Finale AND Dorico (maybe MuseScore, Notion Sibelius, etc. also)

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Epeedad
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Post by Epeedad » Wed Oct 20, 2021 7:18 pm

In response to Motet's suggestion, I'm starting this thread.

The purpose is to discuss the various capabilities and limitation of both of these programs and how we use them in our various workflows.

It will be very helpful to share our experiences as we go about our various notation projects. All of these programs have different strengths and weaknesses for various purposes.

I use Dorico, Notion and Finale for different purposes these days. They are all very useful in their own way for my purposes. Each represents a significant investment in time to master them but each has also paid off in productivity in its own way. I''ll think about it and in a separate post, I'll outline some of my experiences, maybe later today or tomorrow if I have some time.

Lets try to keep it positive and forget about being a fanboi for any one program.

Chris


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Michel R E
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Post by Michel R E » Wed Oct 20, 2021 8:25 pm

fine! well, I guess I can start off with a bit of my experience using it (Dorico) over the last couple of weeks.
Please ask me questions about functions/features so I can help you guys get a grasp of what can or cannot be done with Dorico, or things that are actually far easier in Dorico even if doable in Finale.

CAVEAT: I have worked on a score that is only for strings, so for the time being have very little experience with a full orchestral score.

Let me start off from very basic:

note entry. I use a MIDI keyboard. I was able to easily redefine the NumPad definitions for note durations to the same ones that I use in Finale.

So with a MIDI keyboard note entry is almost identical to doing so with Speedy Entry in Finale.

The first thing I noticed that has both advantages and a bit of annoyance is tuplets.
To enter a tuplet, you press the ; key first.
From this you define the tuplet you will be entering. all good so far.

They've made one shortcut very easy: a simple triplet. You just enter "3", then hit "enter".
Whatever note value is selected at the time will be the type of triplet you will create. so if quarter notes were selected previously as your note value, pressing ; then 3 would let you enter quarter note triplets.

One very nice thing is, even if you enter quarter notes as your value, when you launch the triplet you can start with a half note, or a series of eighth notes, and it WILL mark them as a triplet of quarter notes with those values within.

I DID say "annoyance" however, and it's a minor one. When you are finished entering a tuplet you actually have to "turn off" tuplet entry by pressing [shift] + ;
You DO get used to doing this, but it can get a bit tedious when you have a passage that regular jumps back and forth between non-tuplets and tuplet. For example, in my violin concerto there's a long passage of two 16th notes, followed by a triplet of 16th notes. this pattern repeats for pages. I HOPE there's an easier way of doing this than what I've been doing.

******************************************

Dorico doesn't "think" the way Finale does. you can start with a completely measureless system, no barlines, nothing, and just enter notes. To set a time signature you have to click the first beat and press [shift] + M (meter) to insert a time signature.

Any notes you may have already entered are then "fit" into that time signature. If any cross barlines, then they will be re-notated as tied notes across the barline.

This is one fun thing about Dorico: it automatically beams and breaks long values, to fit into time signatures and/or specific beat patterns (ie: breaking between beats 2 and 3 in 4/4, or creating a 3+2+3 subdivision in a time signature).

Any of this can be over-ridden by pressing the O key.

Bug/Deficiency warning: Dorico still has difficulty with its presets as to where to break or not break longer values in simple time signatures like 4/4. It will automatically allow quarter + half + quarter syncopation in a bar, but if you select this option, it will then ALSO automatically make all quarters that cross the mid-bar threshold into a single quarter instead of tied 8ths. If you select the option to have Dorico always break values at the mid-bar threshold, then you will have to manually force (press O) to create that ¼ + ½ + ¼ syncopation. It's an inconvenience, not a major bug, but it SHOULD be automatic considering what Dorico does do automatically.

************************************************
Dorico is VERY keyboard shortcut reliant. if you want to avoid having to grab things with the mouse from a menu on the side, you will need to use the shortcuts:
to enter a time signature: [shift] + M
to enter dynamics: [shift] + D
to enter playing techniques (for example, up bow, down bow, arco, pizz, mutes, etc...): [shift] + P

it goes on and on, and can get a bit frustrating trying to remember all the shortcuts.
thankfully, most are relatively easy and straightforward.

One GREAT thing that Dorico does is with dynamics.
You have a passage that starts piano, hairpins up to a forte?
Select the first and last note you want to apply this to, press [shift] + D, enter p<f, then [enter].
And voila, a beautifully aligned p with a hairpin to the f under your notes.

*************************************************
two things that are a pain in Finale: splitting staves for a divisi, and adding a few ossia measures

the first is ridiculously simple. click in a staff to select the beat where you want the divisi to start, right click the staff to open the context menu, select "staff", then "change divisi". from there you can create a new staff for your divisi and assign whether it will be a solo instrument or a division of the tutti. (obviously, talking mostly strings here)

creating measures of ossia is just as simple. and they look amazing. (see attached image)

***************************************************
as far as playback is concerned, it's almost as good as Finale when playing back the score "as is". Although it still has a few tiny bugs or things missing (for example, Dorico doesn't yet recognize fermatas for playback)

***************************************************
ok, ask questions, because I don't want to be writing a beginner's guide to Dorico.
Attachments
ossia_line.png
ossia_line.png (11.23 KiB) Viewed 11920 times
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miker
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Post by miker » Wed Oct 20, 2021 9:41 pm

Thanks for that, Michel and Chris!

Does Dorico have a "Simple Entry" mode, using numberpad and QWERTY keyboard?
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Michel R E
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Post by Michel R E » Wed Oct 20, 2021 10:13 pm

you can enter either from a MIDI keyboard or from the computer keyboard. They aren't separate modes like in Finale.

With Dorico you enter notes, articulations, dynamics, slurs, everything in one go, if you want. It's amazingly simple, from what I could tell. It's just not the note entry method for me.

In my case I find it a little too tedious to enter everything at once, so I'm more comfortable just entering notes, then doing a 2nd pass for articulations and the rest.
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Post by Anders Hedelin » Thu Oct 21, 2021 12:49 pm

I take it Dorico has an equivalent to Finale's Automatic Music Spacing. Can you turn it off if you want to make manual adjustments not over-ridden by the program? And, if so, is the setting document or program specific?

I really appreciate this thread. It's so much easier to learn something of the program this way than reading a manual. Thanks, Michel and Epeedad!
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BuonTempi
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Post by BuonTempi » Thu Oct 21, 2021 12:53 pm

Anders Hedelin wrote:
Thu Oct 21, 2021 12:49 pm
I take it Dorico has an equivalent to Finale's Automatic Music Spacing. Can you turn it off if you want to make manual adjustments not over-ridden by the program? And, if so, is the setting document or program specific?
Dorico automatically spaces all the music. If you want to make manual adjustments, then you can make those, and they will stay in place. They won't get over-ridden by the program, unless you remove the adjustments.

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Post by BuonTempi » Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:01 pm

Where Dorico really excels is in the unique features, like Flows and Layouts, Condensing, etc.

A lot of the music I do is concertate sacred music for choir and orchestra. So several different movements, each with different scoring. ("Et in terra pax", etc).
Dorico lets you put each section in a different "Flow", which is just a chunk of music. Each flow can have different instruments, and can have its own title heading, either starting a new page, or following on the page, below the previous flow. Instrumental parts will show the title and "Tacet" automatically for instruments not in that Flow.

I've been able to do operas in Dorico, with each aria and recit as a separate Flow, each with its own title; each following on the page from the previous one. This essentially lets me layout the complete score with only a handful of manual adjustments.

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Post by Anders Hedelin » Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:03 pm

BuonTempi wrote:
Thu Oct 21, 2021 12:53 pm
Dorico automatically spaces all the music. If you want to make manual adjustments, then you can make those, and they will stay in place. They won't get over-ridden by the program, unless you remove the adjustments.
Sounds good! Just a question, how do you remove the adjustments? Is there a 'reset' or 're-apply AMS' feature?
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Michel R E
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Post by Michel R E » Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:09 pm

I believe just selecting the item and hitting [backspace] will do it.

I'm also pretty sure there is a "reset to default" function somewhere. I simply haven't had to use it yet.

My one annoyance with manual positioning is that it's difficult to get the mouse to constrain movement to vertical/horizontal movement. and I can't seem to get "nudging" with arrow keys to work.
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Post by BuonTempi » Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:14 pm

Anders Hedelin wrote:
Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:03 pm
Sounds good! Just a question, how do you remove the adjustments? Is there a 'reset' feature, or do you have to do it manually?
Manual adjustments to Notes and Staff spacing show as red anchors. You just select them and press delete to reset. (You can't actually delete or change the music in Engrave mode, which is a nice 'safety' feature.) To be honest, I find I almost never have to manually adjust note's positions.

There are lots of different ways of making adjustments. One of my favourites is simply a 'flag' at a point in the music that changes the Spacing reference distance. So for a 3/8 section, you can make the overall spacing looser, and then for a 3/2 section, tighten it up. This gives much better results than trying to 'lock' systems, IMO. You would just delete the Flag to remove the change.

There are some commands to Reset Position and Appearance of objects after you've moved them.

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Post by BuonTempi » Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:20 pm

Here's something that I think really shows the difference between Finale and Dorico.

In Dorico, if you add a fermata on a note, then it will automatically add fermatas to every staff, because Dorico knows that (typically) fermatas are marked on every staff. In Finale, you have to add each one -- yes, you can drag down a whole bunch of staves with F held down, etc. (But there's also the default whole rests issue.)

So, for the 95% of the time when you want fermatas everywhere, Dorico saves you time. But for the 5% when you want to hide one, or only show one on a cadenza, then Finale offers you that flexibility, whereas in Dorico you have to use 'workarounds'.

When you want to do something that Dorico doesn't cater for, then you have to start getting creative, and can hit a brick wall. Finale can always accommodate any request, but the price of freedom is eternal tedium. :lol:

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Post by Anders Hedelin » Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:27 pm

BuonTempi wrote:
Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:20 pm
When you want to do something that Dorico doesn't cater for, then you have to start getting creative, and can hit a brick wall. Finale can always accommodate any request, but the price of freedom is eternal tedium. :lol:
Hm. I've heard somewhere that one of the prerequisites for becoming creative is the ability to get bored. Feeling hopelessness wouldn't be too bad a start either.
Now, which one of the programs would score the highest creativity-inducing points?
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RMK
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Post by RMK » Thu Oct 21, 2021 2:12 pm

Michel R E wrote:
Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:09 pm
My one annoyance with manual positioning is that it's difficult to get the mouse to constrain movement to vertical/horizontal movement.
The trick is that you have to start moving the item first, then apply the shift key.

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John Ruggero
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Post by John Ruggero » Thu Oct 21, 2021 2:56 pm

MIchel, as a card-carrying member of the anti-clutter movement, you might want to ditch the brackets for the triplets in your ossia example above.
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Michel R E
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Post by Michel R E » Thu Oct 21, 2021 5:15 pm

John Ruggero wrote:
Thu Oct 21, 2021 2:56 pm
MIchel, as a card-carrying member of the anti-clutter movement, you might want to ditch the brackets for the triplets in your ossia example above.
hm... yes, thank-you.
there was something that struck me as.... cluttered, there.
good catch.
I think right now I'm concentrating so much on learning the features and trying to get the information from my Finale score into the Dorico score that I'm not noticing things I could/should change.
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Michel R E
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Post by Michel R E » Thu Oct 21, 2021 5:40 pm

aha! and guess what happened when I removed those brackets?

Dorico decided to respace the music on that page, now I have to manually move all those staves to get rid of the collisions.
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Post by John Ruggero » Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:17 pm

Sorry about that, Michel. I guess AI is a double-edged sword.
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Michel R E
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Post by Michel R E » Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:48 pm

I think that's thw one feature of Dorico I'm having the most difficulty wrapping my brain around: the algorithm for spacing, and the terminology they use for how D fills a page with music.

the concept of "vertical justification" simply will not get through my thick skull.

"justify staves and systems when frame is at least [a % number] full"

I've tried little numbers, large number, it's like one end fixes one problem but screws up another region, then fixing the other region screws up the first one that was fine before.

there there's

"justify distance only between systems when frame is at least [% number] full".

I don't even know where to look to know how full or empty a frame is (a frame is basically a "page" in which you place your systems. you CAN have more than one frame on a page, and there are different types of frames: music, text, graphic, etc...)
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Michel R E
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Post by Michel R E » Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:00 pm

I really like how Dorico handles parts, mind you.

Here's the how the cadenza appears in the orchestra's 1st violin part, and then how it appears in the full score. (in the orchestral violin part you're seeing the 1st measure that comes after the cadenza as well. In the score it's on the next page)
Attachments
cadenza in part.png
cadenza in score.png
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Post by BuonTempi » Thu Oct 21, 2021 10:20 pm

Michel R E wrote:
Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:48 pm
the concept of "vertical justification" simply will not get through my thick skull.

I've tried little numbers, large number, it's like one end fixes one problem but screws up another region, then fixing the other region screws up the first one that was fine before.
Michel, here's a PDF I created that I think explains Dorico's vertical spacing options.

https://forums.steinberg.net/t/guide-to ... ion/144381


Finale, of course, does very little in the way of vertical spacing. Lyrics are not pushed away from staves, and the menu item and plugin for spreading staves over a page does so equally, with no regard for content.

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Michel R E
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Post by Michel R E » Thu Oct 21, 2021 11:07 pm

thank-you! that does indeed help a great deal.
that's one thing missing from the Dorico help files: actual examples showing the results of various choices for this particular feature.
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Post by dankreider » Fri Oct 22, 2021 1:41 am

To mention an earlier question: Dorico does have an option to reset manual note spacing.

I estimate I’ve logged something like 4,000 hours in Dorico, and trained just shy of a hundred new users, so that helps me keep a pulse on what is easy for others to learn and what isn’t. Note entry for me was the longest adaptation period. Finale’s Speedy Entry is pretty much peerless, IMO. But you can really acclimate to anything, and I can now not only input existing music into Dorico, but compose and orchestrate as well, without having to think about which number to press.

There’s a great video on the Dorico FB group of a guy inputting fairly complex music at a dizzying pace. He’s assigned various durations and tuplet functions to the bottom octave of his MIDI keyboard. Really impressive stuff.
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Michel R E
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Post by Michel R E » Tue Oct 26, 2021 4:10 pm

I've come across what seems to be an oversight on the part of Dorico's designers: you can hide any bar number in a score. However, you don't have the option to SHOW a bar number where one might not "normally" go.
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Post by RMK » Tue Oct 26, 2021 5:58 pm

Not true.

Use a bar number change.

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Michel R E
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Post by Michel R E » Tue Oct 26, 2021 6:57 pm

that's the same sort of response as "just create a floating text item with the same font as measure numbers".

basically you just said "use a work-around" for something that's missing from Dorico.
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