gets a little giddy at any mention of "scripting" built into any kind of product, including music software. I doubt Dorico will add that in this decade. Cubase still doesn't have it either, and maybe never will. Best we might hope for from both of them is a dedicated plugin slot in front of each instrument slot, in order to host VST midi plugins (which might be in the form of a third party scripter plugin)

Steinberg has a tendency to want to abstract things...which is part of why VST3 become broken, they designed this highly abstracted API....doing away with the "archaic" midi protocol... Unfortunately ten years later the rest of the industry is still loving and using the archaic midi stream....so...concepts like VST3 note expressions, for example, are not used anywhere except in Steinberg plugins and Cubase. But that is how Steinberg thinks we should all be articulating our performances...not using midi stream keyswithces and archaic crap like that. They might be way ahead of the everyone, but unfortunately they are also totally out of sync with everyone...which has caused a lot of tension in how things operate...VST2 vs VST3 is just an example, the timing problems of CC switches, etc.. And then on top of all that they are trying to abstract Expression Maps...and perhaps that could be a great way to go, but it needs more work...and I suspect that they are not motivated to make Expression Maps work with archaic midi protocol, if you catch my drift, they would be much more interested in developing something that works with their religion....which is VST3, note expressions and perhaps even other newer abstractions that we don't even know about that from deep inside their VST temple.


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## ptram

Zedcars said:


> Is that background music new or an existing piece? Sounds very much like John Adams.


The first time I listened to Akinola's Prelude, I was immediately thinking to Missy Mazzoli's River Rouge Transfiguration. Similar chord sequences, similar sudden ending. I know Mazzoli is deeply influenced by John Adams. Is there a piece, in particular, you are thinking about?

Paolo


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## shawnsingh

scoredfilms said:


> I took Spitfire, Berlin, Cinesamples, Scoring Synths, and Vintage Keys to the doctor's office last week.



I cant believe they all got sick at the same time...

(sorry, I'm a new dad, I just had to...)


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## Bollen

Dewdman42 said:


> Why is dorico a PITA? You described very eloquently about why AI is a long ways off from being able to handle all the various aspects, but dorico is not trying to be AI.
> 
> I think you are probably meaning to talk about rule based articulation management, ie expression maps; which has nothing to do with AI. But it is true thst using rules to automatically handle articulations is what dorico is attempting to do, I think better then cubase at this point. But perhaps you are saying that the expression maps are currently not flexible enough to control things the way you would like to control?
> 
> doing things manually without expression maps or articulation sets or any automated articulation management is something you can do easily, though laboriously, with most any daw. There are draw backs to that too.
> 
> Can you give us some concrete examples and how and why dorico is difficult to bend to your will in terms of manually handling things or specific cases where the existing expression map facilities are inadequate for you to control things or how specifically they are a pita to setup?



Sorry, you're absolutely right. The above was a necessary preamble to establish why I find expression maps useless and the wrong approach (on a side note, I do consider expression maps and AI very related. In fact I would say the former is an early stage of AI, since it's based on conditions that trigger certain behaviours according to defined parameters. So not science fiction AI, but rather in the way it used in the gaming industry). 

In order to answer your question as clearly as possible I believe by using a practical example I can illustrate the issues better. Say I begin a composition for about 6 instruments, after I do all the convoluted setting up of the score, VSTs, mixer and load up the individual samplers (usually hosted on VE Pro) I write a chord played forte and then begin a fugue in pianissimo. Within just those two events I start to run into problems: the forte is unbalanced, some instruments are too loud and some are just playing the wrong articulations. The notes simply have an accent, so Dorico is just playing a sustain at a high velocity. But to get the instruments to perform an accent on a first beat, some will require an fp patch, some sfz patch, etc. In Sibelius I used to trigger them with texts that I could hide or an invisible staff with the keyswitches. In Dorico I can create a staff below and then remove it, but wait..! Ah damn! I can't do that on ensemble instruments... Now we move to the first notes of the fugue, too many instruments are too loud (VSL for example doesn't have pianissimo, so you have to emulate it by using a combination of low velocity/*p* and another controller, either a filter or expression) so now I have to move to the Play window, find CC2 or CC11 from 128 different controllers, set it to 0, now find the filter CC... Hmm... Now it's too quite, go back to CC2, OK now it's fine. Press play, hmm... It's kicking in too late, I can hear the attacks of the first notes in the fugue as if they were forte. Back to the Play window, the view is reset! Damn, I can't grab that corner to expand the piano roll... OK, I did it, zoom in... Argh! The mouse wheel doesn't zoom in, I keep forgetting even after three years of use!!! OK use Z, oh that's too much, Y to zoom out... Hmmmm... That's too far out, so it's somewhere in the middle but I can't do that, nevermind, just put on your glasses. Oh, I can't put the controller change where I need it because it has to snap to the grid which is already set to minimum, but because of the humanisation some notes start before the grid... But I can't put it in the previous grid because that's still playing the forte....!!! OK, I'll do a little trick with CC7, oh it suddenly scrolled away from where I was working, now I'm lost, damn! Sometimes it scrolls up and down and sometimes sideways!!! I wish I could open two controller lanes at the same time to see what's going on....

Anyway, I could go on and on, but I think that explains the general issues. On the other point of DAWs, I've never been able to write complex harmony and counterpoint on it and I've never met anyone that could so they could show me how to, so that's not a solution either. I think notation, I need to see the music, vertically, horizontally and ideally all instruments at the same time.


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## Dewdman42

AI doesn’t work based on rules. The whole idea behind AI is that you program a computer how to learn, and then it learns through experience how to make decisions. 

rule based stuff isn’t AI it it’s what you might call automation i guess since you the user can decide the rules you want enforced and you only have to specify it once and then keyswitches will be dutifully inserted in all the “right” places according to the rules you established. 

AI is capable of incredibly complex decision making which would be utterly impossible to figure out in rule based system, but we give our control away to the computer at some point.

rule based system still give us complete control but the downside is that often they are not complex enough to address all the possible permutations and situations, thus leaving us frustrated and considering going back to full manual mode again, which is why they usually need to always have some kind of manual override mode.

carry on...


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## ptram

I would call expression maps simply patching or routing.

Paolo


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## CatOrchestra

I am wondering if I write a piece, can Dorico afterwards write out the figured bass for me???


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## Bollen

Dewdman42 said:


> AI doesn’t work based on rules. The whole idea behind AI is that you program a computer how to learn, and then it learns through experience how to make decisions.
> 
> rule based stuff isn’t AI it it’s what you might call automation i guess since you the user can decide the rules you want enforced and you only have to specify it once and then keyswitches will be dutifully inserted in all the “right” places according to the rules you established.
> 
> AI is capable of incredibly complex decision making which would be utterly impossible to figure out in rule based system, but we give our control away to the computer at some point.
> 
> rule based system still give us complete control but the downside is that often they are not complex enough to address all the possible permutations and situations, thus leaving us frustrated and considering going back to full manual mode again, which is why they usually need to always have some kind of manual override mode.
> 
> carry on...


Naturally I agree with you since I have a _basic_ understanding of the philosophy of AI. However, when I have worked with game developers in the past and they've talked about working on the AI, it is when they create a set of instructions for the computer generated characters (or NPCs as they called them). These instructions trigger actions according to conditions i.e. if player is in the line of sight of NPC then do this, if it's not then do this, if player is near do this, etc. Sounds awfully similar to expression maps to me... ! If no articulation play sustain, if accent play this, if accent with sordino play that, etc.

In any case, despite being an interesting topic, it's irrelevant to this thread and we also agree it's not there yet.


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## Dewdman42

If you are just programming some simple rules that is not AI, that is just programming. True AI is where you program the neural network infrastructure and then the rest of the time is spent teaching that AI by feeding it information. The AI neural network then gets bigger and bigger and more complicated through experience, not through programming it. In this way incredibly complex decision trees can be built up by the computer itself without much or any planning by developers.

we would have to know more information about what your game developers are doing to say for sure whether they are using some form of actual AI, the term gets thrown around loosely. But in general if you have a system of predetermined rules with predetermined actions then I don’t see that as being AI, unless those are the building blocks that enables the software to become smarter and smarter through experience. 

AI actually WOULD be the correct solution for this problem we are discussing because of the complexity but that is many years away before we will see a true and useful AI solution for this kind of thing that doesn’t also get in the way of our creativity.


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## Sean J

shawnsingh said:


> I cant believe they all got sick at the same time...
> 
> (sorry, I'm a new dad, I just had to...)



I meant to reply to this... Congrats!

As a food storage junkie, I thought I'd stock up on diapers ahead of time. I had 1400 diapers stockpiled, based on average sizes and growth per others via Google who had the same idea. I should have gone higher on size and doubled the stash. Welcome to the other side of life. 



Bollen said:


> ...useless and the wrong approach...



The workflow of editing a note... then a technique... then a CC value... That requires more steps with your hands than our minds think it should. It's all fine until you move a note and realize other stuff has to move with it. Even with directions and attributes, there's really no musical intelligence in it. Most notation programs escape that paradigm as you'd be editing some form of engraving anyway. A DAW runs the risk of feeling half-featured unless the UI is optimized for the writing/editing process. Few DAWs pay enough attention to that IMHO.


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## jamwerks

Rob said:


> I don't use the upper numbers, but the numeric keypad instead... done so for many years, much easier for me. Anyway, hitting a number and then pressing the spacebar is two moves, while the way Finale and Sibelius manage it, i.e. simply pressing the duration number is much faster. This leaves me the impression that Dorico isn't aimed at professional copysts


I know what you mean, and I thought that also for a while. There are some thing that in Dorico that take more actions (clicks, keys, etc.) than in Finale. I've gotten creative to try to lessen that as much as possible. But globally (data entry + refining + page layout) Dorico comes out being now almost twice as fast as Finale for the same job. And where separate parts are involved, that's about 3 times as fast imo.


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## Dewdman42

I think The Dorico team is doing remarkable things with the notion of FLOWS and LAYOUTS. Also their rule based approach to notation is in my opinion going to eliminate what normally would be a lot of manual work nudging things around to look the way you want. Sibelius was always famous for trying to do that better then Finale, but I think in Dorico they are taking it to the next level.


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## Rob

jamwerks said:


> I know what you mean, and I thought that also for a while. There are some thing that in Dorico that take more actions (clicks, keys, etc.) than in Finale. I've gotten creative to try to lessen that as much as possible. But globally (data entry + refining + page layout) Dorico comes out being now almost twice as fast as Finale for the same job. And where separate parts are involved, that's about 3 times as fast imo.


then I probably need to put in the hours of apprenticeship. But I remain doubtful, as now for me, Dorico feels much slower, not only for notes inputting but for the responsiveness as a whole. Finale feels snappier... I have a hard time, having to honor deadlines, investing precious time learning new ways to do things that I already can do much faster. I'll keep getting updates though, I like to encourage development of new notation software.


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## mducharme

Rob said:


> But I remain doubtful, as now for me, Dorico feels much slower, not only for notes inputting but for the responsiveness as a whole.



Make sure that you do not have any score layouts with condensing enabled in your project. Dorico becomes much slower with all edits as soon as any score layout has condensing turned on, even if you are not looking at that layout at the time. The reason is that it has to recalculate the condensed score with every edit. Only turn condensing on once you have finished your score edits.

Tantacrul in his Dorico critique video recommends having a score layout with condensing enabled but that is bad, and that is probably the reason he finds it slow.


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## BlackDorito

Dewdman42 said:


> The PLAY part is the part that seems to be a advancing perhaps a bit slowly, not withstanding the immense potential.


There was a long thread about one year ago in the timeframe of Dorico 2 (I believe):





__





Exhausted with Finale -- is Dorico the answer?


What do you think? I usually am importing a midi or MusicXML file from Digital Performer as a starting point to orchestrate in Finale. I have been using Finale for over 20 years and its workflow remains frustratingly clumsy. If I'm importing a MusicXML file, how is Dorico as an orchestration...



vi-control.net





In that thread I was moaning about the half-baked playback capabilities as I migrated a sizable score from Sibelius to Dorico 2. I bought v2, but never could get v3 working (it no longer recognized Kontakt as a VST on my system), and now with v3.5 I would hope many issues are fixed - I know they are working hard. I'm not gonna pay $160 to upgrade to v3.5, but FWIW here are a few of the notes I made at the time, all related to v2 playback .. and perhaps fixed by now. For those thinking of taking the plunge, it might be worth researching some of these things. I continue to wish the Dorico team luck and I want to move off Sibelius some day.


*harp glissandi* - easy to show in the score, but how do you specify the playback? [Sibelius has an awesome plug-in that allows you to specify the scale you will run up & down]
*Muting and Soloing* - unclear how to mute/solo individual MIDI track sends to VSTi instruments. The documentation & videos seem to be related to earlier versions and don't work. Sibelius makes it fairly intuitive to audition just a few selected tracks/instruments from anywhere in the score.
*CC lane* - make it horizontally resizable (as it is in Reaper, Cubase and other DAWs) so we can draw curves more accurately. [It's great that we can do this at all ... not easy in Sibelius] Also, since only one can be displayed, how do we remember which CC's are sending values on this track? Need to somehow show which CC's we've drawn curves on.
*Chase* - haven't figured out how to specify that CC values and Techniques should be chased. Huge problem .. can't imagine that Dorico would not do this. Hoping it is my ignorance.
*Expression Maps* - more simplistic than Cubase. This makes it easier to use ... and less useful. No way to specify that a 'dynamic' marking is implemented with a keyswitch - e.g. switching to 'sfz' for CSBrass - because 'sfz' is a dynamic, not a 'technique' in Dorico. Several other head-scratchers which I won't bore you with. Furthermore, no way to specify 'global' techniques - e.g. to create a track-initialize technique (set initial volume/pan/mod/expression/mics on a channel) - that could be used on every channel independent of instrument. This is simple to do in Sibelius using the Dictionary.
*Playback Options* - velocity curves should be instrument-specific. If you have tuned the dynamics of multiple instruments over several hundred bars, and then add a new instrument that needs a unique vel-curve, you can't risk changing the global vel-curve.
I finally gave up and wrote this to the (very helpful) Support person:

John,

I'm giving up for the time being ... Dorico simply is not ready for prime time re. playback. I am wasting all sorts of time maneuvering around issues I don't have with Sibelius. Your Expression Map feature is just not working at the level of a professional tool at this point. It does not chase controllers/keyswitches correctly and I can see it in the MIDI stream. No matter what Playback techniques I define, it seems to think that it is always in Natural mode and doesn't bother to send the commands. Not chasing controllers correctly absolutely destroys my ability to tune/mix my piece and to create effective swells, crescendos, etc.

It's back to Sibelius for me. Please emphasize to your developers that effective playback is a key element of the attractiveness of Dorico and they should fix all playback bugs, improve the mixer and make the Expression Map feature more like Cubase for version 3.0.

Thx,


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## BlackDorito

Dewdman42 said:


> If you are just programming some simple rules that is not AI, that is just programming. True AI is where you program the neural network infrastructure and then the rest of the time is spent teaching that AI by feeding it information.


30 years ago Stanford professors would be whacking you upside the head .. but now they would merely bow down.


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## Bollen

BlackDorito said:


> There was a long thread about one year ago in the timeframe of Dorico 2 (I believe):
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Exhausted with Finale -- is Dorico the answer?
> 
> 
> What do you think? I usually am importing a midi or MusicXML file from Digital Performer as a starting point to orchestrate in Finale. I have been using Finale for over 20 years and its workflow remains frustratingly clumsy. If I'm importing a MusicXML file, how is Dorico as an orchestration...
> 
> 
> 
> vi-control.net
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In that thread I was moaning about the half-baked playback capabilities as I migrated a sizable score from Sibelius to Dorico 2. I bought v2, but never could get v3 working (it no longer recognized Kontakt as a VST on my system), and now with v3.5 I would hope many issues are fixed - I know they are working hard. I'm not gonna pay $160 to upgrade to v3.5, but FWIW here are a few of the notes I made at the time, all related to v2 playback .. and perhaps fixed by now. For those thinking of taking the plunge, it might be worth researching some of these things. I continue to wish the Dorico team luck and I want to move off Sibelius some day.
> 
> 
> *harp glissandi* - easy to show in the score, but how do you specify the playback? [Sibelius has an awesome plug-in that allows you to specify the scale you will run up & down]
> *Muting and Soloing* - unclear how to mute/solo individual MIDI track sends to VSTi instruments. The documentation & videos seem to be related to earlier versions and don't work. Sibelius makes it fairly intuitive to audition just a few selected tracks/instruments from anywhere in the score.
> *CC lane* - make it horizontally resizable (as it is in Reaper, Cubase and other DAWs) so we can draw curves more accurately. [It's great that we can do this at all ... not easy in Sibelius] Also, since only one can be displayed, how do we remember which CC's are sending values on this track? Need to somehow show which CC's we've drawn curves on.
> *Chase* - haven't figured out how to specify that CC values and Techniques should be chased. Huge problem .. can't imagine that Dorico would not do this. Hoping it is my ignorance.
> *Expression Maps* - more simplistic than Cubase. This makes it easier to use ... and less useful. No way to specify that a 'dynamic' marking is implemented with a keyswitch - e.g. switching to 'sfz' for CSBrass - because 'sfz' is a dynamic, not a 'technique' in Dorico. Several other head-scratchers which I won't bore you with. Furthermore, no way to specify 'global' techniques - e.g. to create a track-initialize technique (set initial volume/pan/mod/expression/mics on a channel) - that could be used on every channel independent of instrument. This is simple to do in Sibelius using the Dictionary.
> *Playback Options* - velocity curves should be instrument-specific. If you have tuned the dynamics of multiple instruments over several hundred bars, and then add a new instrument that needs a unique vel-curve, you can't risk changing the global vel-curve.
> I finally gave up and wrote this to the (very helpful) Support person:
> 
> John,
> 
> I'm giving up for the time being ... Dorico simply is not ready for prime time re. playback. I am wasting all sorts of time maneuvering around issues I don't have with Sibelius. Your Expression Map feature is just not working at the level of a professional tool at this point. It does not chase controllers/keyswitches correctly and I can see it in the MIDI stream. No matter what Playback techniques I define, it seems to think that it is always in Natural mode and doesn't bother to send the commands. Not chasing controllers correctly absolutely destroys my ability to tune/mix my piece and to create effective swells, crescendos, etc.
> 
> It's back to Sibelius for me. Please emphasize to your developers that effective playback is a key element of the attractiveness of Dorico and they should fix all playback bugs, improve the mixer and make the Expression Map feature more like Cubase for version 3.0.
> 
> Thx,


As far as I know half of these have worked since version 2. *Harp glissandi* is configured in the properties panel, or you can just program your own in a hidden staff below (I have a harp vst that it has its own configurable gliss). I can't remember when they added the *solo*, but now if you select a track and press play it will only play that one. You've always been able to zoom the *cc lane*, you just have to use stupid key (Z & Y) instead of the universal mouse wheel ! *Expression Maps* have seen improvements, but not the ones you mention and much less independent *velocity curves*....


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## Robin

BlackDorito said:


> *harp glissandi* - easy to show in the score, but how do you specify the playback? [Sibelius has an awesome plug-in that allows you to specify the scale you will run up & down]


In fact you can set the harp pedalling and the glissando you write will play back according to it


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## mducharme

Expression maps does now have an init technique but it is different for each instrument. It just sets the default settings when it loads (ex. default keyswitch).


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## Daryl

I'm downloading it right now, and have a score to type later today. Will report back.


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## DavidRubenstein

Dewdman42 said:


> If you are just programming some simple rules that is not AI, that is just programming. True AI is where you program the neural network infrastructure and then the rest of the time is spent teaching that AI by feeding it information. The AI neural network then gets bigger and bigger and more complicated through experience, not through programming it. In this way incredibly complex decision trees can be built up by the computer itself without much or any planning by developers.



Sorry for the late response ...

Actually, what you are describing is called Machine Learning (using a neural network), which is a subset of AI. AI also includes a tree of rules that were programmed with the help of experts.


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