I am seeing the big picture..

I felt compelled to write this tread as I have now been working with Dorico since January 2017, working on full orchestral scores, piano reductions, choir scores etc, so I really have been putting it through its paces, and for as much as I have had questions over these last 3 months, I truly want to say that there are some genius concepts being built into this new software program and I can definitely ‘SEE’ and ‘SENSE’ the bigger picture Dorico is going after on its horizon.

Just to mention a few of my favorites:

  1. Forced lock - which saves you buckets of time as it allows you to keep all the rhythm and articulation decisions you have made when you need to rely on them again but transcribed and so you simply just type in the new pitches and it will retain all other information. If you have not discovered this yet, I strongly urge you to learn this feature.

  2. The copy and pasting of dynamics globally across as score - for if and when you change your mind, you only have to type your decision once and then Dorico will change it in the other parts that reflected that same dynamic pattern. Such a time saver!!

  3. I love that you can fully customize so many aspect of your LOOK and FELL of your score which can to be retained as custom defaults for new projects.

  4. Whilst I haven’t fully utilized the FLOW component of its design, I can definitely see how I will utilize this more in future projects.

So I am fully on board and will watch with great anticipation this program going from strength to strength.

I want to thank the team for providing us with an alternative answer to music notation and being so innovative with its concepts and design. It has been a refreshing journey and I look forward to being a recipient of its ‘master plan’ over the months/years to come.

Thanks so much for taking the time to write this post, Amanda. It really means a lot to me and the rest of the team to see people enjoying using our software, and appreciating the direction that our joint journey is taking us.

Thanks for writing, Amanda.

I’ve been using it too for real (paying) jobs, and I like it as much as you do. Although it isn’t quite there yet, there is no question that this is my software of the (hopefully near) future.

Your points 1 and 2 look great—I wasn’t aware of either of them—but I couldn’t figure out how they work. Would you mind writing a short step-by-step showing how to apply each of them in practice?

Thanks much.

Hi Lew,

I have made a little video to show you the 1st point I made in this post with regards to the “Forced Duration” feature of Dorico while retaining all articulations at the same time you wish to change the PITCH of the selected notes…

I will also create a separate video for the second favorite feature I mentioned regarding retaining the same dynamic maps but in different instrumental parts.

I hope this helps!

Amanda

That’s perfect, Amanda—thanks so much. And you’re right, that’s a gem of programming, and I had no idea it was even there; and I’ve done two major projects in Dorico, one a 300+ bar 20-flow accompaniment for a silent film. I can see such a bright future for it, once it’s a bit more full-featured.

As you might imagine, being a fellow Sibelius user, I really miss the explode/implode functions, and of course 1st/2nd ending bars and chord changes. But once those are present, I don’t see anything keeping me from making the switch permanently.

Again, thanks for posting—I look forward to the demo of how the dynamic maps work.

Lew Buckley

I agree about the big picture… There are things that I will never want to be without again:
insert mode, force duration, and all the page layout options. Being able to define text and music frames, exact pages and master pages… it’s all very wonderful!

Hello again,

As promised, here is a little video I have prepared on how efficient Dorico is with Dynamic maps!

VERY slick…

I hope this helps also!

Amanda

Very nice - thanks Amanda!

Ah, perfect. To be sure I understand, any dynamics you copy/paste (as opposed to option clicking a dynamic into a new location) will reflect any changes you make on the original? Or is it just if they are in the same vertical bar?

Again, thanks very much – that looks incredibly useful.