Hello. SO I watched a few videos and can enter notes, open and close files but I have not properly set up Dorico 5 (latest). I am still a Dorico Newbie but I have had Cubase since 1993. My system has a huge amount of VSTs. These include several orchestras, the full Iconica, East West Hollywood, Spitfirem etc. Also many other VSTs. Too much to be honest, but I love them all.
I need to know how to set up the system and how to access these VSTs. I presume a scan was done when Dorico was installed. I need to check to make sure Dorico knows the same paths as Cubase.
Basic newbie advice about how to set up Dorico in an advanced way would be very much appreciated.
Doricoâs UI is split among five distinctive modes, which are Setup, Write, Engrave, Play and Print and are accessed by clicking the respective headers in an open project. Of those, Play mode ist the one you need to go. It looks and works very much like a DAW, so if you look at the left panels, I think you will quickly find your way around.
Yes I have been looking here. So far I am unable to select VSTs here and the mute system is behaving very weirdly. Currently, for example, I have no mutes on and the guitar and bass are missing. Also the part is weirdly speeding up and slowing down which is not in the score (as far as I can tell). The file is an import of MXL. Whiter Shade of Pale. I need to sperately view and print the parts and have not yet found a way. Apols for a lot of queriesâŚ
Can you attach the project here so some of us can take a closer look at it? From what Iâve read around here, more often than not imported MusicXML files bring some idiosyncrasies with them (but that perception might be biased, as a flawless MusicXML import is unlikely to be put up here).
I donât know about VST3, as there is no option to define directories for this other than the systemâs default location, but for VST2, you can define custom folders here:
Ok, I donât have the Hammond B-3X, I guess thatâs why it is marked with double exclamation marks on both sides on my machine, but I find it odd that not only the organ, but also the guitars and basses are routed to it. Is this intentional? And are the second guitar and bass necessary for the project? To me they look like a workaround for particular effects, same with the dedicated Leslie track.
Remove players Leslie, Guitar 2 and Bass 2 completely from the project in Setup mode, they do not provide any additional musical information and this will make the score easier to read and the routing of the tracks easier to handle.
Still in Setup mode, add an Instrumental Part Layout (second of the bottom buttons on the right panel), assign it to the voice (right-click>Players>Voice) and move it to the top. Then, click on the Full score layout in the right panel and enable the voice to be included in the left panel. Now it should be much easier to navigate the score.
Optional: Create a new B3 player in Setup mode and assign it a grand staff. Then, copy the notes from B3 left and right to their repective staves. In Play mode, you can then Enable Independent Voice Playback for the new B3 player, this will allow you to route different voices/hands to different MIDI channels and enable selecting different sounds for them, as in a multi manual setup typical for an organ. It might make voice routing a little bit more complicated though, as the right hand is sometimes polyphonic.
(If you donât want to create a new player, you can alternatively edit one of the organ players to have a grand staff by clicking on the three dots here and change the number of staves under Edit Instrument Definition, so you have to c&p just one stave.)
P.S. This will not resolve any of your playback issues yet, but having an overall tidier project will certainly make it easier to adress those.
Thank you for your reply, and efforts, but this really should not be this hard. Dorico seems all over the place with imports like this. I am probably not good enough yet to cope with it all.
Itâs not so much the XML import, but applying your custom VSTs.
If you apply one of the âfactoryâ Playback Templates (under the Play menu), then youâll have sounds straight away.
But getting your own VSTs, loaded with their samples, set up to each instrument, with the correct Expression map, takes a bit of sorting out. The good news is that you can save "endpointsâ of Player - VST - Ex map configurations, and then use these to create your own playback templates, which you can apply to new documents, to get your config effortlessly.
There are a number of âDiscover Doricoâ videos about setting up your own Playback Templates and working with third-party VSTs.
Thank you. I am familiar with expression maps, I have written hundreds of them. I still have no real understanding of Dorico though. Itâs been an ordeal so far. I think Dorico cannot properly import MXL files, there is so much weirdness. At the moment I am just trying to import a MXL file and seperate the parts to print, not too worried about playback but the VST advice is good to know. I have only a few VST2âs on my Cubase 14 system. Does Dorico recognise VST3? I can see no sign of it.
Thank you for trying for me Ben, I had a couple of open threads and they got a bit muddled, as i dont really know what I am talking about at all. Howeverthe other thread explained this is actually an obscure three step process involving both left and right panels and the top panel
When talking about âeasy in Cubase and complicated in Doricoâ it is helpful to keep in mind that these two applications represent two entirely different approaches to music. DAWs like Cubase are built around recording tracks directly into the computer and thus focus on applying automations, plugins, effects, EQs and many more music production shenanigans to create a piece of audio as the primary end product. A scorewriter like Dorico works very different: The primary end product it is supposed to provide is a printed score, so it will focus much more on writing notation, engraving and layout - and with more functionality inevitably comes more complexity.
Doricoâs Play mode and Cubaseâs score editor are, while both extremely powerful compared to their counterparts in competing software, some sort of bonus functionality that some users may even completely ignore, while others may choose these applications explicitly for their powerful crossover functions.
P.S. Long story short: You shouldnât expect two fundamentally different applications to perform the very same task in a similarly straightforward manner.
Hello everybody. I donât know if this is the right place to tell my short story, but I try. I am an amateur musician and 88 yrs old.
I started writing music in the late 80th for fun and my litlle bands, coming from simple Amiga to PC with early Windows, I found an app Musicator. It worked simple and intuitive. Used it with Windows 3.1. I loved it.
Later I got several others. Eg Encore, Cubase etc and finally Sibelius.
The latter changed when it moved to Avid. I didnât feel no longer happy after the Farewell message of D. Spreadbury, although I was very content with the âMS Wordâ UI.
UNTILL THESE DAYS I found DORICO.
I instantly found back the simplicity and intuĂŻtivity of my first love Musicator. And on top the name of Daniel Spreadbury.
Immediately I changed to Dorico Elements, both for Ipad an PC.
It gives me everything what a rather old Home musicwriter needs to fulfill one his basic hobbies. Sibelius for live is still in my computers and on Ipad. But I am using DORICO with a mini keyboard even in my warm bed.
Signed
WillemZwaard
