Finale crossover learner here. My work is typically in the theatrical world, and my workflow begins with scoring, then creating mockups by playing everything into a DAW. Recently moved to Cubase. My hope is that perhaps the notation files in Dorico might somehow save me steps when rendering mockups, at least by being more musical to start rather than the standard midi import. I’m struggling to find resources/pro user experience tips for this work flow. Lots going the other direction. Any thoughts on where to focus my research would be terrific … thanks!
I no longer use DAWs to render, just Dorico, and I very rarely adjust the dynamic or other controller lanes either, just the dynamic markings in the score.
With Dorico I use Noteperformer and NPPE, and Libraries from Spitfire (BBSO and Solo Strings) and EW.
The work involved in creating DAW mock-ups was huge, now a thing of the past for me.
I think if you want the ultimate in quality, DAWs are probably going to give you that. It comes down to whether you can get good enough quality the easy way to meet your requirements.
If you do want to export to a DAW I would simply experiment with MusicXML and midi and see which one works best.
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Totally agree, it all depends on what you need. I can get great demos directly from Dorico that sound good enough to be very pleasing to listen to and capture everything essential about the piece. But nobody could be fooled into thinking they were the real thing.
As I come from Germany, the merging of Finale users and Dorico users feels a bit like the reunification of Germany in 1990.
As a Finale user, am I a Wessi or an Ossi in this context?
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Ossi
Jesper
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But then they must have split up somewhere in the past. Perhaps there was a Finalico or Doriale in former times? 
(Sorry, very OT)
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As far as tips (strictly my opinion though):
- I get a lot of use out of Dorico’s midi trigger regions, as they allow you with SHIFT+0 to drop a key switch right there on a staff in the score without going to a different view. Their appearance is just a tiny splotch of color - don’t have ledger lines, take up a lot space or mess up your clefs, don’t show up or mess with printing or spacing or anything.
I do still very much use expression maps but - especially for instruments or articulations that you don’t use a lot - triggers can save you a lot of time and distraction. Things like when the part is actually pretty good but you just want to fix that hilarious simulated brass fall.
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I treat the “Play” tab like the “Setup” tab in the sense that if I have to leave the score and go there very often, then there’s probably a feature I haven’t learned yet. That’s because you can pull up the VST for the selected staff with a key command (Press the | key), view your CC automation, played durations in the bottom pane under the score, etc. I tend to structure my audio to make the best use of those features - like by loading VST directly in Dorico instead of using VEP or connected to a DAW.
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One of the main advantages of stream deck for me is that - when you ARE working with Dorico and Cubase, Dorico and Note Performer, or just Dorico and the UI for a VST - is that the Stream deck’s controls (playback especially) always work to control Dorico regardless of which window you have on top, which window has the focus, etc. (Though I suppose it does matter how you’ve configured Stream deck.)
In addition to what @gdball wrote, my setup has a Dorico Template and a matching Studio One template (same instruments, VSTs etc… when (if) I want to further refine a mockup, I just export the midi and import it into Studio One. There’s a bit of moving regions around but doesn’t take more than a few minutes to drag the MIDI parts to the appropriate track in Studio One.
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They just sent emails announcing that this is available now.
My question about this is, as a longtime Dorico user who also has longtime Finale projects (v26) to preserve (for only a couple of years, but I do need them that long), is there a way for Finale users who didn’t need the Dorico upgrade, to make the upgrade to Finale v27?
You’d need to take that up with MakeMusic support, I think.
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For now at least it seems pretty clear that the free v27 is only available to those that bought the current Dorico switchover deal.
Yes, I understand that. And while it’d be nice to get the free deal, I don’t currently see any way for a current Finale user to buy an upgrade to v27. If I log on to my MakeMusic account, the only upgrade I can get is to Dorico – which I don’t need. (I submitted a support request, hoping that somebody’s answering.)
Looks like you can get a free trial of v27.
@gdball Thanks so much. It has been suggested to me that best practice is to have instruments housed in VEP, because Cubase can get sluggish with a large template inside of it. Is the same true in Dorico? Was thinking to have the same VEP template with same expression mapping, etc. in Dorico as I have in Cubase. So perhaps projects could port more easily? I really appreciate the time and thoughtfulness of your thoughts. They will undoubtedly be helpful. Thanks!
@derAbgang Thanks for your insights. When importing to StudioOne, do you also go through steps to improve musicality? Or does Dorico avoid perfect quant on pb or export?
Have you heard of NotePerformer? It’s an out-of-the-box VST that works brilliantly with Dorico. You should definitely try it.
Apologies if this has already been mentioned.
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@DanielMuzMurray Yeah … I explored that in Finale at one point. Was nice for ease of writing, but ultimately fell short in theatre world. I have a custom built library of samples that seem to work well, I’m trying to infuse them into the scores from the outset. Real world, I may be looking at the same workflow of scoring, then using a wind controller to enter everything so it’s musical … but was curious if the Dorico/Cubase team had a pro way that might help me save a bit of time… thanks again!
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I know that @FredGUnn has a nice VEP setup and might have some other suggestions.
If you’re going to use full orchestral samples driven directly from Dorico, doing full orchestral arrangements (without NotePerformer), I would strongly recommend Vienna Ensemble Pro to host everything.
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Good to know. Thanks