After nearly 10 years with Dorico, why I still keep other notation software around?

Dorico
1

Hi everyone,

I have been using Dorico since version 1, coming over from Sibelius, so almost ten years now. In that time I have done more than a hundred arrangements, adaptations and original pieces, mostly for concert band. Dorico really changed the way I work. I gained a lot in productivity and in quality, and I would not go back.

But I still have Sibelius and MuseScore installed, and I wanted to explain why. It is just feedback from a fairly ordinary band arranger’s workflow. I know most of these points have come up before, and I am not trying to bump old threads. I thought it might be more useful to put them in one place, with the use cases behind them, rather than leave them scattered around the forum.

1. Explode with mixed voices and chords

One common task is separating two instruments from a single staff (two horns, two trumpets, that sort of thing), mostly when importing from another softare.
When the source is clean, Dorico handles it well. The trouble starts when chords and several voices are mixed, which is almost always the case with music imported from another program.
Explode struggles there and I end up going back to Sibelius.
Sibelius is not perfect at this either, it makes its own mistakes, but it gets me much closer and much faster.

I remember Daniel explaining a few years ago that the preferred approach is to write separate parts and let condensing do the work. That makes complete sense for music created in Dorico. My problem is that it does not help in the case I meet most often, where the material comes from somewhere else and separate parts simply do not exist. The condensed staff is all I have. Some related threads: 116346, 945388, 986668.

2. Filtering by articulation

There is currently no way to filter a selection by articulation. I need this all the time as an orchestrator, either to replace one articulation by another across a passage, or to pick out only the accented notes and reuse them in another part. More generally, Sibelius offers more possibilities in its filters than Dorico does. Filters allow cleaning up an import into a two minute job instead of an hour.

This one has been asked for by quite different users over the years: noteheads on accented notes, cleaning up imported Finale files. See 874925 and more recently 1032570.

3. MusicXML import

First the obvious point, which I will happily concede. When an import goes wrong, the program that exported the file is usually the one at fault. OMR tools like PhotoScore, SoundSlice or Newzik produce imperfect XML, and the Sibelius exporter has its own quirks. None of that is Dorico’s doing.

My point is a bit different. Given the same imperfect file, MuseScore and Sibelius usually recover better than Dorico, especially with multi bar rests and partials bars.
So my routine has become: import into MuseScore or Sibelius first, then send the result on to Dorico. It works, but it is a strange detour for what is otherwise the most capable of the three. Examples here: 999708 and 1011213.

I get the same thing when I bring my older Sibelius scores over. Some elements do not make it through, multirests and percussion parts in particular, and I have to spend time checking everything.

4. Video export of scores

I know this has been discussed many times, and I was glad to read that Daniel sees it as a feature worth adding in due course. I will just add one more voice, with the use case that matters to me.

None of this is blocking. There is a workaround for everything above and I use them all. But Dorico is a mature program now, and these look like areas where it could catch up with the competition without too much trouble.

I hope the team will consider them for a future version, and thanks as always for the work you put into it.

2

I still have a Sibelius station running. Many of my “contributors” prefer Sibelius due to its “ease of use” (which can be discussed in many ways and at many levels). Some have moved to MuseScore. So, some extra work, but the notes are fine. The default notation, layout, and “exactness” in Dorico are the best, but not perfect (yet). However, Sibelius is absolutely horrid for a publisher; i.e. I cannot speak for composers and arrangers. I only care about the final look. I will need a Sibelius station for many years ahead, as a “converter”.

3

Hi @FlorentG,
we user cannot know how much trouble is needed to implement your suggestions (by the way I agree on all of them). Only the developers know.

4

It is a standard fact that in software development what end users think is no trouble is often immensely complex to implement, and conversely what seems very complex to lay people can be sometimes be simple to implement.

Don’t judge from outside how hard or easy it is for Steinberg to develop features. Since this is not open source, we can’t possibly know.

5

@Christian_R @Andro The OP could have asserted, “these ARE areas where it could catch up with the competition.” But he didn’t. He chose the more cautious wording, “these LOOK like areas,” which explicitly leaves room for the possibility that appearances can be deceiving.

So, IMHO, the comments are perhaps unnecessary. You’re cautioning him against making a claim he didn’t actually make.

And my only point in saying this is that the OP has written, IMHO, a good, well-argued post, fully of valuable real-world experience. I don’t think posts like that should be discouraged here.

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Yes, and I only confirmed that this is indeed an “appearance”, since we don’t know the code. (At least this was my intention. @FlorentG I apologise if it came out differently, English is not my first language).

7

Sorry if my wording wasn’t clear, English isn’t my first language. But my intention isn’t to pass judgment on how easy or difficult these developments would be — I’ll leave that entirely to the developers, who certainly have a lot to do.
I just wanted to share my experience and a few frustrations as a user with some experience on this wonderful tool that is Dorico. I hope this feedback might resonate with other users too, and perhaps offer the team a bit of inspiration for future choices.