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DORICO 3: finally a perfect match of notation and virtual instruments / sample libraries playback.

The whitelist is only needed for VST2 instruments and effects, not VST3 instruments and effects. Unfortunately most vendors have not yet updated to VST3.
Ah! I was wondering what C-wave was on about, but then I realised that I use VE Pro to host everything so I hadn't noticed this issue...

So far the playback support has seemed ad hoc, incremental, inconsistent, incomplete, not well thought out and quite frankly broken. I'm concerned that they don't have someone with the deep understanding of what's needed as they obviously do with the notation side.

Although I totally support your feelings and conclusions I do not agree with your statement. Incomplete, hardly and broke most certainly not... I was already able to do quality mock-ups in version 2, as long as the instruments used didn't require velocity edits (I used transformers or other CCs for pitch bend). In version 3 I'll agree that it's a pain in the arse and everything else I mentioned in my review above, but you can certainly do everything! Which is nothing something that's possible on any other program in existence at the moment...

Dorico's play window is annoying, buggy, unintuitive, awful and badly designed, but it gets the job done, it doesn't crash (never had one), freeze or get weird on me, it's just really uncomfortable to work with... But it's been said already, it's a notation program first and considering the speed of improvements on that side, my guess is that they're leaving themselves space for future improvements. The DAW level of features is probably reserved for when they have completely overtaken all the other competitors in the notation market...
 
Dorico also has built in playback of things like microtonal accidentals in a single chord, which VST3 makes possible due to note expression. I would rather manufacturers update their products to VST3 to allow for use of these microtonal accidentals instead of staying on VST2 where they are either unusable or have to be placed on separate tracks and pitchbend used for microtones.
 
Dorico also has built in playback of things like microtonal accidentals in a single chord, which VST3 makes possible due to note expression. I would rather manufacturers update their products to VST3 to allow for use of these microtonal accidentals instead of staying on VST2 where they are either unusable or have to be placed on separate tracks and pitchbend used for microtones.
Actually, Dorico supports microtuning per-note for VST2 as well. But I don’t know if any instruments besides NotePerformer supports it.
 
Functionality can be argued, mostly can get the job done.. but nobody should deny that the Play tab interface is certainly half baked, including VST management. So very upset as far as "usability" (U/X) is concerned when it comes to the *Play* tab.
As mentioned above Steinberg prides itself in the usability of Dorico.. I'd like to see them bring the Play tab to the same level of usability, without me having to wait another year amd shed another $113 (Canada here.. Steinberg makes us pay extra here for the love).
 
Actually, Dorico supports microtuning per-note for VST2 as well. But I don’t know if any instruments besides NotePerformer supports it.

Thanks for this information, Arne, I didn't realize. How did they accomplish this with VST2? My understanding is normally with VST2 the only way you can do it is with pitchbend which affects everything on the channel. Do they split the chord across multiple channels dynamically when such a chord is encountered and a single pitchbend doesn't work for the entire thing?
 
Thanks for this information, Arne, I didn't realize. How did they accomplish this with VST2? My understanding is normally with VST2 the only way you can do it is with pitchbend which affects everything on the channel. Do they split the chord across multiple channels dynamically when such a chord is encountered and a single pitchbend doesn't work for the entire thing?
No, there’s actually a variable called ”detune” that accompanies the MIDI message in VST2. It specifies the detune for that note in cents (-63 to +64 cents). It’s always been there in the VST2 standard, but I don’t know of other hosts that support it.
 
I don't believe that for a second. VST2 was not supported because Steinberg is on a mission to force everyone to VST3 and is trying to move in that direction by having this new product never support VST2 in the first place. Obviously, given the state of the plugin market and lackluster adoption of VST3, that's untenable, thus this whitelist nonsense.

Dorico uses an external Cubase-derived process to host VSTs and certainly Steinberg can do VST2 stably: they invented the tech and Cubase can do it. The Dorico team has been saddled with some corporate strategy here, there's no technical reason - they didn't feel like spending effort supporting VST2. But of course they can, and the whitelist proves it.

FYI, there is this older post from Daniel @ Sibelius (https://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=97323):

Daniel at Steinberg said:
As for VST 2 support, we may whitelist a few VST 2 instruments that we know are well-behaved, but my colleagues in Hamburg tell me that one of the leading causes of crashes and other problems in Cubase is due to VST 2 plug-ins. Across Steinberg we are really strongly trying to encourage adoption of VST 3 and so we want to set off on the right foot with Dorico.

I think Kontakt is the canonical example of a well-behaved VST 2 plug-in, so it would be on the short whitelist of VST 2 plug-ins that Dorico would load without complaint. This, at least, is certainly what I have discussed with my colleagues who are working on the audio engine for us.
 
Is the crossgrade option from Sibelius no longer available? It's mentioned on the Buy page but when I try to make the purchase, the verification options don't include Sibelius. No answer from Steinberg support.

Just to clarify, there is currently a problem in the system where the option "Dorico Crossgrade" instead reads "Dorico Crossgrade from Finale". The incorrectly labeled "from Finale" is actually the crossgrade from all qualifying competing products.
 
Yes, you are certainly correct in that. By default when you start a new project in Dorico, it is atonal. But when importing MusicXML you have to force atonal in that way (at least I have experienced that). Otherwise you can't get rid of the pre-existing key signature.

Well, yes and no. I finally have time now to demo Dorico, and I notice that when you alt-up/down arrow to move notes on a stave, it moves them diatonically in C major even if you haven't chosen a key! That is really bad - just like Sibelius 6. There's another key command (alt shift?) to move them chromatically, but really, chromatic should be the default (even if you *are* in a key). I don't understand this. It just seems like one of those unwelcome 'suggestions' - bad bits of 'help' you never wanted, and that get in the way rather than helping. Like iMovie. Why would they do this? You can't add bars until you choose a meter, which is logical, so why would you default to a key before choosing one?

I also really miss the scrubbing of the whole score like Finale had 10 years ago. I know not everyone cares about this, but if you're a composer it's a great feature, and a genuinely new capability compared to pencil, paper, and piano. Up thread someone says even Sibelius has this now although I don't think it's the same - you have to select what you want to scrub (which has good and bad points I suppose). In Finale, you just held (I think) the shift key and dragged across the score at any speed. Really fast and brilliant.

While Dorico is a bit on the buggy side, it also has lots of wonderful features - the reverse explode feature in D3 is really great, although it doesn't seem to work in realtime recording, which is too bad (unless I'm just wrong about that). The chord distributes across the staves pretty well on playback, but you don't hear all the instruments when you're playing. The 'Set up' and 'Write' UIs are really good - simple and logical. 'Play' is weird, but that's not a deal breaker for me. Haven't gotten to Engrave yet, but I expect that to be very good.

Quantizing playback of realtime entry notes is too fiddly - that should be simple (it's not) and more flexible, quantize-wise.

Dorico is an improvement on Sibelius and Finale for sure, but...it feels kind of stodgy or something. I know that's vague, but I guess I expected super responsive, lean code, and it feels...teetery and hesitant at times.

I have both Sibelius and Finale, so it's going to be worth the crossgrade price, and no doubt it will get better. It's a fine application, but doesn't feel like a breakthrough. Maybe it doesn't have to be.

oh well, my 2c

EDIT: Just to be clear, I want an application which is a tool for composition, not primarily an engraving app. I need good visual output, but I'm not a professional engraver like some of you. Good parts and scores are icing (very delicious icing!) on the cake for me. But fast, intuitive input and feedback is what I'm really after, and Dorico is not quite there yet - soon I hope.
 
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One of the few things I loved about the composition process in Finale was the ability to scrub an entire score
Dorico can't do it as in Finale. But you can change the Tempo Mode (metronome icon) to Fixed, and play back at a faster speed.

Paolo
 
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I realise that Dorico seems like a Mark 2 to Sibelius, considering the devs heritage, but to compare the two even to Finale at this stage is a bit premature. Once they reach version 5 or 6 let's see then. But it's still much newer in comparison. Finale and Sibelius have both had light years of development even if it's slowed to a snails pace.

Still compared to Finale which traps you in the measure, Dorico is like a walk in the park with much more freedom as I can vere off the path if I want. Something I found almost impossible with Finale. So if you're used to working with key commands then you can work quite fast in note entry.

Sure playback still requires a lot of work, but for engraving you can get almost there at speed and it has lots of configuration options to tweak your output without too much effort. And seeing as it looks in all likelihood as though Dorico is built on top of Cubase sound engine, I can only expect this area to improve over time.
 
In case someone is interested, I find Notion to be extremely convincing for making MIDI mockups ! The big downside is that there are almost no tutorials to show how deep you can go between this software and the sound libraries (and I don't have time to do that at the moment).

Here are some examples of mockups I made using Notion :







(I am not affiliated with or paid in any way by Notion, but I am just a happy and enthusiastic user of this software :) )


Matthieu
 
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For those talking about replacing the Cubase notation that actually isn't the best approach. The better way is to follow paradigm used elsewhere which is keeping the two large, complex applications separate but have a Live Link integration. This would simply be a plugin in Cubase (or integrated if Cubase doesn't support plugins) that creates a port that Dorico can communicate over, typically using JSON. This way you can have tight integration and synchronization, but without the messiness of trying to mash these two applications together. Additionally it doesn't obviate the simple notation for those who want it, and it also preserves revenue streams (e.g. no cannibalization) because people still have to buy the two applications for it to work.

Finally, it's not a terrifically difficult feature to add and could be done in one release cycle by a single engineer on both sides. I expect Steinberg will use this approach.
 
For those talking about replacing the Cubase notation that actually isn't the best approach. The better way is to follow paradigm used elsewhere which is keeping the two large, complex applications separate but have a Live Link integration. This would simply be a plugin in Cubase (or integrated if Cubase doesn't support plugins) that creates a port that Dorico can communicate over, typically using JSON. This way you can have tight integration and synchronization, but without the messiness of trying to mash these two applications together. Additionally it doesn't obviate the simple notation for those who want it, and it also preserves revenue streams (e.g. no cannibalization) because people still have to buy the two applications for it to work.

Finally, it's not a terrifically difficult feature to add and could be done in one release cycle by a single engineer on both sides. I expect Steinberg will use this approach.
They already implemented this with ARA technology. I believe they are going for the same in 11.0
 
They already implemented this with ARA technology. I believe they are going for the same in 11.0

Thanks, I wasn't familiar with ARA (Logic not Cubase user at the moment). However It doesn't look like ARA is the right technology here as it's really mean for audio unit plugins, not application plugins. The port/JSON I describe is heavily used in the 3D art industry which I also work in, for transfer of, for example, mesh and texture data between one application and another. Because the workflow over there is such that you often model in one program, texture in another and render in a third, each is purpose focused on its specialty. So the port/JSON interface hands off the data set from one to another as you work on an asset, which are so large typically they're stored on disk and just pointed to by the JSON.

In this case I think score musical data is much smaller than 3D models so could be directly sent over the port. But the idea would be that as you work on the score in Dorico, you hit a key to push the latest over to the Cubase project to update it, and then you can go in and tweak the mix in that application.
 
Thanks, I wasn't familiar with ARA (Logic not Cubase user at the moment). However It doesn't look like ARA is the right technology here as it's really mean for audio unit plugins, not application plugins. The port/JSON I describe is heavily used in the 3D art industry which I also work in, for transfer of, for example, mesh and texture data between one application and another. Because the workflow over there is such that you often model in one program, texture in another and render in a third, each is purpose focused on its specialty. So the port/JSON interface hands off the data set from one to another as you work on an asset, which are so large typically they're stored on disk and just pointed to by the JSON.

In this case I think score musical data is much smaller than 3D models so could be directly sent over the port. But the idea would be that as you work on the score in Dorico, you hit a key to push the latest over to the Cubase project to update it, and then you can go in and tweak the mix in that application.
Thanks for the update. I didn’t know.. btw, your love for the 3d industry is apprent.. Unreal developer/tech artist/game musician wanna be here :)
 
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