I’ve got some transpositions/orchestrations to make for a musical. My understanding in Sibelius and Finale is that world typically creates 1 file per number. Would it be OK to use Dorico’s flows for an entire full length musical in one file? Or is that pushing the limit of the software a bit to hard? For reference I have a laptop with a 7th gen core i5 and a desktop with a 10th gen core i5. Both have plenty of RAM.
More technically, does Dorico free up some compute power using the flow system in a multi flow file? As in, does Dorico not spend time on processing / layout, etc. in flows that are not currently selected?
I have used flows for the various numbers of a musical once the musical numbers are established, but might well use separate files for each number while the musical is being developed, since unless one is very careful with page templates and layouts, altering (and inserting or deleting) material as the music evolves can have a significant impact on page formatting.
You may like to watch a short video I’ve made about making opera scores in Dorico.
I regularly make scores with over 100 flows and 300 pages.
Dorico processes the entire layout. If you remove some flows from the layout, then that might make note input easier at the end of a very big file, but obviously you need those flows in place when you’re doing layout.
You can also use Galley View, which doesn’t do any layout work. If you’re using massive sample libraries, then that may be a factor.
Usually I do do all the orchestrations in seperate files and put the flows together in the latest moment for layout.
Dorico is getting kind of slow of files are getting big (at least my experience).
Changing the order of flows (happens constantly while developing a new show) though is pretty easy and fast in Dorico. Even though you have the redo some layout work in this case.
