# Building a Custom Dorico Film Template



## jmm (Apr 17, 2020)

Hey all! I'm putting together a series for tutorial videos for Dorico. Specifically these vids focus on how to make a proper "recording score" template with big time sigs, boxed bar numbers etc. It's mainly geared towards film scoring and is slightly biased towards people coming from Sibelius (as I did). 

I hope someone finds it helpful. Lemme know if you have any questions!


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## jmm (Apr 17, 2020)

Big sigs are easy. It's basically a box that you tick. I was preparing a lesson on it and then realized it took 10 seconds. Oh well. And I know exactly what you mean about how fussy they are in Sib! I remember notes getting nudged into the sig and turning it invisible.

As of a recent update, there are lines and a line editor. It's great. Not as much freedom as Sib but that's kind of the Dorico concept...limit people's freedom to make dubious engraving decisions. The way lines work in D is brilliant but you're not able to grab, say, a glissando line and extend it diagonally across the entire score.

I'm currently exploring ways to write those "aleatoric boxes" that film composers are so in love with. Another thing that's simple (ish) in Sib and weird in Dorico.


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## Woodie1972 (Apr 17, 2020)

Great that you did this! I will watch your video this weekend.


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## rudi (Apr 18, 2020)

Thank you for your clear and useful videos.
Watching them now!


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## devonmyles (Apr 18, 2020)

Thank you for the videos. I'm new to Dorico (coming over from Finale). So at the moment, I will be getting my eyes and ears around any thing video related...


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## Maximvs (Apr 18, 2020)

Even though I have not yet made the switch to Dorico, I appreciate your generosity in sharing this video series.

Best regards,

Max T.


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## bryla (Apr 18, 2020)

The way Dorico handles players and instruments is a game changer and how it sees notes as chunks that the notational grid is laid upon is genious.

Condensing is amazing but still not there but the way the bracketing works together with the large time signatures is unfortunately a too great of a drawback to be taken seriously for the 'film music' style of engraving. 

In your example this can be seen in the keyboard and guitar parts in the score.

In a couple of years it will probably be my primary notation app but unfortunately not yet.

Thanks for warning on the rambling. Put the playback speed at 1.25


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## jmm (Apr 22, 2020)

bryla said:


> Condensing is amazing but still not there but the way the bracketing works together with the large time signatures is unfortunately a too great of a drawback to be taken seriously for the 'film music' style of engraving.



Actually, I just didn't have the right box ticked . I'm still learning! I'm putting together an entire video on time signatures today.


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## bryla (Apr 22, 2020)

Still that box doesn’t work when dealing with large film scores. But they are the most serious developer so I’m sure they will fix these things in the coming versions


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## jmm (Apr 22, 2020)

Oh totally, there are still plenty of things that can be done in Sib and Finale that are impractical/impossible in Dorico. Like goddam, I wish I could just make any item on the score invisible. And put boxes around notes...etc etc


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## altruistica (May 2, 2020)

I thought you could make just about anything invisible by selecting the item, expanding the bottom panel and it usually gives a slider that gives options of 'show' and 'hide'. Although I used Sibelius up until version 5 I don't use notation every day, but have just got back into Dorico after about a year's lapse.. When I saw how it handled parts and players in 2016, I knew this was the package for the next ten years.


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## jmm (May 2, 2020)

altruistica said:


> it usually gives a slider that gives options of 'show' and 'hide'.



There are a fair number of things that can get hidden with the tick of a box but there are many others for which you need to employ workarounds. Fermatas come to mind.


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## PAS (Aug 20, 2020)

jmm said:


> Hey all! I'm putting together a series for tutorial videos for Dorico. Specifically these vids focus on how to make a proper "recording score" template with big time sigs, boxed bar numbers etc. It's mainly geared towards film scoring and is slightly biased towards people coming from Sibelius (as I did).
> 
> I hope someone finds it helpful. Lemme know if you have any questions!




John, this is the most helpful series I've found on the subject. I'm a long-time Sibelius user, so I needed a little jump start for film score engraving in Dorico. Thanks for that! I hope you'll keep making videos just like these.

And to be honest, I'd pay money for a Dorico film scoring tutorial series once you'd completed it. Something to think about. I think a lot of people would be looking for something like that.


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