# Observations on Dorico (vs Sibelius)



## ScoringFilm (Jul 21, 2022)

I have been a daily Sibelius user since it's (Windows) inception around 1998. I had become extremely frustrated with its poor audio programing (overly complicated soundset setup, extremely poor latency, lack of midi editing via CC lane or keyboard). My (admittedly very large) orchestral template requires a buffer of 1024 just to work without dropouts.

Now that Dorico is a little more mature I thought I would give it a try and imported a large orchestral score from Sibelius as .xml and routed all the Kontakt instruments and VST FX accordingly.

*Dorico Positives:*

Audio latency is significantly improved and will run the same score/samples at a buffer as low as 32 without dropouts (although this is just for comparison; not for real world use!).

There are CC and keyboard editors; although it would be nice to be able to view more than one automation lane at a time.

The initial setup is relatively simple (i.e. route midi channel 1 of the mixer to midi channel 1 of the sampler without complex soundsets); however see below!

VST 3 support

*Negatives:*

There is (an acknowledged) bug which means that occasionally the audio only plays out of one channel, or complete audio feedback overload. A system restart seems to be the only way to resolve this; maybe something to do with not being able to recover the audio device/driver once another program has used it?

The playback appears to be streamlined for Halion, however this doesn't help if you want to use other VST instruments/samplers:

Dorico's instrument mixer (unlike Sibelius/Finale etc) is based on audio rather than midi; it requires that the instrument on channel 1 is on audio out 1, channel 2 on audio out 2 etc. This means that you have to setup a separate output for every instrument in kontakt to get it to solo/mute/fade. Not very intuitive at all and adds an extra unnecessary step to what was a fairly simple procedure. There is no way round this as there are no mute/solo buttons on the midi faders and there is no way to mute/solo individual instances of VST instruments.

Percussion staves are split into separate instruments/notes in the midi mixer - probably useful once time is spent programming, however would be nice to be able to turn off and keep the perc clef (but have one fader in the midi mixer).

It would be useful to be able to group instruments into families for audio fx/balance etc (maybe you can, I have just not discovered it yet!).

Getting VST2 plugins to be whitelisted (allowed) is a pollava as they keep moving back to the blacklisted (blocked) list.

There is still a noticeable latency when using a midi keyboard to input; although not anywhere near as bad as Sibelius.

*Conclusion:*

Whilst the significant improvement with audio latency and midi editing is a huge leap forward, moving from one overly complicated audio setup to another that requires timely setup is not worth the additional time needed to relearn a new program.

I will be sticking with Sibelius for now, simply for speed of use, until the above issues are resolved; maybe a couple more updates down the line.

*Edit:*

There is now a workaround for NotePerformer in Dorico to allow instruments to be routed to separate audio inputs:









Playback Template: Individual Mixer channels for NotePerformer


Hi all, I’m attaching a Playback Template that creates separate outputs / mixer channels for all NotePerformer instruments that show up in Dorico’s Project Templates. To do this without overloading the system, all the endpoints have the Instrument and Master reverb settings set to 0. Reverb...




forums.steinberg.net


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## Pieman (Jul 21, 2022)

Hi scoringfilm

If you want to edit midi cc in Sibelius..trust me, you want to check out the graphical midi tools plugin from Santiago Barx.

Works in a very similar way to a DAW, and lets you automate anything you like.






Graphical MIDI Tools 2: Plugin for Sibelius


This plugin adds a piano roll to Sibelius allowing you to edit MIDI (CC automation curves, velocities and notes) and create great sounding scores.




www.graphicalmiditools.com





Get a demo license and check it out, 

Hope it helps mate

Kindest

Paul


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## pinki (Jul 21, 2022)

Audio buffer of 32?
Why would you want that? That is extremely low! Maybe back that off and see if it sorts things out? I don’t know Dorico but my DAW has a buffer of 256 or even 512 for playback and 64 or 128 for recording.


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## ScoringFilm (Jul 22, 2022)

Pieman said:


> If you want to edit midi cc in Sibelius..trust me, you want to check out the graphical midi tools plugin from Santiago Barx.


Thanks Paul, I'll check it out


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## ScoringFilm (Jul 22, 2022)

pinki said:


> Audio buffer of 32?
> Why would you want that? That is extremely low! Maybe back that off and see if it sorts things out? I don’t know Dorico but my DAW has a buffer of 256 or even 512 for playback and 64 or 128 for recording.


The audio buffer size was set as a comparative analysis to prove a point; not for real world use!


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## ed buller (Jul 22, 2022)

Dorico works best with another program hosting your samples like VSL VEpro. There you can solo what you want. You can also chose to have seperate outputs in your VST rack IF you want it hosted in Dorico. That's up to you. I'd also set the buffer no lower than 256. 

Best

e


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## ScoringFilm (Jul 22, 2022)

ed buller said:


> Dorico works best with another program hosting your samples like VSL VEpro. There you can solo what you want. You can also chose to have seperate outputs in your VST rack IF you want it hosted in Dorico.
> 
> Best
> 
> e


Thanks Ed, I get that however it would be a nice to have at least solo/mute on the midi mixer in Dorico which would save a lot of setup time for every new instrument.


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## ed buller (Jul 22, 2022)

Huh ?

there is, at least on mine

best

e


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## ScoringFilm (Jul 22, 2022)

Ed, your mixer is showing 'instruments' which uses the audio output(s) of the VST instrument. If you click 'midi' at the top of the mixer and scroll to the midi faders you will see that there is no mute/solo.
i.e. you can mute/solo the audio signal (as long as each instrument has its own output) but you cannot mute/solo the midi signal.





Also not a fan of all these extra percussion faders (one for each key) rather than just one fader for the instrument:


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## ed buller (Jul 22, 2022)

ScoringFilm said:


> Ed, your mixer is showing 'instruments' which uses the audio output(s) of the VST instrument. If you click 'midi' at the top of the mixer and scroll to the midi faders you will see that there is no mute/solo.
> i.e. you can mute/solo the audio signal (as long as each instrument has its own output) but you cannot mute/solo the midi signal.
> 
> 
> ...


ahh...sorry. with you now. You can on the score page

best

e


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## ScoringFilm (Jul 22, 2022)

ed buller said:


> ahh...sorry. with you now. You can on the score page
> 
> best
> 
> e


Sorry Ed, you can what on the score page?


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## ed buller (Jul 22, 2022)

solo and mute, And you can solo and mute on the play page too, as THAT info is midi

best

e


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## ScoringFilm (Jul 23, 2022)

ed buller said:


> solo and mute, And you can solo and mute on the play page too, as THAT info is midi
> 
> best
> 
> e


Not seeing this at all Ed (on either page!)


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## ed buller (Jul 23, 2022)

Right here:





best

e


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## ed buller (Jul 23, 2022)

Actually My Bad. That page doesn't seem to solo the instrument !. But the score page definitely does . Just select a bar of the instrument you want soloed then it plays on it's on. You can also select multiple instrinest on this page too. You can also MUTE instruments here as well. I hope that helps

e


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## ScoringFilm (Jul 24, 2022)

ed buller said:


> Just select a bar of the instrument you want soloed then it plays on it's on.


OK, that worked; thanks Ed. Still not found any mute on the score page though!


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## ed buller (Jul 24, 2022)

Muting notes/items individually


You can mute individual notes and items to exclude them from playback without deleting them, for example, to hear chords without their arpeggios or hear a passage with multiple dynamics at a single volume level.




 steinberg.help





best

e


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## Vik (Jul 24, 2022)

Are there still things Sibelius could do for a long time which Dorico hasn't caught up with yet? I bought Dorico 1 some years ago assuming that it would contain all important goodies from Sibelius, but found that several of things I liked the most in Sibelius wasn't in there yet – for instance the ability to hear the change in real time when use a key command to transpose a note on a chord track up or down – including all the chord notes. Example: If the chord is C E G, and I want C E G#, I could select G and move it upwards without grabbing the mouse, and this would let me hear all three notes (C E G#) if I transposed the G up a semitone. That's a function that would be nice to have both in the score editor and the piano roll, including when the notes were using piano staff. I miss many such functions in Logic, which was one of the main reasons behind my interest in Dorico. 

Dorico was announced almost 10 years ago, but has it caught up with all the stuff Sibelius could do now? Is there an Idea Bank for user ideas, for example?


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## Robin (Jul 24, 2022)

Vik said:


> Are there still things Sibelius could do for a long time which Dorico hasn't caught up with yet? I bought Dorico 1 some years ago assuming that it would contain all important goodies from Sibelius, but found that several of things I liked the most in Sibelius wasn't in there yet – for instance the ability to hear the change in real time when use a key command to transpose a note on a chord track up or down – including all the chord notes. Example: If the chord is C E G, and I want C E G#, I could select G and move it upwards without grabbing the mouse, and this would let me hear all three notes (C E G#) if I transposed the G up a semitone. That's a function that would be nice to have both in the score editor and the piano roll, including when the notes were using piano staff. I miss many such functions in Logic, which was one of the main reasons behind my interest in Dorico.
> 
> Dorico was announced almost 10 years ago, but has it caught up with all the stuff Sibelius could do now? Is there an Idea Bank for user ideas, for example?


Depends on how you define "catch up". It does many things better than Sibelius, so in some cases Sibelius hasn't caught up to Dorico yet, but there are also things that are trickier to impossible to do in Dorico. The fact that Sibelius in many regards is a "dumb glyph processor" and Dorico has a semantic understanding of what it is doing makes it trickier to fake certain things with it. (e.g some sort of modernist notation) If you expect Dorico to be Sibelius just better you will be disappointed as the approach Dorico takes is radically different. I appreciate a lot that Dorico doesn't try to rebuild Sibelius but tries to find fundamentally better solutions to problems. For general notation within the most common areas of it, there is hardly anything that Dorico can't do that Sibelius can.

Regarding your wish to play all notes of a chord if you edit it: there has been an option for this for a long time that you can toggle on or off. In fact alot of the complaints one reads by former Sibelius/Finale users are easily resolved by just going through the possible options that Dorico provides.

https://steinberg.help/dorico/v3/en..._input_selection_chords_all_individual_t.html


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## ed buller (Jul 24, 2022)

Vik said:


> Are there still things Sibelius could do for a long time which Dorico hasn't caught up with yet? I bought Dorico 1 some years ago assuming that it would contain all important goodies from Sibelius, but found that several of things I liked the most in Sibelius wasn't in there yet – for instance the ability to hear the change in real time when use a key command to transpose a note on a chord track up or down – including all the chord notes. Example: If the chord is C E G, and I want C E G#, I could select G and move it upwards without grabbing the mouse, and this would let me hear all three notes (C E G#) if I transposed the G up a semitone. That's a function that would be nice to have both in the score editor and the piano roll, including when the notes were using piano staff. I miss many such functions in Logic, which was one of the main reasons behind my interest in Dorico.
> 
> Dorico was announced almost 10 years ago, but has it caught up with all the stuff Sibelius could do now? Is there an Idea Bank for user ideas, for example?


you shouldn't forget that the DORICO team is made up of people who wrote Sibelius. They ARE trying ( and in my mind have ) taken it a lot further !

best


e


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## Vik (Jul 24, 2022)

Sure, I know that D can do a lot of stuff S couldn't do, has some great functionality which S maybe never will get, looks better and more. And since I had bought Dorico 1 and spent a good amount of time sorting it out, I monitored for quite some time what was implemented, and asked questions over at Steinberg's Dorico forum and so on. They surely have taken D some steps ahead of S in many areas, but last time I checked, there was still many things I missed (and certain things I found very cumbersome).

Regarding this:

"Playing all/individual notes in chords during note input/selection​You can change your default setting for whether all notes in chords are played when you select any note in the chord or whether only the selected notes are played.
Prerequisite​Notes are played during note input/selection.
Procedure​
Press Ctrl/Cmd-, (comma) to open Preferences.
Click Note Input and Editing in the page list.
In the Note Input section, activate/deactivate Play all notes in chord when any is selected in the Auditioningsubsection.
Click Apply, then Close.
Result​When the option is activated, all notes in chords are played when any note in the chord is selected. When it is deactivated, only the selected notes are played."



What I'm looking for is not only if the notes are played when they are selected or during input, but if all chord notes, as an option, are played every time you use a key command to edit one of them. 
Even Logic now has a function which offer that function if you drag them with a mouse, but it doesn't work in the piano roll, not when using Piano Clef, and not when using a key command to transpose notes. 

I've also severely been missing something similar when going to the next note or chord in the timeline: I want to optionally hear the full chord when going to th next note (if that note is part of a chord). For the records, I also find this kind of speed editong cumbersome in Logic too, and stopped exploring Cubase for a few reasons; the many lacking features I had hoped to see in Dorico wasn't in there, and didn't pop up as long as I was reading lists of new Dorico features.


If there's a list somewhere of all the Dorico key commands somewhere, I should probably check out - if they have names/descriptions which are self-explanatory.


Btw, are titles still edited this way?


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## ed buller (Jul 24, 2022)

Titles are include in "project info" tab. So Command+I . Then type what you want

best


e


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