Thanks, Craig, for this great review.
Regarding the playback of D.S., D.C., Fine, Coda, etc. -- when I first
started working with Sibelius (version 2.11) it couldn't handle playback
of those either. But eventually it came (I can't recall if it was with
version 3, 4 or 5). Since Daniel Spreadbury was leading the development
on Sibelius and is leading the development in Dorico I have faith that
the playback of such things will happen soon in Dorico as well.
There are still two major aspects about Dorico that people who haven't
investigated it yet need to be aware of in my opinion since they might
be deal-breakers for some people:
1) Very strict anti-piracy! Product activation takes place in either of
two ways -- by use of a USB dongle (costs extra) which can then be moved
from computer to computer so it can be installed on as many computers as
the user wants but only one installation at a time can be used; or by
use of the e-licenser software, whereby you activate the installation on
a particular computer using software. Then when you want to use the
program on a different computer you have to de-activate it on the first
computer and then activate it on the different computer. That all
entails being connected to the internet, whereas the USB dongle doesn't.
Both systems are a pain in the butt, but I can say that should a
computer crash and need something major replaced like a motherboard, the
Steinberg web-site is fast and easy to navigate to re-enable the
software activation.
2) Very different approach to work-flow. Dorico works in five modes:
Setup, where you define the instruments (called Players) and get the
score order as you wish; Write, where you enter the music without regard
for page layout or other engraving issues; Engrave, where you worry
about layout issues, spacing, etc., to get the printed page to look as
you wish; Play, where you control the playback, selecting the playback
device, volume, etc.; Print, where you actually print the music. In
both Finale and Sibelius the "write" and "engrave" and "print" modes are
always active, and it's only a couple of menu/ribbon clicks to alter the
setup, and playback is constantly available. It's a major (in my
opinion) change in workflow (at least for me) and I've not quite been
able to wrap my head around it and so I haven't done much with Dorico (I
have Dorico Pro 2 installed).
One fantastic major point in favor of everybody making the leap to
Dorico regardless of other issues is the continued and rapid development
of the product and the superb support through the Steinberg forums. I
bought Dorico during the initial release, taking advantage of good
pricing for cross-grade from Finale (yes I can still use Finale just
fine) and there were many updates released before version 1.1 and then
more interim updates before version 1.2, all free of charge. And I made
the investment (a fair price I felt) to upgrade to version 2, which for
the full version is called Dorico Pro 2 (they have a lower priced,
less-capable version also).
Daniel and other senior development team members maintain a presence
there and offer help while fielding questions about what the future
holds, as well as handling complaints. And they do it with grace and
intelligence, just as Daniel used to do on the Sibelius yahoogroup back
when he was the senior developer for Sibelius. They will ask people to
send a Dorico project to them via e-mail so they can open it up and see
what the problem is. Then they will either resolve the issue or explain
why at this point in time it can't be resolved. And they actually read
the questions and answer appropriately -- I can't remember the last time
I contacted tech support at Finale and had them actually read my
question the first time so I need to repeat it and repeat it until they
finally say "Oh, that's what you're asking about -- sorry, can't help
you." I don't own any other Steinberg product so I can't tell if this
great attitude of actually helping the users is a corporate-wide thing
or if it's just because Daniel is such a nice and helpful guy, but at
least the Dorico development team is wonderful.
But Dorico is not for everybody -- they have a trial version which
people who are curious should download and install before making the
purchase. It seems that for many people who take the time to make a
serious effort to learn Dorico, like Craig has done (I haven't had that
kind of time yet but I'm hoping to make that sort of effort this
Summer), the leap to the new workflow and new concepts is very manageable.
David H. Bailey
On 7/3/2018 10:57 AM, Craig Parmerlee wrote:
I am a month into my serious usage of Dorico 2 and thought I'd provide
an update on my experience. Everything about Dorico is more elegant. But
that means it is radically different from the mode of operation deeply
ingrained in long-term Finale users. Many of us have learned Finale
over a span of 10 or even 20 years. There is a big learning curve with
any product of this complexity. There are many resources for Dorico
information (help pages, a comprehensive manual, YouTube videos, monthly
Facebook live sessions etc.) The product is evolving so quickly that
none of these sources is definitive and up to date. So the user is on
his or her own to assemble one's own best practices and workflow. In my
case, I started compiling a Word document of tips and techniques for
everything I do regularly. Otherwise I would not be able to remember
most of it. Over the course of the month, this document has grown to
about 30 pages and 100 procedures, but I don't have to refer to it very
often now.
The heavy Dorico user relies on PC keystrokes and shortcuts. These can
be hard to remember until you develop muscle memory. Once you have that,
I think productivity with Dorico is far greater than Finale because
Dorico takes care of so many of the tedious details automatically. For
example, there is an "Engraving" mode in Dorico where you can make your
final layout changes. With Finale, this part of the process often
represented 20% of my time. Layout decisions with Dorico are far beyond
Finale and Sibelius. I have done some projects that literally required
no layout changes whatsoever.
There has been practically no investment in Finale functions most of the
past decade, and I believe we should not expect much from the company.
People who are completely satisfied with what Finale does for them today
may have no reason to look at Dorico. People who spend many hours per
week doing composing, arranging or engraving really can increase their
productivity (and possibly income) by learning Dorico. I do think there
is a threshold of use needed to make it worthwhile to take on this new
learning curve.
The big issue is this. Almost everything Dorico does is more productive
and more elegant than the equivalent processes in Finale. While Dorico
probably does 90% of the things you can do with Finale today (and a
great many things you cannot easily do with Finale,) that last 10% can
be a real roadblock. I have not seen a comprehensive list of the things
that a Finale user would not be able to accomplish in Dorico, but here
are a few examples.
* Playback in general is not advanced. There is no support for D.S.,
D.C. and similar variations. You can engrave these with text symbols,
but playback will not recognize that.
* There is no ability to set swing in playback
* If you are heavily dependent on Staff Styles in Finale, there is no
real equivalent (other than the slash regions and bar-repeat regions,
and they don't have the flexibility associated with Finale Staff Styles)
* Chord support in Dorico is light years ahead of Finale and you can
really fly through that part of a project that requires chord symbols.
However, it is very difficult to have different chord spellings for
different instruments.
There are more issues. I'm not trying to be comprehensive. However, I
have reached the point that I am so much more productive with Dorico
that I probably will not be creating any new Finale projects.
A couple more observations to wrap up. There many bugs in Version 2.0.
The Steinberg team is large and heavily engaged in fixing these things.
There should be a patch release out in the next few weeks that will
bring the product up to a normal "stable production" level. Also, there
is a very active, and growing, user community, and that definitely helps.
On 6/2/2018 12:45 AM, Craig Parmerlee wrote:
On 5/31/2018 3:40 PM, David H. Bailey wrote:
While I'm disappointed that the major thrust of Dorico version 2
seems to be scoring to video, I realize that's a very large and
growing segment of the notation/composition software market so it
should be a means to even better cementing Dorico's future.
I did the free trial of Dorico 1. I used it to do a re-transcription
of several orchestral pieces that had multiple movements ("flows" in
Dorico-speak) and some irregular meter / beat patterns. It was slow
going because of the learning curve but I was struck at how well the
music layout happened, almost completely automatically. I find myself
spending many hours fiddling with Finale parts to get them to lay out
reasonably. It is clear to me that Dorico does many things (including
layout) better and will save a lot of time.
However, for me, I must have slash notation and rhythmic notation
because mostly I do jazz band arrangements. And those things were not
there in Dorico 1. The final release of Dorico 1 included chord
symbols, and they did a fantastic job with that -- much more coherent
than Finale.
Dorico 2 adds slash and rhythmic notation, so I bought the crossgrade
and am now working on my first jazz band project. It is unfortunate
that the product does not play back DS al coda, but that is not
required in this project.
Anyway, I actually wanted to respond to your comment about video being
the focus of 2.0. Certainly that is part of it. But a big portion of
the "video support" is a better structure for varying tempos, and this
can be useful even without video. And this tempo business has been
one of the most troublesome parts of Finale playback. It seems we
have been told more than a year ago that this was a big focus of
Finale development, yet we haven't seen anything in that time.
Apart from video, I'd say there was a major effort to address
jazz/pop/commercial writers as noted above. And also there was a big
focus on playback. That is not just the Note Performer integration.
They also have added depth to the "DAW portion" of Dorico with support
for automation curves and unlimited controller functions. This adds
to the existing capabilities for MIDI editing separate from the
notation itself (e.g, if a note sounds just a little too long, you can
change the MIDI very easily without having to change the notation)
These things add up to major advancements.
---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
To unsubscribe from finale send a message to:
[email protected]
--
*****
David H. Bailey
[email protected]
http://www.davidbaileymusicstudio.com
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
To unsubscribe from finale send a message to:
[email protected]
