I am a Finale user forced over to Dorico. For some strange reason when I am in the Play tab, even though I have not made any colour changes or requests in the set up or in options, all the channels in the mixer are coloured differently with no logical colour assignment protocol. It looks very cartoonish and silly. Some of the colours are so dark that I cannot read the back text indicating what instrument is assigned to that channel. Very Mickey Mouse. Not impressed at all right now. Not worth the discounted price. I also ALWAYS have woodblock for some reason despite my instrumentation NOT including wood block. Cowbell I could understand, but wood block?
Welcome to the forum @Scott_MacKay ā usually, the colours are in classic rainbow order, so it sounds like something is up with the sounds in your project. Sorry about that!
Iād recommend trying to re-apply a playback template. If you downloaded all the sounds that came with Dorico Pro, the template you want is the one with the nice, long name with lots of different sound libraries listed: starting with Iconica Sketch, ending with GASE.
Playback templates are how Dorico assigns the right instrument sounds in the available libraries to the right instruments, according to their definitions.
That should also correct the sound errors youāre hearing ā because Dorico will do a refresh of which sounds should be loaded for the instruments in the project.
If that doesnāt help, please do come back and weāll see what else might need doing to get you sorted.
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I do not understand why the VST library used dictates which colours are automatically assigned to different channels? I DO NOT WANT ANY COLOUR WHATSOEVER.
Please, please, please just tell me what button I click or what options menu I need to go to in order to remove ALL COLOURS from the mixing board and inspector. Thatās all. It canāt be too complicated.
Logic provides the option to have or not have colour per track. Additionally, if one chooses to highlight a track with a colour, the inspector matches the colour so that if Strings are highlighted in a muted yellow colour, not only the channel is highlighted but also the inspector. Dorico has completely different colours for the same instrument between the inspector and mixer channel. For example, a lime green for āCello in the inspector and a dark, dark purple on the mixing board channel. Weird!!
Iāll use Logic with Vienna Symphonic Library and stick with professional programs rather than try to play around with inferior products for my mixing and mastering. I not really wanting to waste more time to try and find a really long name of something or other to remove the colour.
I hope printing isnāt this silly and Dorico prints out each part in a different colour.
You cannot disable the use of colours in Play mode for different tracks and for the plug-in outputs in the Mixer. People do from time to time ask for the ability to set these colours themselves, and that is something we have on our backlog for future implementation, but as things stand theyāre not customisable.
Mixing and mastering should definitely be done in other dedicated softwares, Dorico is a āNotation Based Music Productionā software.
It is still young but its power is immense in terms of producing outstanding audio results along with stellar scores and parts.
As a 30 year Finale and Logic Pro user myself, I can only invite you to refine your approach of Dorico in order to discover its full potential.
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So I just have to live with not being able to read which instrument a slider is assigned to because a dark brown or dark purple colour was automatically chosen at random and could appear on any channel at anytime? Weird.
Iāll just use Dorico to notate, add expression etc, then export to midi to Logic and assign Vienna Symphonic Library instruments to the logic channels. I hope the colours donāt get locked into midi data or XML data.
Welcome to the forum ā and to Dorico, @Scott_MacKay. I trust that when you do actually print something youāll see that Doricoās output is among the most professional-looking that any software produces. FWIW, I have often received compliments from performers and fellow composers about the quality of the printed music.
While, like you, I appreciate being able to customize the color scheme of tracks in Logic Pro, using Doricoās admittedly āfestiveā and uncustomizable mixer color palette in order to dismiss the entire application as āinferiorā strikes me as not seeing the forest for that one shrub over in the corner.
Iām not sure how the users in the Finale forum are acculturated, but I would like to assist you in knowing a bit more about this forum so you can get the most out of the Dorico teamās and fellow usersā generosity in assisting you.
This forum is a truly special place filled with advice and wisdom, constructive debate and criticism when warranted, camaraderie, and even good humor. Those of us already here obviously have a connection to Dorico through our invested time and admiration for its functioning. But that doesnāt make us mindless shills. But it should be self-evident that we wonāt join in on the chorus when anyone starts singing demanding and āshoutyā all-caps variations on āthis is terribleā as opposed to constructive variations on āis X possible? If not, would you consider it as a feature request?ā
I value being met here and meeting others with mutual respect, being incredibly supported, feeling welcome, knowing that my constructive criticisms will be considered, looking forward to the responses and assistance I receive, and to giving back as Iām able. And fortunately that is the ethos of the forum.
I caution everyone new to the forum to be very mindful of not squandering the good will with which you will be met if you make some effort and a few simple gestures. āI tried looking for X, and havenāt found a way to do it; how does that work in Dorico?ā will go a long way to guaranteeing that you get the help and answers you need. āThis software is crap!ā will probably impel a number of your fellow users to keep scrollingā¦
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I understand your frustration - but I think itās worth thinking about the additional playback features that Dorico gives you that a DAW doesnāt.
Iām a professional user of Cubase. I donāt know Logic at all, so Iām going to assume they are similar.
The big benefit of generating the audio from Dorico, while Iām developing the music, is that I almost never need to adjust any automation. In my latest 80 minute orchestral / choir project, Iāve made about 5 manual automation changes in total.
What this means is that I can try out different dynamics and phrasing instantly just by changing the score. This has saved me immense amounts of time and gives me a level of consistency I never achieved in Cubase. No need to export and import multiple versions or make manual tweaks in Cubase.
On top of that, Dorico allows very nice configuration of how dynamics play back, adds (configurable) beat stresses, and includes a phrase-shaping algorithm.
To get extra realism I use Noteperformer with its NPPE playback engines, and I no longer need to use Cubase at all to produce mock-ups.
Iām not saying that will apply to you as I donāt know your requirements, but I would think that like me you would at least be able to save a lot of time while youāre developing the project.
You might still, of course, need the full power of a DAW to produce your final renders.
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My eyesight is not great and I sometimes struggle looking at screens all day (in fact Iām overdue for an eye appointment), but I havenāt really had an issue with seeing the instrument names. Have you played with the brightness settings on your display?
As someone who started in DAWs and uses color coding to identify my tracks, I understand your desire to have this feature, but itās important to remember that Dorico is not first-and-foremost a DAW or mixing program. Thereās many things I would like the mixer to have such as track presets and searchable inserts, color being a lower priority than that, IMHO.
That said the small development team has a massive ever-expanding list of feature requests which, especially with all the newcomers from Finale like yourself, is growing exponentially. So therefore while color coding would be a ānice to haveā feature, for many other users it may be far less essential. While I use color coding in my DAWs I havenāt even thought twice about the colors in Doricoās mixer, because personally itās not essential, I view it more as window dressing. And of course, ācartoonish and sillyā is completely subjective. But I get it, we all have our unique requests which we feel are pretty important to our workflow, so I think itās best to have patience with the team as they get inundated with requests and are hard at work at improving the program.
It wonāt - that data is program-UI specific.
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