I’ve been a Finale user for many years, but as of this week, am finally committed to Dorico (Pro). I don’t have thousands of files to bring over, and have been drooling over Dorico for some time, so the End of Finale announcement and the corresponding Dorico crossgrade deal were the best news I’ve had in a long time. I totally get it why many are frustrated, but fortunately I don’t have anything super precious to maintain, which gives me the freedom to turn my back on Finale and put my all into Dorico.
This document (Dorico First Steps for version 5.1) has been referenced in various replies to struggling users, in the various Finale threads that have sprung up this week. At the beginning of the week, I was as lost as anyone when I opened Dorico, but I’m working through the piano exercise in this document / webpage and found it so extremely helpful that I thought it might be worth devoting a post to the subject of urging Finale users to start with this resource. Go to the link here, bookmark the webpage, and download the files in the attachments pane, which you will need as a reference. I’d recommend printing the reference / demo sheet music (unless you can open it on a separate monitor) and do the exercises. Yes, do the exercises. You could likely learn a lot of this stuff on your own, but if you want to learn Dorico best practices in a very efficient manner, don’t skip this. This document covers the areas that all new users need (starting a new file, adding instruments, inputting key signatures, time signatures, and notes, adding additional voices, etc.) in a detailed, easy-to-follow way.
I’d also recommend working through Anthony Hughes’s mellifluous videos. Even the older ones with a slightly out of date UI will still be useful in getting a feel for the method and design.
And if you really want to immerse yourself, try one of John Barron’s longer Discover Dorico sessions. You can set the speed to 1.25 or 1.5 to ‘condense’ them a little. Anything more, and it’s hard to take him seriously.
I’m very pleased to hear you’re finding First Steps so useful, @Lavon !
Can I point you to the absolute latest version of it? I published it on Wednesday - it brings the instructions up to include all relevant changes in the 5.1 cycle.
It’s mostly the same, but there are some steps that are now redundant (for example, Dorico now allows multi-staff input, so you can add the slash regions more efficiently, and fermatas now appear in slash regions, meaning you no longer need to add slash voices to show those).
There were also changes to playback in 5.1 with the introduction of Iconica Sketch, so the best playback templates to load are now different than described in the 5.0 guide.
For the supporting resources, those are now attached directly to the webhelp guide - look for the attachments paper clip icon.
Hi there @Lillie_Harris, and thanks for adding this update!
I would be more than happy to update the links in my post, but when I click on your link, it loads the page for an instant, then replaces it with this error message:
If the link works for others, then I’ll assume the error is a result of something on my system. For what it’s worth, I get the same behavior / error when trying to open the Dorico Concepts link here.
Edit: It turns out this error was a result of an internet content filter on my device causing an issue in the background. It’s been fixed and I can access the links now.
(I had missed seeing this before, but apparently my original post was almost an exact duplicate of someone else who apparently shared the same sentiment about the First Steps documentation here.)
That’s odd, those links are all working fine for me on Safari iOS and Chrome on macOS. What browser are you using, and do they work for you in another browser (if you have another accessible on your machine)?
The earlier post was from two and a half years ago, so no worries whatsoever about saying something similar again now! Particularly given the context of events this week. (Also, First Steps is quite dear to my heart, I invested a good amount of care into its creation, and it’s all about making it easy & enjoyable to pick up key Dorico philosophy: I’ll happily hear feedback about it any day of the week, both good and critical some really useful critical feedback since the first iteration have informed some beneficial updates and amendments.)
Thanks for your help, @Lillie_Harris and @ebrooks! It turns out that a content filter on my device was causing an issue in the background. This has been fixed, and I am now able to access the links. I’ve updated my previous posts.
It seems to me that Steinberg has made everything that was easy in Finale difficult in Dorico and everything that was difficult in Finale easy in Dorico. It’s not a great trade-off. After using many complex software programs over many years you get a feel for what to expect, an instinct for the way things work. Dorico’s developers seem to have gone out of their way to frustrate any expection - kind of like Morton Feldman’s music.
A lot of the online help seems out of date too. Most of it is for Dorico 3.5 and 4 and asks you to click on buttons/links that don’t seem to exist anymore. Finale still works and probably will for many years to come. I’ll keep a copy of Dorico on my computer (just in case) but I don’t expect to be using it much - except maybe for printing. If Finale becomes unusable I’ll probably move to MuseScore. If it’s screwy at least I’m not paying to be screwed.
I can’t even figure out how to download the software. I entered the download access code. I can see in the system that it acknowledges I own Dorico Pro 5…but there’s no download link there to be found!
Very unintuitive to not provide that link once the download access code is entered…no clear way to find back to that page if I need it later from my account either. Bad first impression
I would agree that, initially, getting used to the Steinberg downloads manager and the Steinberg activation manager isn’t as intuitive as getting many other programs installed. I don’t think of this now with Dorico because I’ve been used to using it for Cubase. But once you’ve got the downloads manager and activation manager on your computer, installing and activating / deactivating Steinberg software is a breeze.
Sweetwater has a pretty good article here. Just ignore the “Upgrading e-licenser based products” section, and use the activation code you received from Steinberg (or MakeMusic) wherever it refers to an activation code from a Sweetwater sales engineer.
PS: If you think the current system is bad, you better count your blessings that you didn’t live in the e-licenser era.
some really useful critical feedback since the first iteration have informed some beneficial updates and amendments.)
