Been a Sibelius user for many years, and I certainly find it easy and intuitive to use. However, since Avid took over, I have been, like many, less than thrilled.
Would like to test drive Dorico, but was wondering how long the trial version lasted. Enough time to get nominally familiar?
Would also welcome any opinions on this potential move. God knows, familiarity is a powerful incentive!
I mainly compose for the musicals I write, although I have on occasion tried a few other projects. Much if my musical music is, one might say, standard instrumentation for the genre. But Iāve been doing more rock-oriented shows recently. Sibelius (in conjunction with Noteperformer) is less useful in this genre.
So, main questions:
Time allowed on trial version
Some idea of steepness of learning curve
Insight into available instrumentation (and specifically, rock/pop instruments)
IIRC the trial version of Dorico lasts for 60 consecutive days.
Dorico is logical but conceptually different in quite a few ways from Finale and Sibelius. Donāt switch just before you have a deadline, and do not be hesitant to ask questions on the forum.
Dorico has various sets of instruments gratis. Pro version has HALion SE and HALion Orchestra, Iconica Sketch, GASE (guitars), and the ability to use outside VSTās from NotePerfomer to Vienna, EW, etc.
I switched to Dorico right at the start, when it did not have all the features I needed. That gave me plenty of time to learn the program as I switched over from Finale. Iām glad I made the change.
Learning curve, in part is a question of motivation. Knowing what you want to do, and having the vocabulary to express the thought, helps a lot with our friendly Forum community
Rock/pop things, I dare say others will chime in. Iāve been using Synths with Dorico.
The most difficult thing is not to retain Sibeliusā way of thinking. But what is really pleasing is that the working process has improved significantly. In Sibelius, about one third was creative composing or arranging and two thirds was improving the layout. This has certainly been reversed now and I need at most a quarter of my working time to adapt the layout a little to my wishes. But that implies that I have made myself a very good template. Which takes a lot of time at the beginning. And besides: the curve is needed, but not that steep and key commands and tokens are the pure fun ā¦
There are a number of forum members with experience of musical theatre work able to help you.
Regarding learning Dorico: There are some conceptual hurdles to overcome (forget how you did things in Sibelius!). I consider it essential to work through the First Steps project. Watch as many tutorial videos as you can (a lot are a few years old, but are still useful).
Under no circumstance attempt to learn Dorico by working on a project with a deadline!
Do a lot of experimentation. Almost everything, beyond note input, can be done using popovers and keyboard shortcuts.
Do not think about layout/engraving until all your notes are entered. And even then Doricoās default settings work very well (so donāt be tempted to mess with them until you really understand what you are doing).
Regarding instrumentation: Dorico can handle any VST you have. But be aware, detailed control can be tricky to set up. (Many have disappeared down the Expression Map rabbit hole in search of perfect playback!)
Have fun. And ask questions (the documentation is both comprehensive and voluminous, but adheres to Steinbergās house style, which takes some getting used to, despite the herculean efforts of the dev team!)
Agree with above, that you have to not treat it like Sibelius, or youāll be frustrated. I sure was until I watched some of the great tutorials on Doricoās YouTube, and came around to understanding the popover methodology which makes life so much easier and faster (google for the Dorico Reference Card PDF and it will make it a lot easier to get up and running). I also had to customize the keyboard shortcuts to meet me halfway with what I was used to in Sibelius. After that I was off to the races and havenāt looked back.
The stock sounds are pretty good. Thereās a drum kit, synths, guitars, etc. You can also create playback templates and expression maps for any vst/sample library you have. I sometimes compose for multiple synths using various synth VSTs which are loaded just like any instrument plugin inside a DAW. Hope that helps and good luck!
I switched from Sib to Dorico when the latter was at version 1.4, and have had no regrets. I will admit that I had some relearning to do, as the two programs are very different. Previoous responders who have cautioned you against making any assumptions about the approach are quite right. Iād go so far as to say simply forget everything you thought you knew about music notation and start with a blank slate, as though you were learning for the first time. It will go easier and faster that way.
I wouldnāt go quite that far. When I made the switch from Sibelius to Dorico 6 months after the launch of Dorico 1.0, I saw no reason to forget all I knew about music. But you DO have to forget how you worked in Sibelius, because these two programs are very different in the underlying logic. I had fortunately followed Danielās blog posts ever since Dorico was announced, because I was intrigued by everything he told about its logic, and this made the switch much easier. I have also watched a lot of the teamās wonderfully informative Youtube videos, and I believe this is the single best thing you can do to facilitate the switch. Just as a picture can say more than a thousand words, a video can say more than a thousand pictures.
I would presume to say that this is not a step I recommend, though I know that some have done it. A wise member of the forum suggested that one should give oneself a month with Dorico before considering any changes in the keyboard mappings. Thereās a real logic and consistency in the default choices of key combinations (e.g. for note durations) that deserves a chance to become familiar.
Dorico is a significantly superior notation and composition platform in my opinion to any other option Iāve tried. I used both Finale and Sibelius from their early days. Once I learned Dorico, I didnāt look back (except to curate old scores that are too much trouble to convert to Dorico). Doricoās support is unparalleled and the online resources, esp. the videos and the manual are exemplary.
If someone didnāt already mention thisā¦
Donāt forget there is a free version of Dorico. You can get your toes wet with it, and learn your way around the basics of Dorico somewhat before starting your pro trial.
Itāll also get you a key for a basic General MIDI set of sounds (plus a few) for HALion Sonic 7. Sonic 7 in that ābasicā configuration is a good reference player for General MIDI files! If youāre on Mac, I think Sonic works in Sibelius too as an AU plugin. If youāre on Windows, you can probably get it working in your VST2 only host with a vst3>vst2 shell (I personally use bidule to bridge, but itās not free as a plugin).
Curious about your comment about curating old scores. I was presupposing Iād just export from Sibelius to MusicXML and then import to Dorico. Is that actually a ālot of troubleā?
Iāve seen several comments about how cool āpopoversā are.
Are those context menus? (ie, right mouse click)
I have become very comfortable with doing a lot of work in Sibelius using only the keyboard, which Sib is really very good at. Keeping one hand on the mouse is a pain.
Have I missed what popovers are?
Is Dorico geared toward mouse-assisted workflows?
No, XML is a very reliable way to get the large majority of the score input automatically. You will likely want to turn off all import settings for XML and allow Dorico to make its own choices as much as possible. Of course thereās always the possibility of some oddities, but in general you should find itās a great first step.
To answer your second question, Dorico is probably the most keyboard favorable notation software at present. While you can use the mouse (and sometimes itās unavoidable), the idea is that you rarely need to take your hands off the keys. There are extensive options for assigning your own key commands, and for the outlying functions that arenāt available, you can easily modify the JSON file.
Pop overs can be accessed using Shift plus a letter, generally an intuitive one. Also, do a search for the ājump bar.ā Brilliant.
btw, I can already see what you mean about keyboard-intensive. Looks like I can likely do much more via keyboard than Iām used to (dotted notes, for example).
TIP: Set key commands for changing the grid resolution that mirror setting note durations (so for example, I have ctrl-5 to set the grid to quavers, ctrl-6 for crotchetsā¦ etc.) - Itās a huge time saver when you are shuffling notes around.
