I’ve recently started experimenting with using Dorico as a quick prototyping tool for cues that are ultimately destined for orchestral emulation in a DAW. When “sketching” directly into a DAW, I find that my music tends to be homophonic and rhythmically unimaginative, since I’m not that virtuosic a keyboard player. Or I get caught up in articulation management to make the draft sound realistic, which hampers workflow and creativity. Writing on pencil-and-paper, lets me write interesting counterlines and textures — but the process is comparatively slow, especially where editing is concerned. Dorico offers a best of both worlds, and lets me export the results into a DAW for finessing. NotePerformer supplemented with a VEP template offers “good enough” realism for developing a cue while in Dorico.
Dorico’s bundling of multiple flows into a single project is great for experimenting with cue variations/versions, and keeping them organized in one file. Managing alternate versions of the same idea can be more cumbersome in a DAW if you’re scoring to a timeline. (Logic at least has no concept of multiple timelines.)
Above all, it’s just nice to be working with notation more regularly, and during composition be able to see an entire orchestral score instead of just hearing it in realtime.
In short, nice work, devs. 