I just wanted to post for the sake of my fellow former Finale users: I’ve been absolutely thrilled with Dorico for the past month or so, and have really grown to appreciate the “Dorico way”… once you understand the fundamental philosophies behind Dorico, you realize how powerful and well-designed the program is.
As part of that, I’ve really tried to embrace Dorico’s defaults — I think I remember seeing a post early on encouraging me not to try to turn Dorico into Finale, which I really appreciate. But note entry in particular has still been a little slow for me, as I’ve been struggling to retrain my brain from 30 years of Finale usage!
Well, today I decided to give in a little, and changed some of the key commands… and it’s like night and day. Suddenly I’m flying the same way I could with Finale’s Speedy Note Entry! I can honestly say I’ve given the defaults a fair shot, and in many cases I’m still benefitting from the best of both worlds. If anything, it’s a testament to how accommodating and flexible Dorico is!
If any of my fellow Finale-heads are interested, here’s what I did to make life easier for me. I’m using a MIDI keyboard controller and using pitch-after-duration (Preferences > Note Input and Editing). These settings are in Preferences > Key Commands > Note Input:
Advance Caret: I added the zero key on my numeric keypad to do the same thing as space, advancing the caret equivalent to the currently selected duration.
Dotted Notes: I added the keypad’s decimal key to work the same as the period key, so I don’t have to move my hand from the keypad to make a dotted note.
Set Note Duration: I know the Dorico faithful may shun me for it, but I changed the numbers to Finale’s system where 5 is a quarter note, and suddenly I’m not having to translate every keypress. To avoid the “this key is already in use” messages, I started by assigning 1/32 to 2, then 1/16 to 3, and on up.
To add each key command, click “Press shortcut,” type the key you want, and click “Add Key Command.” You can have multiple keys for one command (I made sure to enter the regular number key and the numeric keypad key for note durations, since I’m on a laptop and don’t always have my bluetooth numeric keypad handy), and you can delete existing ones with “Remove Key Command.”
I hope this helps any fellow Finale users… it’s been a little work to get switched over, but I’m really in love with Dorico and excited to get better and better with it.
Really? This is Dorico’s default.
And you get a dotted note by pressing the duration key twice.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
I went still further to keep some of Finale’s numeric keypad shortcuts. I mapped 0 to ♮, + to ♯, ⌥+ to enharmonic up, – to ♭, ⌥– to enharmonic down, = to Tie, / to Unbeam., ⌥/ to Beam, F16 to ⇧⌥← and F17 to ⇧⌥→, but I didn’t change the note duration keys at all. Meanwhile I feel more convenient to have 16th, 8th and quarter notes in the same row.
You may have missed the fact that double-tapping a note value automatically dots it.
I hadn’t known that either! Just tried it, but the steps seem unclear to me:
Does it only work if duration before pitch is the paradigm?
Do you double-press the duration (icon or number) and then select the pitch, or (since the pitch is usually shadowed and then engaged with the duration is set) backspace and hit the duration icon or number key again?
Is this faster than just adding a dot manually or hitting the dot button?
It’s all well and good, but I wonder if wanting to transfer all the uses of an old software to a new one isn’t a bit questionable. Wouldn’t it be better to learn how to use the new one ? Creating keyboard shortcuts for your own use, yes of course, that’s what Dorico is for, but it has to fit in perfectly with Dorico and not expect to be able to find Finale behind Dorico. What are your thoughts on this?
Ah ok. I thought I remembered changing something when I first got Dorico; in any case I was just trying to make my instructions thorough
And you get a dotted note by pressing the duration key twice.
I didn’t know that! That’s obviously way easier and would likely have eliminated the need for this whole adventure, but I suppose it yielded some other helpful results.
I agree completely; as I mentioned, I genuinely appreciate the Dorico way of doing things and I have no interest in turning it into Finale. One thing I really appreciate is Dorico’s philosophical separation of “what the music is” and “how the music is presented” which was never part of the Finale approach.
And having read this advice and taken to heart early on, I have been deliberately avoiding these sort of customizations in an effort to fully embrace Dorico’s approach. But even after using it for a few months I find myself having to think “quarter note, ok, that’s 6” with every note I enter, which adds up to a lot of extra time and effort — as I mentioned, quarter note for me has been “5” since the early 90s. So I decided to just try switching the duration numbers for a bit, and I was entering music two or three times faster — and isn’t that the reason those customizations are available in the first place?
As I mentioned in another reply, I didn’t know you could get a dot by pressing the duration note twice… I’m obviously going to be using that from now on. Yet another improvement over Finale
It is possible to set up key commands to change the note duration “up and down”, like gears on a car, e.g. down from a quarter to an eighth, up from a quarter to a half.
That way, you just think about “is the next note smaller or larger than the current one?”.
I agree wholeheartedly. However, having 30+ years of habit in which 5 = quarter and 4 = eighth, I’d rather invest my time remembering and using things that are novel like R to repeat the selection and ; for the tuplet popover (which was the keystroke for grace notes in Finale). Nothing wrong with customizing commands to make them more like what works for an individual user. Many of us customized Finale commands when possible (metatools , for example). If there were no interest in being able to customize Dorico per one’s needs or preferences, there wouldn’t be the means of customize keystrokes. Yes, one can’t expect software to resemble another competing software application. But it’s also not a personal failure to change up keystrokes to resemble Finale as desired. If it helps with making it easier and faster for a new user, why not? There seem to be several ways to do the same thing in Dorico and I’m finding it easier and more reliable to simply hit the dot icon to dot a note rather than having to make sure I’m using duration before pitch and double hit the same duration (which do some reason is just not working for me, just as it’s more reliable for me to use the tuplet popover than try to get the icon to do what I want). Choice is good.
I originally came via Sibelius where quarter note (crotchet) is centered around the number 4, which has always made perfect sense to me. I’ve been using Dorico for a few years but one of the first things I ever did was map the rhythmic note values to what I prefer, 4 being an easy to remember center point. I’ve never quite understood why Dorico’s default includes a keyboard shortcut for 128th note – I have maybe used this value only a couple of times in my entire musical career – I prefer to have my key commands reserved for things I frequently need access too, not once in a blue moon!
As Janus mentioned above, another thing I did which has been so helpful is assigning key commands to adjusting the rhythmic grid resolution up and down, as well as holding down modifier keys I can immediately change the grid resolution to the note value that corresponds to more normal key assignments (cmd+shift+4 for quarter grid, for example).
Breves are not unusual, and if you start at 9 and work down from there, then either you include very small note values, or you’d have to find something else to put on those keys.
And, as this forum frequently reminds me: my needs and those of other people may not be entirely aligned.
(Interestingly, today I’m transcribing a score and doubling the note values while I type it in – so I see a quarter note and press 7 for a half! )
I recall that the question of mapping durations to keys users habitually used in Finale or Sibelius was a big topic when DOrico first appeared eight years ago. Then it died out. I wonder how many folks who switched their duration keys back then still use them now.
It was a credit to the Development Team that they allowed for customization right from the start.
I agree. 4 = quarter is logical.
I do like the numpad layout of Sibelius ; however, starting from 4 for quarter, we have :
Quaver = 3
Semiquaver = 2
Demisemiquaver = 1
and, the hemidemisemiquaver is rejected on the second layout (since 0 is for the rests), which is not always practical as it is used a lot in slow movements by Mozart or Beethoven.
How did you organise the numpad in Dorico so that it looks like the one in Sibelius, bearing in mind that Dorico, unlike Sibelius, doesn’t offer several layouts of the numpad ?
I think that changing the arrangement of the numbers on the numpad can be useful when, like me, we don’t use Dorico as main software, otherwise you end up getting knots in your brain.
I didn’t say Breves are unusual? Although just as well I’ll often write a semi-breve and then R + tie. I was referring to rare occasion that I would ever use a 128th or semihemidemisemiquaver. As for the other keys I have put other shortcuts I simply use a lot more frequently during note input, re-arranged in a way that makes sense to me. I’d say the only ones I’m missing out on which I do use with decent frequency would be breves and hemidemisemiquavers – but I don’t use them every single day in and out, so I’m fine when I need those to mouse over, or like I said with breves just repeat+tie.
