# Dorico: tips for initial setup and engraving?



## Marcus Millfield (Nov 27, 2022)

New Dorico user here. I have always handwritten music and thought to dive into using the computer. So I've trialed Dorico for a few weeks and got the hang of it a bit. Although there is a philosophy behind why things work the way they do, I find myself searching the manual and Google for hours on end just to get rather simple things done. That has something to do with language barrier, but also because I don't get the philosophy (yet). This makes writing music to be more of a chore than fun at the moment.

I'm trying to add a few pages to a piece I'm writing, but can't for the love of me figure out how to insert pages that are a continuation of the piece I'm already writing. So my question: could some of you point me in the direction of some tutorials about the Dorico philosophy and especially around project/page/layout/template setup and Engraving? I just can't seem to grasp it from the manual alone.


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## devonmyles (Nov 27, 2022)

I found the official Steinberg/Dorico YouTube Channel a great start. Presuming you haven't already checked it out yet:



https://m.youtube.com/@dorico/videos


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## Marcus Millfield (Nov 27, 2022)

devonmyles said:


> I found the official Steinberg/Dorico YouTube Channel a great start. Presuming you haven't already checked it out yet:
> 
> 
> 
> https://m.youtube.com/@dorico/videos


I have watched a few videos from their channel, but apparently that isn't enough. I'll give the tutorials another go, maybe it'll dawn on a second or third run through. Thanks for the suggestion 👍🏻


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## PhilA (Nov 27, 2022)

Your pages are in essence extra bars at the end of the existing piece or do you want blank pages added to the end?
If you want to add say 60 bars at the end then select the last bar line hit shift+b on the keyboard and type 60 hit enter/return.
Or have I misunderstood. I try not to think in pages anymore.


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## mducharme (Nov 27, 2022)

You automatically get pages entered at the end of the piece when you add more bars and they don't fit in the existing pages, so it is a bit strange to think of "adding pages" to the piece, except in the case of actual pencil and paper.


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## Marcus Millfield (Nov 27, 2022)

PhilA said:


> I try not to think in pages anymore.





mducharme said:


> You automatically get pages entered at the end of the piece when you add more bars and they don't fit in the existing pages, so it is a bit strange to think of "adding pages" to the piece, except in the case of actual pencil and paper.



See, this is something totally illogical to me coming from handwriting all those years. I mean, no human thinks like that right? You always start with a new page after which comes the notation. Oh well just goes to show how much I still need to do to get this workflow.

Thank you both very much for this insight!


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## PhilA (Nov 27, 2022)

Marcus Millfield said:


> See, this is something totally illogical to me coming from handwriting all those years. I mean, no human thinks like that right? You always start with a new page after which comes the notation. Oh well just goes to show how much I still need to do to get this workflow.
> 
> Thank you both very much for this insight!


I do agree with you, I think years of working in IT have ingrained this into me, it’s easy to forget this isn’t natural for everyone. The never ending page I guess comes from the world of word processors initially. I tend to work when writing or sketching in galley view which takes the concept of pages out of the equation (switch between galley and page view from the little pop up right down at the bottom right of the screen)

Edit: Also Galley view has the wonderful instrument filter option so you can easily single in on a section or instrument.


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## janwilke (Nov 27, 2022)

Marcus Millfield said:


> See, this is something totally illogical to me coming from handwriting all those years. I mean, no human thinks like that right? You always start with a new page after which comes the notation. Oh well just goes to show how much I still need to do to get this workflow.
> 
> Thank you both very much for this insight!


I write everything in Galley View, which doesn't have pages, just a continuous stream of music. For me, it's a much more natural representation of the music. After everything is written, I switch to Page View and try to get the music to look the way I want it to - thankfully, Dorico does a pretty good job of formatting the music, so I am mostly fine with tweaking the global settings like the staff size. I rarely have any need to go into Engrave Mode.


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## Vik (Nov 27, 2022)

A short question (checking out Dorico 4.3):

Is there a way to let Dorico use my installed libraries (all in AU format), or do I need to download VST versions of everything (I'm on Mac).


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## Marcus Millfield (Nov 27, 2022)

janwilke said:


> thankfully, Dorico does a pretty good job of formatting the music



That's true to a certain point. Using Dorico for writing every day for the past few weeks has taught me that the way I learned notation isn't the same as the default Dorico standards. It took me a while to get things the way I want them too.

One thing still bugging me is the automatic consolidation of tied notes of the same pitch that follow each other. I don't want that all the time but haven't been able to find how to turn that off. I have a workaround using a slur sign instead of creating a tie.


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## Marcus Millfield (Nov 27, 2022)

Vik said:


> A short question (checking out Dorico 4.3):
> 
> Is there a way to let Dorico use my installed libraries (all in AU format), or do I need to download VST versions of everything (I'm on Mac).


Nope, VST only I fear.


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## ennbr (Nov 27, 2022)

Marcus Millfield said:


> One thing still bugging me is the automatic consolidation of tied notes of the same pitch that follow each other.


have you tried pressing the U key on the keyboard to remove the tie note


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## dr-music (Nov 27, 2022)

Marcus Millfield said:


> the automatic consolidation of tied notes of the same pitch


You have to learn 'Force Duration' instrument (letter 'O' and the corresponding button).
Input the rhythm you want, select notes, press 'O' then tie them.

In some cases you have to make some notes shorter, then press 'O' and only then enlarge the duration with entering new length and correct it if needed with Alt-Shift-Arrow. For example: if you want to get dotted quater note that starts at fourth eight in common time (it is little bit against rules), you have to input eight note and after pressing 'O' press '6' and 'dot.


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## Marcus Millfield (Nov 27, 2022)

dr-music said:


> You have to learn 'Force Duration' instrument (letter 'O' and the corresponding button).
> Input the rhythm you want, select notes, press 'O' then tie them.



I have to try that out, thanks!

Maybe my searching skills aren't up to snuff, because I've searched a long time how to do this and finally just gave up.



dr-music said:


> In some cases you have to make some notes shorter, then press 'O' and only then enlarge the duration with Alt-Shift-Arrow. For example: if you want to get dotted quater note that starts at fourth eight in common time (it is little bit against rules), you have to input eight note and after pressing 'O' press Alt-Shift-Right Arrow twice.



Right. This doesn't exactly scream user-friendly.

Is there perhaps a way to configure Dorico as such that I can just put in everything I want, mistakes and all, so that I can correct them manually afterwards? I mean, this is like learning Klingon and all I want tot do is just notate the way I want.


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## dr-music (Nov 27, 2022)

Marcus Millfield said:


> Is there perhaps a way to configure Dorico as such that I can just put in everything I want


I think no. Dorico's philosophy is different, D. always check your input against existing rules and tries to write it correctly. There are a lot of (default) options to choose in Notation Options (Ctrl-Shift-N).
Sometimes you lose some second to write your music 'as you want', but you definitely win minutes and hours when you later decide to move-copy you music to a different rhythmic position or to different instrument.


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## Marcus Millfield (Nov 27, 2022)

dr-music said:


> I think no. Dorico's philosophy is different, D. always check your input against existing rules and tries to write it correctly. There are a lot of (default) options to choose in Notation Options (Ctrl-Shift-N).
> Sometimes you lose some second to write your music 'as you want', but you definitely win minutes and hours when you later decide to move-copy you music to a different rhythmic position or to different instrument.


I get that and you are right off course. It makes otherwise very time consuming jobs really a lot faster. 

And I know it is me. I just need to learn how to deal with the workflow that seem fairly obvious in my mind, but doesn't work that way in Dorico. It's just a bit annoying I have to search hours on end how to do something simple like tie notes the way I want to. It doesn't help that I have learned notation in Dutch, which makes searching for something a lot harder if you don't know the English term for something.


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## dr-music (Nov 27, 2022)

Marcus Millfield said:


> makes searching for something a lot harder if you don't know the English term


My boat is like yours, Marcus  I'm Russian and my English is too too far from being excellent ...


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## 3DC (Nov 27, 2022)

There are excellent Dorico videos on YT official channel like this one...



...and some great introduction courses from Groove 3 and Ask Audio for 15$/month. No need to die from frustration. If its hard you are doing it wrong.


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## Marcus Millfield (Nov 27, 2022)

dr-music said:


> My boat is like yours, Marcus  I'm Russian and my English is too too far from being excellent ...


Probably like you, my English is fine, but translating certain musical terms is not your everyday English


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## Marcus Millfield (Nov 27, 2022)

3DC said:


> There are excellent Dorico videos on YT official channel like this one...
> 
> 
> 
> ...and some great introduction courses from Groove 3 and Ask Audio for 15$/month. No need to die from frustration. If its hard you are doing it wrong.




Thanks for the links! I've spend some time on the official channel already and have learned some basics from there. I agree they are excellent. I will however check the other introduction courses as well.


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## benwiggy (Nov 27, 2022)

I would work through the "First Steps" guide, found here:









Resources – Dorico







blog.dorico.com





The most important thing with Dorico is: "Don't fight it -- let it do your work for you."

Dorico doesn't do "what it wants": it has thousands of Options that you can configure. It also has features to manually adjust things. But almost always, you should let it bear the brunt of the work before you start making manual adjustments.


I'd agree that putting the notes in first is the best way, and then worry about the fine tuning afterwards. Remember that in Dorico, the notation and its appearance are separate. You can have five different layouts of the same music, configured in entirely different ways.


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## Daryl (Nov 28, 2022)

Marcus Millfield said:


> See, this is something totally illogical to me coming from handwriting all those years. I mean, no human thinks like that right? You always start with a new page after which comes the notation. Oh well just goes to show how much I still need to do to get this workflow.
> 
> Thank you both very much for this insight!


So add bars at the end of the piece every time you start to run out. A bit like turning a page over and starting a new one. It's quicker to type Shift B 8 than to pick up a page and turn it over.


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## Daryl (Nov 28, 2022)

Marcus Millfield said:


> I get that and you are right off course. It makes otherwise very time consuming jobs really a lot faster.
> 
> And I know it is me. I just need to learn how to deal with the workflow that seem fairly obvious in my mind, but doesn't work that way in Dorico. It's just a bit annoying I have to search hours on end how to do something simple like tie notes the way I want to. It doesn't help that I have learned notation in Dutch, which makes searching for something a lot harder if you don't know the English term for something.


For ties, type the note lengths that you want to tie, select them all, hit force duration and then tie.


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## Marcus Millfield (Nov 28, 2022)

Daryl said:


> So add bars at the end of the piece every time you start to run out. A bit like turning a page over and starting a new one. It's quicker to type Shift B 8 than to pick up a page and turn it over.


Thanks to you guys I know that now, but that workflow had to click in my head first if you know what I mean.


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## Marcus Millfield (Nov 28, 2022)

benwiggy said:


> The most important thing with Dorico is: "Don't fight it -- let it do your work for you."



That's probably the best advice to anyone starting out with Dorico.


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## ptram (Nov 28, 2022)

Marcus Millfield said:


> You always start with a new page after which comes the notation.


I've never considered new pages this way. As a pianist, the end of the page has always been a serious issue (turning it with my nose or the left feet?).

So, pagination is not _before_, but _after_ the music, and has to be done so that the performance flow is not interrupted. Or makes sense in the study score, limiting empty divisi staves and making the score look readable and elegant.

Paolo


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## Marcus Millfield (Nov 28, 2022)

ptram said:


> I've never considered new pages this way. As a pianist, the end of the page has always been a serious issue (turning it with my nose or the left feet?).
> 
> So, pagination is not _before_, but _after_ the music, and has to be done so that the performance flow is not interrupted. Or makes sense in the study score, limiting empty divisi staves and making the score look readable and elegant.
> 
> Paolo



Hi Paolo, as a instrumentalist myself, I share your pain. My comments are however solely considered from a writing/composing perspective at the moment. I was writing something and could for the life of me not find how to add an extra page in Dorico. I, like Dorico's workflow, consider writing and engraving two seperate processes and will certainly address these kinds of issues for all instruments. Nothing is more bothersome than sheet music not tailored to the needs of the player.


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## Daryl (Nov 28, 2022)

ptram said:


> I've never considered new pages this way. As a pianist, the end of the page has always been a serious issue (turning it with my nose or the left feet?).
> 
> So, pagination is not _before_, but _after_ the music, and has to be done so that the performance flow is not interrupted. Or makes sense in the study score, limiting empty divisi staves and making the score look readable and elegant.
> 
> Paolo


You mention divisi, and this is one huge advantage with Dorico. With writing by hand, one has to make the decision regarding layout before writing the music. If you change your mind, it's a lot of rubbing out and starting again. In Dorico you write the divisi on separate staves and can combine however you see fit, but the best thing is you can change your mind, and add more divisi. Or less. Or none. Over the course of a project, his can save hours, when compared with the old fashioned way of thinking.


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## ptram (Nov 28, 2022)

Marcus Millfield said:


> I was writing something and could for the life of me not find how to add an extra page in Dorico.


Maybe in the meantime you have found it, but I would do this by inserting a frame break. Privileging the general settings in the Layout Options is in any case alway preferred.






Frame breaks


Frame breaks occur when musical material reaches the right page margin at the bottom of a frame and must continue on a new system in the next frame in the music frame chain, which is usually on the next page. Dorico Pro automatically arranges music in frames so that systems are correctly spaced...




steinberg.help





Paolo


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## Marcus Millfield (Nov 28, 2022)

ptram said:


> Maybe in the meantime you have found it, but I would do this by inserting a frame break. Privileging the general settings in the Layout Options is in any case alway preferred.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Needed to attend the day job. Will give all tips shared today a go later.


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## mducharme (Nov 28, 2022)

Regarding tied notes, Dorico's handling of ties is because its representation of notes is the same as a DAW piano roll, where a tied note is a single rectangular object in the piano roll regardless of where it rhythmically starts/ends within the bar. This gives a lot of flexibility for making edits without things getting screwed up on you. You can use force duration to force a tie where it doesn't automatically want to create one, but this means that if changes are made to that section like the note being rhythmically shifted later or earlier, the ties will no longer be correct notation. Usually I would avoid using force duration until later in the process when I was reasonably sure I would not make further changes there.


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## janwilke (Nov 28, 2022)

mducharme said:


> Regarding tied notes, Dorico's handling of ties is because its representation of notes is the same as a DAW piano roll, where a tied note is a single rectangular object in the piano roll regardless of where it rhythmically starts/ends within the bar. This gives a lot of flexibility for making edits without things getting screwed up on you. You can use force duration to force a tie where it doesn't automatically want to create one, but this means that if changes are made to that section like the note being rhythmically shifted later or earlier, the ties will no longer be correct notation. Usually I would avoid using force duration until later in the process when I was reasonably sure I would not make further changes there.


Yeah, I don't get why people complain about it. It's exactly how it should be done and one of the best things about Dorico.


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## Marcus Millfield (Nov 28, 2022)

mducharme said:


> Usually I would avoid using force duration until later in the process when I was reasonably sure I would not make further changes there.





janwilke said:


> Yeah, I don't get why people complain about it. It's exactly how it should be done and one of the best things about Dorico.



That is true until you are certain you want to have a tie "against the Dorico standard" and it's become a chore. I'm writing a piece where I need force duration all the time. I think this is a good example:






I want the conductor to have the freedom to conduct first two beats a tempo and then hold the fermata.


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## mducharme (Nov 28, 2022)

Marcus Millfield said:


> That is true until you are certain you want to have a tie "against the Dorico standard" and it's become a chore. I'm writing a piece where I need force duration all the time.


Yeah, I'm not saying that you never have to use force duration, or that it doesn't get annoying in some situations. Another example is where you have something like a whole note with p<f>p underneath and you want to clarify where the "f" arrives by dividing it into two tied half notes. But these are things that could be addressed with future updates without needing force duration. For instance, I had previously asked to add an option for dynamics "split long note value to clarify arrival point". If you could choose such an option for my example with the "f" in the middle, then it could automatically change the whole note into two tied half notes without force duration. Then, you could even move the "f" to the left or right and have the tied notes and their values automatically adjust to the new arrival of the "f". The same thing could work for your fermata example.

These are instances where the underlying data structure that Steinberg has selected makes more sense in the long run, because these are still possible.

This can be taken in contrast to something like MuseScore, where a lot of fans feel that it will eventually become DAW-like as well. The big issue here is that MuseScore to my knowledge still has the underlying data model where everything is measure-based. This means that certain operations in a DAW, like adjusting a time signature for a measure without changing the actual length of the measure, would not really be possible. Even moving notes left and right a bit is going to require re-notation, and if the program is actually storing literal values for the components of the notes in the same manner as Dorico's force duration, this would be extremely hard to implement in a reliable way.

Steinberg is playing the long game here, by representing the notation similar to a DAW in terms of data structure, in the knowledge that that will make Dorico more capable as a DAW-like solution, offer better integration with Cubase, and simply allow more flexibility for rapid changes. The downside is, until they have implemented automatic functionality to handle things like breaking a long note into ties to show the arrival of a dynamic, or your fermata example, it can be slightly more of a pain in the meantime.


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## Marcus Millfield (Nov 28, 2022)

mducharme said:


> Steinberg is playing the long game here, by representing the notation similar to a DAW in terms of data structure, in the knowledge that that will make Dorico more capable as a DAW-like solution, offer better integration with Cubase, and simply allow more flexibility for rapid changes. The downside is, until they have implemented automatic functionality to handle things like breaking a long note into ties to show the arrival of a dynamic, or your fermata example, it can be slightly more of a pain in the meantime.



I get it's probably not feasible for them to somehow make an option to disconnect the notation from the underlying "DAW" data structure. I'm not looking for Dorico as a DAW replacement (yet anyway), but do want to use it as my primary notation platform. The workflow is logical given your explanation, but still is a bit of a, let's say learning curve for notation purists.

So for now, I'll hit "O" before "T" probably a lot more in my writing.


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## Daryl (Nov 29, 2022)

Marcus Millfield said:


> That is true until you are certain you want to have a tie "against the Dorico standard" and it's become a chore. I'm writing a piece where I need force duration all the time. I think this is a good example:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This sort of thing is very common in film music, where cresendos and diminuendos have to start or finish at specific places. I'd have to check, but the method I've posted earlier on solves this, and you could even set a macro to make it even quicker.

I can't see how it could be any quicker. How do you think it should work?


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## Marcus Millfield (Nov 29, 2022)

Daryl said:


> I can't see how it could be any quicker. How do you think it should work?


Your suggestion was indeed the fastest.

How it should work... Well, seeing the excellent point @mducharme made about not screwing up your notation if you move something I don't think they could've done a better job. Personally I would wish for an option where you could toggle all the hand-holding features on or off. I get this probably isn't feasable.


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## Daryl (Nov 29, 2022)

Marcus Millfield said:


> Your suggestion was indeed the fastest.
> 
> How it should work... Well, seeing the excellent point @mducharme made about not screwing up your notation if you move something I don't think they could've done a better job. Personally I would wish for an option where you could toggle all the hand-holding features on or off. I get this probably isn't feasable.


Perhaps you could explain what you would like to do, as there may be a way to achieve this.


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## Marcus Millfield (Nov 29, 2022)

Daryl said:


> Perhaps you could explain what you would like to do, as there may be a way to achieve this.


Thank you, but I'm already set for now. All you kind folks here have given me enough insights for now


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## ptram (Nov 29, 2022)

Marcus Millfield said:


>


Dorico 4.3 lets the Force Duration option remain on during the full input session. So, you can do the above by just entering input mode, enabling Force Duration, entering the first minim, typing 'T' for Tie, and then entering the second minim.

Paolo


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