Dorico?

[musicus]

Hi-

I'm thinking of adding Dorico software onto my hard drive which would be in addition to my Finale v26.
It would be for simple keyboard input, quantization and simple notation. Are there any known issues with installing and using Dorico, for example, that would have a negative affect on Finale? I rely on Finale. Thanks.

[John Ruggero]

The only negative effect on Finale that I can imagine is that you like Dorico so much that you stop using Finale.

[BuonTempi]

Are there any known issues with installing and using Dorico, for example, that would have a negative affect on Finale? I rely on Finale.

I've replied to your original post in the other part of the forum, (ironically making the same joke as John.)

The only "install overlap" is that Dorico also includes some of Finale's SMuFL fonts. There shouldn't be a problem but if something goes wrong, you can reinstall the Finale fonts from MM's font installer.

[ebiggs1]

The only negative effect on Finale that I can imagine is that you like Dorico so much that you stop using Finale

Or in my case, it confirmed Finale 27.3 to be far superior.

[motet]

I've had Dorico co-installed with no problems. Also Sibelius 6, which I should probably just remove.

[AnneMillington]

Ditto with no conflicts, but I have not pushed Dorico too hard, only dabbled.

[dtoub]

The only negative effect on Finale that I can imagine is that you like Dorico so much that you stop using Finale

Or in my case, it confirmed Finale 27.3 to be far superior.

In what way? Other than better support for cutout scores and metatools, all the evidence I've seen suggests feature parity with Finale and in some cases, Dorico has surpassed it. Newer codebase. A MIDI editor (way better than the antiquated and barely useful MIDI tool), etc. Please explain.

[ebiggs1]

I guess if you like Musescore you probably like Dorico.

[musicus]

I'm not familiar with M or D. Have been using Finale for 20 years - one might say it's like a marriage. Am looking carefully at the various comments before I leap. As I mentioned, I'm considering Dorico for simple notation, my intention is not to replace Finale. I appreciate everyone's feedback on this.

I guess if you like Musescore you probably like Dorico.

[BuonTempi]

Other than better support for cutout scores and metatools,

If by metatools, you mean key commands, then Dorico has a built-in editor for assigning key shortcuts to every command in the program.

You're right that cutaway scores can't be done in Dorico, and aleatoric sections are a bit of a fiddle. Finale has the edge in more 'graphic' score styles, and in its ability to be infinitely flexible. But I must have saved about four years of my life by only having to press S on a selection to draw a slur, instead of "triple-click drag", to say nothing of all the automated stuff that Finale doesn't do for you.

I guess if you like Musescore you probably like Dorico.

These things are of course tools, and we each use the tool that's right for us, and right for the job. Many people use more than one notation app, depending on the work. It should be possible to discuss their relative merits dispassionately without partisan flag-waving and petty burns. Ultimately, what we care about is the result.

At the very least, competitors' features are a discussion point for things that Finale ought to be doing -- like Sibelius's Magnetic Layout; which is something that has often been requested for Finale on these pages for these last 15 years...

[dtoub]

100% agree (and the Monty Python and the Holy Grail reference is appreciated). I’ve said before that if I weren’t a multi-decade Finale user with a major existing investment in time and scores, I’d absolutely be using Dorico. While I haven’t made slurs in many years, Dorico’s shortcut is much more efficient from the sounds of it, and clearly they thought a lot of things through. I think we both agree that Finale should have benefitted from competition and worked to innovate its own product. Instead, while I’ve heard rumors of a new version coming, it sounds more like a minor bug fix than a really inspired update. I keep hoping for better, but the MakeMusic web site suggests their focus is elsewhere. Thank goodness this is not my day job and I’m just composing on the side for a handful of groupies. If I really had to depend on Finale getting better over time, it would be a total disappointment. As it is, it’s highly disappointing.

[RimasG]

I am one of those who have been using Finale for more than 20 years and still expect a qualitative leap. I have tried Sib-2 - I didn't like it and it didn't stick. When Dorico came out, I bought it. I didn't learn how to work with it because I found it technologically completely unlike Finale, unintuitive, and with the computer notation skills I already had, completely unproductive. I couldn't devote special time to studying Dorico and changing my reflexes because of my constant intense employment. Summarum, I decided to stay with Finale, because it basically satisfies my needs for traditional notation. What could be better, or has been annoying for years, is not the subject of this post.
I don't quite understand the idea of using Dorico alongside Finale specifically for simpler notation. What is the benefit of this? For elementary notation Finale works really well. With layout, it's flawless (at least for me). Today, the main problems are with instability in horizontal navigation and some other little things And, what was not there before, with Win11 it started to crash quite often and show "audio engine error". But maybe it has to do with the fact that I'm working with high vertical scores.
But that's not what today is about. I'm interested in the logic of the choice: for simple notation, Dorico next to the working Finale. Why it is needed?

[John Ruggero]

I do the opposite: Finale for simple things like quick off-the-cuff examples, and Dorico for actual projects.

[dtoub]

I am one of those who have been using Finale for more than 20 years and still expect a qualitative leap. I have tried Sib-2 - I didn't like it and it didn't stick. When Dorico came out, I bought it. I didn't learn how to work with it because I found it technologically completely unlike Finale, unintuitive, and with the computer notation skills I already had, completely unproductive. I couldn't devote special time to studying Dorico and changing my reflexes because of my constant intense employment. Summarum, I decided to stay with Finale, because it basically satisfies my needs for traditional notation. What could be better, or has been annoying for years, is not the subject of this post.
I don't quite understand the idea of using Dorico alongside Finale specifically for simpler notation. What is the benefit of this? For elementary notation Finale works really well. With layout, it's flawless (at least for me). Today, the main problems are with instability in horizontal navigation and some other little things And, what was not there before, with Win11 it started to crash quite often and show "audio engine error". But maybe it has to do with the fact that I'm working with high vertical scores.
But that's not what today is about. I'm interested in the logic of the choice: for simple notation, Dorico next to the working Finale. Why it is needed?

While I only have, and only use, Finale for notation and playback, I can see the logic for using different applications for different purposes. If Dorico's workflow is easier with less fussing, then it makes sense to use that for longer or more complex scores. Like you, I don't have time to learn a new notation program, and I have many decades of scores created with Finale and that's a challenge enough to manage at times.

When I think about the various plugins I end up using (and figuring out where each individual tool is has gotten daunting among Patterson, TGTools and JW), and the regret I've had after purchasing two versions of one particular .lua script (it rarely does much for my scores these days and the various options are confusing and complicated to the max), I start to regret sticking with Finale this long. But for many years there really was nothing comparable (certainly not Sibelius, from what I've seen), and Finale still works for my needs.

If I had the time and $ to invest in Dorico, I could justify using it, reserving Finale for existing scores if I need to fix something or improve playback.

[ebiggs1]

The only negative effect on Finale that I can imagine is that you like Dorico so much that you stop using Finale.

Or in my case, it confirmed Finale 27.3 to be far superior.

It should be possible to discuss their relative merits dispassionately without partisan flag-waving and petty burns.

Only if you promote the virtues of Dorico. Not if you think Finale is the better of the two. Surprisingly this is from folks that are on the Finale Forum where you would expect more positive support for Finale.

[musicus]

Thanks for your post and I will try to answer your question or puzzlement. As I stated at the top, I am considering Dorico for simple keyboard input, quantization and simple notation. For example, say I'm improvising some vague ideas at the keyboard, in a steady rhythm, possibly with a click. This might go on for 4-5 minutes. If I do this with Finale/hyperscribe, the result will be IMO garbage. So I want something that will quantize what I have done so that it appears readable to me. Then I can separate things out into their proper voices and have a working blueprint eventually to wind up in Finale, to further refine it. That kinda describes my working method. Since Finale won't adequately quantize, I am looking elsewhere - possibly Dorico. I hope that clarifies.


(your quote follows.)

I am one of those who have been using Finale for more than 20 years and still expect a qualitative leap. I have tried Sib-2 - I didn't like it and it didn't stick. When Dorico came out, I bought it. I didn't learn how to work with it because I found it technologically completely unlike Finale, unintuitive, and with the computer notation skills I already had, completely unproductive. I couldn't devote special time to studying Dorico and changing my reflexes because of my constant intense employment. Summarum, I decided to stay with Finale, because it basically satisfies my needs for traditional notation. What could be better, or has been annoying for years, is not the subject of this post.
I don't quite understand the idea of using Dorico alongside Finale specifically for simpler notation. What is the benefit of this? For elementary notation Finale works really well. With layout, it's flawless (at least for me). Today, the main problems are with instability in horizontal navigation and some other little things And, what was not there before, with Win11 it started to crash quite often and show "audio engine error". But maybe it has to do with the fact that I'm working with high vertical scores.
But that's not what today is about. I'm interested in the logic of the choice: for simple notation, Dorico next to the working Finale. Why it is needed?
[/quote]

[RimasG]

Understood. I am one of those mogichans who rely on their musical literacy. In other words, it's much easier for me to write notes than to synchronise in Hyperscribe. If I need an audio file, I write it down in sheet music first. I cannot comment on the quantisation properties of the finale because I do not use Hyperscribe. I am an orchestral musician for many years and it is much easier for me to formulate a complicated rhythmic figure myself than to submit to an automaton and then check the result. Sorry, but I am apparently retrograde here. On the other hand, playing perfectly non-standard figures with a MIDI keyboard is also problematic. I'm not a pianist, for example, and my Blues 12-bar period skills on the piano are definitely not where I can ideally control the keyboard here and now.

[musicus]

Mogichans? - I assume you mean magicians?

Understood. I am one of those mogichans who rely on their musical literacy. In other words, it's much easier for me to write notes than to synchronise in Hyperscribe. If I need an audio file, I write it down in sheet music first. I cannot comment on the quantisation properties of the finale because I do not use Hyperscribe. I am an orchestral musician for many years and it is much easier for me to formulate a complicated rhythmic figure myself than to submit to an automaton and then check the result. Sorry, but I am apparently retrograde here. On the other hand, playing perfectly non-standard figures with a MIDI keyboard is also problematic. I'm not a pianist, for example, and my Blues 12-bar period skills on the piano are definitely not where I can ideally control the keyboard here and now.

[dtoub]

Thanks for your post and I will try to answer your question or puzzlement. As I stated at the top, I am considering Dorico for simple keyboard input, quantization and simple notation. For example, say I'm improvising some vague ideas at the keyboard, in a steady rhythm, possibly with a click. This might go on for 4-5 minutes. If I do this with Finale/hyperscribe, the result will be IMO garbage. So I want something that will quantize what I have done so that it appears readable to me. Then I can separate things out into their proper voices and have a working blueprint eventually to wind up in Finale, to further refine it. That kinda describes my working method. Since Finale won't adequately quantize, I am looking elsewhere - possibly Dorico. I hope that clarifies.

I also use improvisation when I'm composing, with rare exception, and don't use hyperscribe (although I used to use the transcription tool years ago when Finale still had that). Instead, I capture notes from a MIDI keyboard into Reason's sequencer. While I've tried exporting that to Finale, quantized or not, the results are terrible. Quantization doesn't work for me, in any app, for whatever reason. So I painstakingly transcribe every note in Reason into Finale. Not as bad as what Conlon Nancarrow must have gone through to create his piano rolls, but still onerous. I wish it were much easier to do this; I recently developed an improvisation into a composition for multiple pianos in Reason, by incorporating two arpeggiator modules. I wanted to notate it in Finale, but life is too short, it would never have produced a score that was as good as the audio file in Reason, so it's just an audio file no different from the average electronic work. That's the limitation of composing into a sequencer; when things get complicated and/or have unusual rhythms, it becomes daunting to go from sequencer to notation.

[motet]

Does Dorico's version of Hyperscribe work better than Finale's? The problem is that we don't play the keyboard absolutely metronomically. I could see software ("AI"?) trying to accommodate for that, though.

[musicus]

I used to have Cubase. I could play anything into it, and it could auto-quantize to 8ths, 16ths, etc. There were other problems with it though, can't remember specifically, but enough to abandon it.

Does Dorico's version of Hyperscribe work better than Finale's? The problem is that we don't play the keyboard absolutely metronomically. I could see software ("AI"?) trying to accommodate for that, though.

[BuonTempi]

Does Dorico's version of Hyperscribe work better than Finale's? The problem is that we don't play the keyboard absolutely metronomically. I could see software ("AI"?) trying to accommodate for that, though.

Yes. It's much better at getting the right notes. For starters, it doesn't have the problem with tied notes over the barline that Hyperscribe does. Furthermore, Dorico can 'quantise' the notation, but retain your non-metrical MIDI playing underneath, so that you can re-quantise the MIDI to different notational values if required, and you still get a 'human' performance with variation. There are also better tools for dealing with problems: e.g. there's a command to extend selected notes into the rests that follow them.

[John Ruggero]

Does Dorico's version of Hyperscribe work better than Finale's? The problem is that we don't play the keyboard absolutely metronomically. I could see software ("AI"?) trying to accommodate for that, though.

Never had problems with Finale's quantization in Hyperscribe. Haven't tried Dorico's yet but from what BuonTempi says, it would seem to have more capabilities.

[musicus]

I would love to know how to make quantization work in hyperscribe. So far it has only produced gobbledygook for me.

Does Dorico's version of Hyperscribe work better than Finale's? The problem is that we don't play the keyboard absolutely metronomically. I could see software ("AI"?) trying to accommodate for that, though.

Never had problems with Finale's quantization in Hyperscribe. Haven't tried Dorico's yet but from what BuonTempi says, it would seem to have more capabilities.

[John Ruggero]

I never used it for notating an improvisation, just for inputting composed music, so that could be the difference. And I would do each hand or voice separately with the sustaining pedal as the beat source. Under these conditions, it is very accurate rhythmically if one plays in time against the beat source, but not obsessively so. Just normal playing in time. And the appropriate note value settings are important for the quantization. I am sure there are plenty of posts on quantization settings here and the old MakeMusic Forum. I haven't used it many years, however, so I am out of practice on hyperscribe. But it was my main input method for inputting original stuff since it was much faster for me than computer keyboard input.