As I mentioned before, English is not my native language. I can see that Dorico’s user manual is extremely detailed, and I refer to it often. Unfortunately, there is no Chinese version. It’s over two thousand pages long. I don’t know how others feel, but for me it’s absolutely a disaster.
I started using Cubase SX more than a decade ago, and I’m currently using Cubase Pro 14. I’ve never been resistant to learning new things, and I’ve experienced the great feeling of becoming proficient with software after putting in serious effort. That feeling is truly rewarding. However, what I wanted to emphasize earlier is the importance of efficiency. There’s nothing wrong with being complex and rigorous, but it does make the learning curve much steeper.
If I were rich, I would be more than willing to spend a lot of time studying it. But life doesn’t give me that much free time. Very often, I have to work through the night to finish an arrangement. Once it’s finalized, I might have to go into the recording studio within just 24 hours. That means I can’t sleep and must continue working on the score immediately. I believe most arrangers around the world work under similar pressure.
That’s why AI is such a great tool. It’s not 100% accurate, but it can greatly boost efficiency. Just like this paragraph — without AI’s help, I wouldn’t have been able to write it in English and post it here smoothly.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, @Steven_Wong . You can trust that we’ve read it and will consider it, alongside all the other requests and bits of feedback we get from our users.
For what it’s worth, in the context of this forum where you are talking directly to other humans and fellow busy musicians, keeping your posts as close to what you would write directly yourself in your native language (and using a translation tool to match your comments 1-to-1, or as close to that as possible) comes across much better than asking an AI to rephrase and expand the English. I would always much rather read imperfect but sincere text, rather than an AI-generated essay. You’re talking to people, here – do remember that
Steven, I get it — that this is extremely difficult, especially for non-English speakers. But the fact remains that if you want professional results, you need professional tools. With that comes the complexity and, ultimately, a steep learning curve.
AI is currently not mature enough to do what you ask, and would likely be a hindrance to users who have learned to use the application. To incorporate AI into Dorico would necessitate including a team of AI experts who would be tasked with numerous updates as the technology evolves. Perhaps a stopgap for you would be to find a less professional application that is simpler to use that could export MusicXML to Dorico. That way you could have a “quick and dirty” score for immediate use and clean it up in Dorico when you have more time (and a chance to sleep!) (Just a thought to give you time to learn Dorico.)
— Jim
Since you are adept at AI, perhaps you should ask AI to translate the manual for you so you can learn to use Dorico more comfortably rather than expecting Dorico to adopt AI so you do not have to. Yes, one must invest some time to use Dorico at a high level, and I suspect most of us have lives outside Dorico. If we want to learn Dorico at a high level for those functions important to us, we find the time to learn it and find the study worthwhile.
…isn’t this exactly what Dorico already does? In Finale, I had to enter all of the musical content and then make another two or three passes through my scores to organize all the engraving elements. Dorico’s own (not artificial) intelligence is such that the vast majority of my engraving needs are automatically met as soon as I enter musical notation. Learn how to use the program, learn how to set the options to match your clients’ needs, and there’s no need for any kind of “AI” integration.
That’s true — AI translation can’t perfectly capture everything I want to express in my native language. But please understand that this is just a temporary workaround. I can’t exactly wait until my English is good enough for normal conversations before talking with everyone. That would make no sense at all, haha.
Thank you for your reply and help. The solution you mentioned is actually the exact method I’m currently using.
I posted this thread mainly to share some thoughts and suggestions with the official team — ideas that I believe could make Dorico even better and help it appeal to more people.
Nowadays, many people resist AI out of fear and insecurity. They feel that AI has made the professional skills they spent years building seem less valuable. I used to feel that way too. But after using AI translation to understand articles and YouTube videos that I couldn’t understand before, I realized that many of the things I want to learn have become much clearer to me, and I’ve genuinely improved because of it.
So for people like me, AI is not entirely a bad thing.
Of course, AI is still far from perfect. Sometimes it confidently makes things up or gives incorrect information in a very convincing way. But humans are similar in some ways — we improve by constantly correcting ourselves and learning from mistakes.
There is an old Chinese saying: “取其糟粕，取其精华.” I’m not sure whether AI can translate it perfectly, but it roughly means: “keep the good parts and discard the bad ones.”
Yeah, learning like that is definitely worthwhile. But man… are you serious? Translating a user manual with more than 2,000 pages? Hahaha.
At that point, I don’t think it’s a question of whether it’s possible — it’s more a question of whether it’s crazy to do it in the first place. Just joking of course, no offense intended.
If built-in AI can significantly reduce the amount of time people spend learning how to use the software, then why not make use of it?
After all, what we ultimately want to create is music, so it makes more sense to spend our time on the more important parts of the creative process.
Of course, for professional music engravers, beautifully engraved scores are part of the artwork itself. But if AI can make the work of professional engravers easier and more efficient, isn’t that a good thing too?
You’re right — Dorico is already an excellent piece of software.
What I was trying to talk about in my previous post was more about the smaller and more detailed settings, especially the underlying logic behind how different parts of the software interact with each other.
A lot of the time, new users end up relying on trial and error just to achieve a certain result, because much of that internal logic is invisible to them. The UI already does its best to communicate how things work, but understanding those relationships still takes time, and usually also a fair amount of experimentation.
I think AI could help reduce a lot of that unnecessary trial and error, which would make the whole workflow much more efficient.
I think the suggestion about simplification could be achieved with different “modes” that have different levels of notification constraints.
Like, slap notes onto the bars and later modify note lengths etc with very little constraints in a simplified mode. That would make it easier and faster to document musical ideas while being in creative mode. Refinement later.
A bit like how most people use CAD software; Start out with simplified blocks of geometry and when the overall idea is covered, refine the geometrical details into perfection.
Two modes of creativity that don’t immediately gets stuck in complexity and messy rules and menues.
In the old days the best of the best worked in this way, only using paper and pen.
This approach still works for me — although I have found a pencil to be easier when I make mistakes! But if one must use more technological tools there are other apps that even allow one to use a tablet and “pen” to enter music which can be ported into Dorico for the professional level engraving it offers.
(Just a thought to give you time to learn Dorico.)
But if one must use more technological tools there are other apps that even allow one to use a tablet and “pen” to enter music which can be ported into Dorico for the professional level engraving it offers.