# Help: Dorico, Finale, Cubase... Which software is the most suitable for me?!



## FrenchTubist

Hi Guys,

I'm a new member on the V.I Planet :emoji_earth_africa::emoji_earth_americas: and I'm asking your help and advices.
For many years I used mainly Finale 2010 to write and compose my projects.
But now I want to enter in the 21th Century...
I'm looking for a software that could mix the great interface of Cubase for the control of my virtual instruments and also all the Midi-Stuff and the possibility to type directly my score and work on it like with Finale or Sibelius. It would be awesome that such software exist... That's why I recently discovered Dorico and I'm asking if it could be a solution for my needs.
Thanks for you help and any advices !


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## Vik

Welcome! In case you missed it, there are already some Dorico threads here, like eg these:
https://vi-control.net/community/threads/dorico-2-scoring-to-video.72020/
https://vi-control.net/community/threads/hows-dorico-now.62019/
https://vi-control.net/community/threads/attended-daniel-spreadburys-dorico-demo-last-night.57372/
The best solution for your needs will depend on how you prefer to work - so since you prefer to type your notes into the software, maybe Dorico is just what you need.


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## FrenchTubist

Thanks Vik ! I will check out !
But for sure I'm young but I'm a little bit old style too. I like to work with a score and I'm not still really ready to use only a Midi-Interface... That's why I'm looking for an intermediate solution.


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## d.healey

Reaper has a great score editor (not the best for engraving) and Musescore is excellent.


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## Luke W

Compared to Finale, I think Dorico is more composer/midi friendly for those who still compose with notes on the staff, then moving to a DAW. I have 20+ years into Finale and work as an engraver, but if composing was my sole focus, I'd seriously consider moving to Dorico. (I haven't made the move because Dorico still doesn't quite do everything I need for engraving) I don't know anything about Reaper or Musescore, so I can't comment there.


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## joebaggan

d.healey said:


> Reaper has a great score editor (not the best for engraving) and Musescore is excellent.



I don't think anybody would argue Reaper Score Editor is anywhere near what you're going to get with Dorico, Sibelius, Finale but as a quick tool for beginners it couldn't hurt. If you intend to print music out and have other serious musicians play it, then I'd look to Dorico or Sibelius at this point. Dorico has the advantage of being owned by Steinberg so there's hope that there will be some future integration with Cubase, which would be the best of both worlds IMO. Also, note that Cubase Pro has a very competent Score Editor itself so you may want to check that out.


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## d.healey

joebaggan said:


> I don't think anybody would argue Reaper Score Editor is anywhere near what you're going to get with Dorico, Sibelius, Finale


Of course, but I think a DAW is a better tool for creating mockups than a score editor is. Reaper's score editor, in conjunction with its other DAW features, is excellent for creating a mockup from notation but as I said it's not designed for engraving. The truth is, if you like composing with notation as I do, use a pencil and paper. It's way faster. When it comes time to mockup, use a DAW. When it comes time to make a score for musicians/conductors, use a score writer. The right tool for the right job.


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## FrenchTubist

d.healey said:


> Of course, but I think a DAW is a better tool for creating mockups than a score editor is. Reaper's score editor, in conjunction with its other DAW features, is excellent for creating a mockup from notation but as I said it's not designed for engraving. The truth is, if you like composing with notation as I do, use a pencil and paper. It's way faster. When it comes time to mockup, use a DAW. When it comes time to make a score for musicians/conductors, use a score writer. The right tool for the right job.


You're totally right !! The right tool for the right job. For engraving, nothing is better than a dedicate software as Finale or Sibelius although there could be really annoying in certain circumstances. I was just looking only for a engraving-software with a mockup function. From all the kind replies that I received today, Dorico would be a good choice. The only problem is the price: nearly 550€ and I'm not yet really ready to spend so much money... 
I will also check out Reaper...


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## d.healey

Notion might also be worth a look.


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## Saxer

Did you try Noteperformer 3? It's compatible to Finale (still beta) and though it's not a DAW it makes Finale/Sibelius/Dorico sounding much better.
https://www.noteperformer.com

To make real mockups there's still no 'all in one' solution. Notation needs writing and mockups need playing/recording/mixing. Different tasks, different workflow, different skills. 
It's possible to export MIDI from Finale and import it into a DAW. But from there you have to edit a lot (creating a template, note length, articulations, velocity) and play/draw dynamic curves for every instrument. Without this process it will sound more or less the same like in Finale. 
Writing notation in a DAW is a step back from Finale. The note editors in DAWs are mainly for showing recorded MIDI tracks instead of being a writing tool. You can work with it (I do most of my notation in Logic: playing, recording, editing) but dedicated notation software works faster if you want to type.


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## FrenchTubist

Saxer said:


> Did you try Noteperformer 3? It's compatible to Finale (still beta) and though it's not a DAW it makes Finale/Sibelius/Dorico sounding much better.
> https://www.noteperformer.com
> 
> To make real mockups there's still no 'all in one' solution. Notation needs writing and mockups need playing/recording/mixing. Different tasks, different workflow, different skills.
> It's possible to export MIDI from Finale and import it into a DAW. But from there you have to edit a lot (creating a template, note length, articulations, velocity) and play/draw dynamic curves for every instrument. Without this process it will sound more or less the same like in Finale.
> Writing notation in a DAW is a step back from Finale. The note editors in DAWs are mainly for showing recorded MIDI tracks instead of being a writing tool. You can work with it (I do most of my notation in Logic: playing, recording, editing) but dedicated notation software works faster if you want to type.



Thanks a lot Saxer for your comment ! It helps me a lot ! I gave a look on noteperformer and it would be a great solution in my case because the main problem ist that engraving-software sound most of the time horrible. And in this case the price ist not so expensive. 
If I have a good comprehension of what you said, it is quite difficult to transfer informations from Finale to a DAW with a good result but is the reverse more easier ? I mean you write your mockup and then your transfer the file to finale to make the "final" editing of the score. What do you think about ?


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## d.healey

FrenchTubist said:


> If I have a good comprehension of what you said, it is quite difficult to transfer informations from Finale to a DAW with a good result but is the reverse more easier ?


Not really. If you write music in a score writer like Finale, every note will be perfectly quantized to the beat, you can export it as MIDI and import it into a DAW and it will be pretty much the same as what you had in finale, you will then need to do lots of work to add expression to the MIDI to create a good mockup. If you start in a DAW you have two choices, you can enter one note at a time, like you would in Finale, or you can perform your piece in real time. If you perform in real time then your notes won't be perfectly quantized (which is good, it's more musical) so when you open the MIDI from your DAW in finale the notation will be a mess and you'll have lots of work to do cleaning it up to look nice. So both methods will require extra work.

Here is what I do. I write out a short score on paper. I play in each part into Reaper. After recording a part I open up Reaper's notation editor and check that the notation is the same as I have on the paper, if it isn't then I either need to re-record (because I'm a sloppy keyboard player) or I do a little bit of tidying up by hand. Once the whole thing is played in I export MusicXML from Reaper and import it into Musescore where I can do the engraving work to get a nice looking score.


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## FrenchTubist

d.healey said:


> Not really. If you write music in a score writer like Finale, every note will be perfectly quantized to the beat, you can export it as MIDI and import it into a DAW and it will be pretty much the same as what you had in finale, you will then need to do lots of work to add expression to the MIDI to create a good mockup. If you start in a DAW you have two choices, you can enter one note at a time, like you would in Finale, or you can perform your piece in real time. If you perform in real time then your notes won't be perfectly quantized (which is good, it's more musical) so when you open the MIDI from your DAW in finale the notation will be a mess and you'll have lots of work to do cleaning it up to look nice. So both methods will require extra work.
> 
> Here is what I do. I write out a short score on paper. I play in each part into Reaper. After recording a part I open up Reaper's notation editor and check that the notation is the same as I have on the paper, if it isn't then I either need to re-record (because I'm a sloppy keyboard player) or I do a little bit of tidying up by hand. Once the whole thing is played in I export MusicXML from Reaper and import it into Musescore where I can do the engraving work to get a nice looking score.



Thanks for the advice ! From what you said, it is possible to transfer in both methods your main information but you have to tidy up then which I find relatively ok as extra work.
And your work-method is similar to my personal conception. Paper and pen first, check that´s sound good with a DAW and improve it and finally write a clean score with Finale. That seems to be a good plan !


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## Vik

d.healey said:


> If you perform in real time then your notes won't be perfectly quantized (which is good, it's more musical) so when you open the MIDI from your DAW in finale the notation will be a mess and you'll have lots of work to do cleaning it up to look nice.


If you play to a metronome, and hard-quantize before your export to Finale, that shouldn't be a problem. I usually record without a metronome, and use Beat Mapping (in Logic, other DAWs have different names for that function) afterwards, so the grid is aligned to what I played.


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## d.healey

Vik said:


> If you play to a metronome, and hard-quantize before your export to Finale, that shouldn't be a problem. I usually record without a metronome, and use Beat Mapping (in Logic, other DAWs have different names for that function) afterwards, so the grid is aligned to what I played.


I always play with a metronome but I need more practice 

In Reaper there is a display quantize option which is independent of the underlying MIDI data, thus it's possible to have an unquantized human performance and neat notation at the same time, this can be exported as MusicXML for use with a score writer.


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## Bollen

Overture might be exactly what you're looking for: https://sonicscores.com/overture/

It has sophisticated engraving options and very deep MIDI editing features. Like most have said already there is always a compromise, but of all the other alternatives out there Overture has the least compromise and it's quite cheap! However, (disclaimer) it crashes a lot on my computer, but apparently it happens to only a handful of us, and also the guy that writes it (yes, a one man team) is a bit of a prick with a foul temper.

I've been able to produce very beautiful looking scores that playback very, very nicely (it has a "humanising" feature that is to die for). The MIDI editing is pretty simple to do, controllers are all accessible via a Piano Roll window and keyswitches via right-click or by setting it in the articulations/expression/technique playback. It is not Finale or Sibelius level of engraving in terms of the things it does automatically, but you can adjust absolutely everything you can think of manually.

I strongly recommend you download the demo and try it for a few months, you'll need to get use to its idiosyncrasies before you can really judge it... and of course to see if you're one of us, unlucky people, that it just crashes all the time.


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## Dewdman42

Overture crashes all the time, its still beta software. You've been warned


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## Bollen

Dewdman42 said:


> Overture crashes all the time, its still beta software. You've been warned



Well, as I've said, it does for me, but when I asked on the forum lots of people told me that they have had no problem since version 5.2. That's why I recommend trying the demo out, you might get lucky...


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## Dewdman42

its worse on mac. I used to install all his updates, but I got sick of messing with it. I will lurk in the background, I'm sure in a few years it will be more stable and then I'll have another look, but trust me I was a big Overture4 fan....and had high hopes for this one, but its just taking too long to get there. Dorico is going to win that market space IMHO.


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## Bollen

Dewdman42 said:


> its worse on mac. I used to install all his updates, but I got sick of messing with it.



I'm sick of him...


Dewdman42 said:


> Dorico is going to win that market space IMHO.



Most definitely, plus the support team is simply wonderful! They even email you directly to help you with problems...


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## Michael Antrum

FrenchTubist said:


> From all the kind replies that I received today, Dorico would be a good choice. The only problem is the price: nearly 550€ and I'm not yet really ready to spend so much money...



Just for the record, as a Finale user, you can buy the Dorico crossgrade (or competitive upgrade) which is massively less expensive than that. IIRC its around 225.


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## FrenchTubist

mikeybabes said:


> Just for the record, as a Finale user, you can buy the Dorico crossgrade (or competitive upgrade) which is massively less expensive than that. IIRC its around 225.


Thanks for the info... If I can spare some money, it's always enjoyable!


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## Babe

I cannot do a mockup in a scoring program and I can't do a score in a DAW. I use both. And I don't use one and transfer the info to the other. It's more work, but to do the best on both jobs, it's best to do separately. I was perfectly happy with Sibelius but them going to subscription pissed me off. I don't do enough scoring to justify the price. I've been keeping an eye on Dorico since their birth. I've been demoing version 2 and I think I'm ready to move over. For me who does orchestral scores, the divisi function is the game changer. Have one staff for flutes on one page and need 2 or 3 on the next, done. 

Since Dorico is still in it's toddler stage, there may be something that one of the other programs have that you can't live without that is not available yet in Dorico.


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