I am pondering whether to upgrade from my copy of Sibelius 6 to Dorico. On the plus side, I absolutely love the popovers, the concept of flows and much else.
On the negative side, there are two missing features which are mightily annoying, especially coming from the relatively ancient Sibelius 6 which does them perfectly… is there any update on when these might appear?
Firstly, when I try to write a full score with one vocal stave representing more than one character, Dorico clearly disapproves. It won’t let me delete the “instrument name” at either the beginning of a flow, or throughout for just those staves - they have to be called “voice” or “singer” or “Pirate King” or… something. I can delete them all, but the idea that I might not want to know what the singer’s name is whilst simultaneously knowing which the trumpet and clarinet parts are seems not to be possible. similarly, when I switch from, say, Pirate King to Chorus over a bar and a half, I really don’t need the conductor to be given 3 beats’ notice that the dude in the hat is a different singer from all the dudes without hats. Why can’t I just hide or delete this “To Pirate King” text?
Secondly… instruments playing the first time in a repeat, but not the second. Dorico says no.
Do we know when these features might be added? The rest of the program is fab, but it seems a bit Noteworthy Composer to have to be fannying around with awkward workarounds which Sibelius 6 just… does.
I’ve been known to go down the divisi route for shared vocal staves sometimes (if you create a second division then delete it, you have the option of renaming the first - only - divisi stave from that point onwards). Useful for situations where you want a reminder of who’s singing at the start (or even above the start) of each system.
Thank you for these useful workarounds - very helpful.
I was just rather hoping that before dropping an eye-watering amount of cash on a top-of-the range notation software that it would have these sorts of features built in.
Plus, for reasons which I’m sure you will all understand, I really, really don’t want to upgrade to Sibelius 8.
And indeed there will be a promotion in the summer that will allow you to save more as well, so if you’re thinking about buying a crossgrade, update or upgrade, it might be worth sitting tight for a few weeks.
On the one hand, Brilliant! On the other hand - I’ve just started my 30 day trial! Does that mean I have to go back to MuseScore* for a month and put everything on the back burner?? Dammit!
*MuseScore is brilliant; I’m not knocking it - it just isn’t the same product as Dorico, and nor does it pretend to be.