I’ve been working with Dorico almost exclusively since the announcement of Finale’s demise. I had been using Finale for almost 30 years. I took the time and learned dorico a couple of days and its quite an incredible program and I’m very impressed with Steinberg and their active involvement among Dorico’s developers. I wanted to take some time before I posted some requests. Most of these requests have more to do with Film Scoring function than anything else. I don’t have too much to say about Dorico as a notation program except that I love it. It’s more flexible than Finale. It’s a really well thought out program.
With that, here are some suggestions I would love to see (some of which Cubase has already implemented).
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BMD Decklink/Ultrastudio or AJA Video integration for external monitoring. Dorico is great at locking to picture, but I wish the video out would work with my Ultrastudio. Cuebase already has this function and you have the option in Cubase to toggle between internal video or external video. Dorico can only produce an internal video monitor and doesn’t take advantage of these kind of video units. At the moment, the internal video in Dorico doesn’t seem to remember to use my second monitor when I open the program and I always have to move the video and expand it to the monitor. I also don’t know what resolution the video is outputting and using an external video box will take the pressure of the processor.
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Time Warp function - I would love to see something similar to the time warp function in Cubase implemented in Dorico. I just started using Cubase and discovered this function and it’s quite incredible where I can lock two markers and drag the number of measures to that marker to give me the proper tempo in-between markers. The work around now is to use Cubase to figure out timing, and just use those tempos, but I would love to see something like this implemented into the Play function. I know there is a timing calculator in Dorico already, but this Time Warp function can give you frame/measure accurate very quickly.
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Markers/ Time code staff - I would love to see more functionality between the markers and time code staff. Currently, I’m using a rhythm staff to place indication for streamers and punches. I wish Markers had the capability of being turned into these indicators (Side ways T and Zodiac symbol) and actually locked into time code opposed to be placed as a notation in a measure.
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Streamers and Punches - I would love to have a way to generate Streamers and Punches similar to how Digital Performer can do this natively. This would also coincide with my requests for Time Code staff updates. I know this is very far fetched but would be helpful. For now, I’m using a program called Video Sync to enter Streams and punches and then outputting that video and attaching it to Dorico. It works, but it would be nice to be able to do this in one program.
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Markers - Allow Markers to have an option to be opaque with a white background so if you place them over an item, it can cover it. This is an option for other notations already. Currently, if I place a marker over another item, that item shows through.
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Print Markers - have an option to print or at least copy Marker timings and names for printing to a cue sheet.
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Engrave Mode - Template setup - Have a toggle where you can switch between the Tokens and the actual entries in template setup so you can see exactly how each item will look finished. Currently, I have to set the layout with the Tokens, save it, close out of that dialog and then look over the final layout to see if ititss correct. If something is off, you have to go back into the edit dialog and change it. It would be more productive to have a toggle to see it all in one location before saving.
Just some of my thoughts. Thanks