Dorico - An Ongoing Journey
Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2017 11:56 am
Just thought I'd start a thread posting my experiences with Dorico. I am a long-time Finale user and still use it for many of my projects. But Steinberg had a ridiculous deal for educational crossgrade pricing (which was great for me as I am both a music teacher and Finale user).
I knew jumping in that Dorico would not be ready for all of my projects on day one, but I've been ready to ditch Finale for years now and I despise Sibelius, so I thought Dorico would be worth a shot. I've also been paying close attention to the forums and the Dorico team is definitely making a concentrated effort to update the program with features that the masses want.
My goal for this thread is to post updates on my journey with Dorico so those interested can also get some first-hand experience on my journey. My background is that I am a self-published concert music composer (contemporary classical) that uses DP to compose, then notates that music in Finale. My latest project is a string orchestra work that I decided to notate entirely in Dorico.
Note: I do not use playback in Finale or Dorico at all. As I mentioned before, I compose almost entirely in DP and then copy that over to my notation program. I prefer to work this way
Good Things:
- I like the interface a lot. It's well thought-out and very intelligent.
- The overall workflow is very nice and quick. Using key commands to enter dynamics, articulations, and expressive text is miles beyond what Finale uses. I find myself not having to switch tools like I would in Finale and rather just enter several things using keyboard shortcuts and smart text entries.
- The customization on the way Dorico lays out the music is one of the most expansive things I've seen. The nice thing about this is that if I see something I don't like, I can change it in the settings and it will do it the way I want it for every project afterwards. For example, I found the staff-lines to be a bit thick and the noteheads to be a bit skinny. Went into the settings and Bam, fixed them to what I liked.
- Dorico does a very good job of making sure things don't collide. It's like a Sibelius system, but way smarter. And miles beyond Finale.
- The interface is much faster smoother and faster than Finale. It's weird being able to scroll so smoothly through a project when coming from Finale!
- You can customize any and every keyboard shortcut. Don't like the way something is laid out? Just go into the settings and change it.
- The way pages are laid out is very intelligent. Dorico uses "frames" to lay out things like titles, composer, etc. You can edit the frames easily to make sure they are consistent across your scores and parts.
- I find that I have to do about 400% ( ) less tweaking than Finale. Dorico just knows how to lay stuff out right.
- Tuplets: Tuplets are way easier in Dorico. You just press ";" and enter the ratio you want (based on the note you have selected) and it creates that tuplet.
Not-So-Good Things:
- The Learning Curve: Holy moly, after using Finale for 16 years, Dorico is a whole bucket of new. Everything is intuitive in Dorico, but, in some instances, very different than Finale. Just gotta re-program this brain.
- Working with larger scores: If I'm writing for concert band or full orchestra, I'm still using Finale. Not being able to add large time signatures or make one staff break into multiple printed parts (i.e. two flute parts on one stave) is not workable right now. You can have multiple voices (aka Finale layers) on one stave, but having them split into two separate printed parts doesn't work yet. The Dorico team says they're working on this though and will probably update it within the next year with something they think will be huge game changer. And Finale wasn't great at this anyways.
- Note-Entry: While not bad, its more Sibelius-y than Finale-y. I use a MIDI keyboard and use simple entry in Finale but in Dorico I have to select things like dots before I enter a note. Just a bit different. Editing notes after entry, however, it a lot easier in Dorico than Finale.
- Figuring out which tool is where: There are three primary modes in Dorico: Setup, Write, and Engrave. Setup is fairly straightforward, but Write and Engrave are a new concept to me. They pretty much separate the composing process from the engraving process. But things like moving one measure from one system to the next has to be done in Engraving mode. Now this doesn't mess anything up in Write mode, and is actually fairly quick to do, but just a little bit more effort than Finale (where I could just select a bar and press the down arrow to shift that measure).
- Dongle - Yes, Dorico uses Steinberg's standard e-Licenser dongle. If you have it installed on one computer, it'll use the software, but this is a pain in the butt if I want to work on the go. Now, I don't do a lot of notation on the road so its a bit a of mute point for me, but its still something that a lot of people have trouble with.
- Other small missing features: Things like string harmonics can't be done easily and don't look quite right. When printing, the built-in print menu doesn't show my custom paper sizes (I can get around this using macOS's standard print dialog). And there are other small things here and there.
Overall, I really like Dorico. I think once some of the larger score elements are there I'll start working in it more. For now, I'm reserving it for small projects like this string orchestra one. I also think that the Dorico team is dedicated to making this the best program out there and seem to be trying really hard to make it better and better. Their upcoming 1.1 update is packed full of more updates than you've seen in the last 5 years of Finale updates. And with all of the shakeup and lackluster updates in Finale, I'm ready to jump ship when the Dorico boat sails in full.
I'll keep updating this thread every few months to update people on the happenings of switching to the dark side. Hope it helps!
I knew jumping in that Dorico would not be ready for all of my projects on day one, but I've been ready to ditch Finale for years now and I despise Sibelius, so I thought Dorico would be worth a shot. I've also been paying close attention to the forums and the Dorico team is definitely making a concentrated effort to update the program with features that the masses want.
My goal for this thread is to post updates on my journey with Dorico so those interested can also get some first-hand experience on my journey. My background is that I am a self-published concert music composer (contemporary classical) that uses DP to compose, then notates that music in Finale. My latest project is a string orchestra work that I decided to notate entirely in Dorico.
Note: I do not use playback in Finale or Dorico at all. As I mentioned before, I compose almost entirely in DP and then copy that over to my notation program. I prefer to work this way
Good Things:
- I like the interface a lot. It's well thought-out and very intelligent.
- The overall workflow is very nice and quick. Using key commands to enter dynamics, articulations, and expressive text is miles beyond what Finale uses. I find myself not having to switch tools like I would in Finale and rather just enter several things using keyboard shortcuts and smart text entries.
- The customization on the way Dorico lays out the music is one of the most expansive things I've seen. The nice thing about this is that if I see something I don't like, I can change it in the settings and it will do it the way I want it for every project afterwards. For example, I found the staff-lines to be a bit thick and the noteheads to be a bit skinny. Went into the settings and Bam, fixed them to what I liked.
- Dorico does a very good job of making sure things don't collide. It's like a Sibelius system, but way smarter. And miles beyond Finale.
- The interface is much faster smoother and faster than Finale. It's weird being able to scroll so smoothly through a project when coming from Finale!
- You can customize any and every keyboard shortcut. Don't like the way something is laid out? Just go into the settings and change it.
- The way pages are laid out is very intelligent. Dorico uses "frames" to lay out things like titles, composer, etc. You can edit the frames easily to make sure they are consistent across your scores and parts.
- I find that I have to do about 400% ( ) less tweaking than Finale. Dorico just knows how to lay stuff out right.
- Tuplets: Tuplets are way easier in Dorico. You just press ";" and enter the ratio you want (based on the note you have selected) and it creates that tuplet.
Not-So-Good Things:
- The Learning Curve: Holy moly, after using Finale for 16 years, Dorico is a whole bucket of new. Everything is intuitive in Dorico, but, in some instances, very different than Finale. Just gotta re-program this brain.
- Working with larger scores: If I'm writing for concert band or full orchestra, I'm still using Finale. Not being able to add large time signatures or make one staff break into multiple printed parts (i.e. two flute parts on one stave) is not workable right now. You can have multiple voices (aka Finale layers) on one stave, but having them split into two separate printed parts doesn't work yet. The Dorico team says they're working on this though and will probably update it within the next year with something they think will be huge game changer. And Finale wasn't great at this anyways.
- Note-Entry: While not bad, its more Sibelius-y than Finale-y. I use a MIDI keyboard and use simple entry in Finale but in Dorico I have to select things like dots before I enter a note. Just a bit different. Editing notes after entry, however, it a lot easier in Dorico than Finale.
- Figuring out which tool is where: There are three primary modes in Dorico: Setup, Write, and Engrave. Setup is fairly straightforward, but Write and Engrave are a new concept to me. They pretty much separate the composing process from the engraving process. But things like moving one measure from one system to the next has to be done in Engraving mode. Now this doesn't mess anything up in Write mode, and is actually fairly quick to do, but just a little bit more effort than Finale (where I could just select a bar and press the down arrow to shift that measure).
- Dongle - Yes, Dorico uses Steinberg's standard e-Licenser dongle. If you have it installed on one computer, it'll use the software, but this is a pain in the butt if I want to work on the go. Now, I don't do a lot of notation on the road so its a bit a of mute point for me, but its still something that a lot of people have trouble with.
- Other small missing features: Things like string harmonics can't be done easily and don't look quite right. When printing, the built-in print menu doesn't show my custom paper sizes (I can get around this using macOS's standard print dialog). And there are other small things here and there.
Overall, I really like Dorico. I think once some of the larger score elements are there I'll start working in it more. For now, I'm reserving it for small projects like this string orchestra one. I also think that the Dorico team is dedicated to making this the best program out there and seem to be trying really hard to make it better and better. Their upcoming 1.1 update is packed full of more updates than you've seen in the last 5 years of Finale updates. And with all of the shakeup and lackluster updates in Finale, I'm ready to jump ship when the Dorico boat sails in full.
I'll keep updating this thread every few months to update people on the happenings of switching to the dark side. Hope it helps!