The addition of the ability to incorporate audio tracks in a comprehensive way in Dorico would transform it into a super-product. I think Steinberg could and should even categorize and price it at a higher level. The audio tracks could appear on the page as a type of staff. A stereo signal could appear similarly to a grand staff. I was hoping for more on this in V5 as well. I continue to hope that they are taking the time to do this in a spectacular fashion.
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I was about to write a similar request. I think it is a valid point to have audio staves in Dorico similar to how staffpad integrated it. This way I could drop a mixdown or stems of composition and do the orchestration no matter if the end result is a mockup or the final product.
Especially when traveling with a MacBook Pro no external screens etc I would love to have a tight sync to audio that follows my tempo track without the need to render a fake video to get the synth parts or prelays into dorico.
Yes I could do everything in the daw but I would rather do orchestral work in dorico and not dealing with track creep in my daw anymore. Like others stated. DAWs donāt offer what dorico can do and I think there is no need to turn Dorico into Cuborico. Just add audio staves that can be time or beat based for tight playback!
Thanks 
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Also rendering a fake video is not an option if you involve Doricos tempo track and want the music in that fake video to follow your tempo changes.
Now that Dorico ships with Groove Agent as of version 5, itās a step closer.
Drag samples onto pads of a fresh/empty kit, set to one shot mode for the ones that need to ignore note-off events and simply play through to the end of the sample. Use a hidden piano stave, or playing instructions/techniques and an expression map to trigger them.
Thatās kind of like having 128 audio tracks (per instance of GA, you can have way more if you use multiple instances)ā¦
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What happens if tempo changes are involved?
What happens if you start in the middle of a bar?
What about the new scrubbing feature?
Since Groove Agent implemented in this way would just be an MPC style sample trigger, the samples will start playing precisely when Dorico triggers them.
You canāt alter the actual tempo of the samples in GA SE that I know of (and certainly not from Dorico remotely). Even in a tracking DAW like Cubase or Nuendo, vari-audio isnāt a simple matter. Youād have to establish hit-points and so forth to go messing about with the tempo of an āaudio trackā.
What you can do is control with some precision where to start playing any sample(s) you like.
Example:
Grab a long audio file and have Dorico play it with the score so you can use your ears and brain to transcribe it.
Example:
Start an independent recording app on your PC.
Start Dorico playing a completely or mostly finished flow.
Sing or play an acoustical instrument into a mic and record along.
When finished, drag that sample to a GA pad.
Have dorico trigger when it should start playing.
You could distribute the audio with your project, but will need to include the audio file(s)/ GA presets, and instructions included for the next user to import this stuff into their system as well.
The good news there, is I believe Groove Agent has options to fairly easily āexportā an entire kit, along with the user made samples into a format thatās easy to zip and share with others, and be imported to a second system.
I think full Groove Agent has more abilities to āslice and diceā a longer sample into shorter ones and spread all the slices over many pads. I think it can also stretch/shrink samples to some degree (with or without the pitch changing). That would give a little more control if you wanted to make some adjustments to tempo, but it would NOT be even close to an easy and automatic solution.
This would make it much easier to say, cut a track into slices according to rehearsal points or whatever. Thatād lead to fewer issues of starting Dorico from different points in the score.
Example: Divide the number of bars in your flow by 128. Cut the sample into pieces (up to 128 of them, or more if you use multiple instances of GA). Trigger each number of bars (the Quotient you got above) in GA. At least that way every X number of bars your audio would come back no matter when you start the transport.
For what itās worth, I know of NO score interpreting software that can vary the tempo of a long AUDIO TRACK to match up with a score. They can trigger it and play itā¦but you have to make the score match the long audio track(s). Not the other way around.
Comment on the earlier discussion about whether an audio track is appropriate for Dorico, just noting that the app has already gone down that path with video. Once youāve got one, might as well have the other, and since theyāll probably be bundled together in some way (e.g. the video button can import either) its no more intrusive than the present. Iām fine with it, and Iām a proponent of keeping Dorico clean 
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I know of a couple of ways aside from using the video player (currently the most direct and straight forward way) to keep an audio track in true sync with the Dorico transport. This way you can start/stop Dorico and it just stays locked to the transport. Jog, middle of a measure, whatever. It doesnāt matter. Audio locks consistently with whatever Doricoās transport is doing.
One is to have a plugin that can lock sample playback with the ASIO sample count. Bidule can do this (The VST2 version locks nicely. Dorico is still acting weird with ASIO sample count for VST3 plugins. It sends it for a few bars then just stopsā¦ugg. Ulf knows about it and is working on fixing it!).
I.E. With Bidule, I can have it start playing a sample at a precise ASIO count. I can use offsets and stuff so that no matter when/how/where I start/stop Dorcio, it plays back as expected. Iāve made a little bidule I call Dorico Tracker that sets this up for me:
The way it worksā¦I start Dorico playing and let it go until it has reached the point I want my audio track to begin playing. I hit stop. Look at the actual ASIO sample count Dorcio sends, and set an āoffsetā in Bidule so it starts the audio at precise point I want, and keeps it perfectly in sync. (technically, whatever plugins are doing should match sample per sample with the host. I can do very simple addition/subtraction in bidule from the sync pin to fool it into thinking the host is saying something else. It works!)
I also use this bidule sometimes to internally render (record) virtual instrument mixes if Iām running out of system resources.
Another is to run the TXL timecode plugin and lock this to a DAW that can slave its transport to MTC or SMPTE.
In this situation, you still canāt easily āvaryā the tempo of the audio track(s). Instead, youād tweak your score and how it deals with āvirtual instrumentsā to work with the āset tempo audio tracksā.
Letās beg the Dorico team to add the audio track function once for all. We need to reord things in Dorico desprately.
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I use a workflow where the audio is synced (with TXL) in logic with flex mode enabled. I then make every tempo adjustment twice - once in Dorico and once in Logic. Usually the audio will need some mixing and editing, so this feels like the best approach for my purposes.
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It would be great if audio staves could work similar to staffpad
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Waiting for this one, we need to use reference audio track in many cases. Thank you
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A read-only audio reference track would be very useful. I have an assignment on a music course where I am given an audio reference (backing) track and a chord sequence, and I have to compose a melody to go with it. It may be possible to create a blank video track from the audio, and import it into the Dorico project, but then I donāt think I can visually align the audio/video with the beats and bars in the project. It looks like Iāll have to do this in a DAW.
It would also be great if we could copy paste audio from a DAW to the insert point (caret) on an audio track.
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Another plus one from me. This and a reduction in cost to existing Cubase Pro users would seal the deal for me.
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Another +1 from me. By the way, recording would indeed have its uses. In my case, it would be teach-me tracks for choirs. Thus, an option for multiple audio tracks from a microphone input and a formant and pitch shifter effect (to record teach-mes for high female voices as a low male for example) would make the play mode an absolute killer feature of Dorico. I tried exporting the MIDI from Dorico to Cubase and to another companyās well-known DAW, but fiddling with the instrument settings and the overall routing in those DAWs while the required backing already sounds perfect in Dorico feels like a lot of unnecessary effort.
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Under those circumstances I would export audio from Dorico and use that in my Cubase file.
Yes, but in my setting this would force me to export another audio track from Dorico each time I need to adjust the mix, for example when I want to record a teach-me for a certain voice and at the same time adjust that voiceās volume in Doricoās mix. Usually I have multiple voices to create teach-mes for.
I honestly cannot believe I cannot add a reference track to play along with and record a score. Such a totally BASIC function, and itās not there. Wow. Unreal. Sure if I want to edit audio, Iād use another tool, but without that BASIC feature this software is useless to meā¦
A click track is great, but only if you can keep the memory of the tune in your head? Cāmon guys. I thought you were the best programmers in the world when it comes to this stuff.
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For the time being you can use the common workaround of creating a video with your audio track and import that one instead.