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There was a recent update and they emailed me another 30 day evaluation license unsolicited. Not yet for me but progress is being made.

Till then, I still use Encore for note entry and export to Finale.

I recently finished a project in Overture 5. It was easy to get it 98% there and a time consuming PIA to get it the rest of the way. Ov5 is still a work in progress with a few too many issues to be worked out with layout and text. Don releases updates about one a month so I go back to it to check progress now and then. It’s further along than Dorico, but also not ready for prime time, IMO. Lead sheets are easy and MusicXML import is pretty good, however.

Dorico 1.2 has lot of improvements over 1.1 so I started using it to compose a new piece.

One of its great strengths is that I finally am freed from the tyranny of the barline. With Dorico I can just start writing and then later decide how to bar it. Dorico also makes it easy to try different meters to see which meter fits the melody best. Dorico really seems to be designed for composers rather than engravers although it has very sophisticated and easy page layout tools.

Dorico still lacks almost all the sophisticated transformation tools I use in Sibelius but one tool that shows the direction the program is heading is the Lengthen/Shorten Duration by Grid Value. This makes it extremely easy to create heterophonic textures.

I can't dump Sibelius yet but I'm getting closer.

**Leigh

Thanks for that helpful review, Leigh.

My many attempts to get a trial license to evaluate, never received responses or links, even when looking at spam filters, so I gave up and decided I'd wait until I need to contact Steinberg about something else.

Quick update:

Been really enjoying Dorico. I've switched to it almost full-time now. I just did a recording session in Scotland of one my academic works (for young string players) and notated it entirely in Dorico. All of the music was composed in DP, notated in Dorico, click track in Pro Tools, mixed and mastered in Pro Tools:

Here's the recording session video: https://youtu.be/UTXfRAhLAV8

Working on a larger work with percussion right now and still trying to get a handle on the new percussion set-up in Dorico, but it has a lot of options which is great for personalizing the score & parts. I'm now pretty confident that I'll stick with Dorico for all my future projects.

Have there been any sales for cross-grades to Dorico? Maybe it's a bit premature for that. I'm just not confident that Steinberg customers will automatically receive news if one happens, so if any Dorico owners here take note of a special sale, let us know.

I'm at a specific point where I need reliable notation, and Finale is still quirky for me and the main remaining reason I'm afraid to upgrade to High Sierra with so many open projects that need to be finished soon.

Out of the blue, I got asked to do some clarinet and bass clarinet session work recently, and the parts were all delivered as Finale files, so I'll be opening them later tonight and working on transpositions and the like, while deciding which clarinet voicing to use for each (I have a Bass Clarinet, G, Bb, C, and Eb).

Probably I will try to resave everything as Music XML just to be safe, in case Finale fails to launch (an occasional problem) when I most need it!

Cross-grade info here: https://www.steinberg.net/en/shop/buy_p ... orico.html

**Leigh

Hoo, it keeps going UP in price! Last I checked, cross-grade was $249, now it's $279! A bit rich for a new app that isn't fully fleshed out yet, considering how a Sibelius cross-grade is half that price (and my cross-grade from Notion to Finale was around $180 or less).

I'll at least wait for the next version, to improve the bang-for-buck ratio. Maybe they'll have a sale like they just did for WaveLab Pro.

I did Music XML exports of the full scores to the heavily orchestrated indie pop album I've been asked to contribute bass clarinet and clarinet parts to (they're written; I need to learn them and record them), but they won't open in Notion.

If I try yet again to get a demo copy of Dorico (all previous efforts failed to receive a response, even in spam), should I expect to be able to import these files as a sanity check?

Any hints on successful export of Music XML from Finale for picking up the work in Dorico? These parts don't have markings, at least, so may have started as MIDI. But I do need to do some transpositions and clef changes, as well as custom note naming, and it would be good to do that trial in Dorico.

mhschmieder wrote:I did Music XML exports of the full scores to the heavily orchestrated indie pop album I've been asked to contribute bass clarinet and clarinet parts to (they're written; I need to learn them and record them), but they won't open in Notion.

If I try yet again to get a demo copy of Dorico (all previous efforts failed to receive a response, even in spam), should I expect to be able to import these files as a sanity check?

Any hints on successful export of Music XML from Finale for picking up the work in Dorico? These parts don't have markings, at least, so may have started as MIDI. But I do need to do some transpositions and clef changes, as well as custom note naming, and it would be good to do that trial in Dorico.

Make certain that you export as .xml — it’s in the export menu but no longer the default since 25.3. Notion does not support MusicXML 3.1 (yet?).

I have no idea if Dorico supports MusicXML 3.1 yet but that is your problem.

With Dorico 1.2 I've had no problems importing MusicXML files exported from Finale 2014.5 and Sibelius | Ultimate using the latest version of the Dolet plugin as recommended by Mike H.

I've now exported almost all of my Finale and Sibelius scores to MusicXML and so soon should be free of it and Sibelius.

Here's an example of how responsive the development team is:
https://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewto ... 1a#p739508

**Leigh

Cool -- I'll act on this once back from Boston family visit in a few days. I doubt I'll have time tonight, but I may at least check the Finale menu options to see if I used the "wrong one" for export.

Good to know about Dorico team responsiveness. I'm pretty certain I'll be making that migration soon (which for me means before 2020).

Here's a thread about MusicXML3.1 and Finale
https://makemusic.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/ ... -4-problem

or just look for this in Preferences for Finale 25:



Finale before 25.4 exports MusicXML 3.0.

Ah -- that's what I thought. Thanks for posting. Shutting down and leaving for my flight now, so will check back in a few days.

I have verified that those are my preferences (I probably did this earlier and forgot). I'll probably wait to re-try MusicXML import when I do a Dorico eval download.

Dorico v2 has been announced. It adds lots of new features, including composing for video.

https://youtu.be/hKaqprDhslU