I find Sketch to be very lacking in articulations. Generated trills sound pretty bad (regardless of software). They couldn’t have them at least for woodwinds?
There are many more articulations in Iconica Sections and Players, though you have to buy this at additional cost and it makes much greater demands on your system.
That will be nice. I’m very appreciative of the inclusion of Iconica Sketch, as many of the HSO sounds are rather “meh.” I use Synchron Prime which works and sounds great, and Spitfire Core (although only with a few instruments at a time due to my processor speed).
Iconica Sketch will be a nice palette of colors to add to my Dorico compositions.
Iconica Sketch is quite good, but if you have Synchron Prime, that is already a pretty top notch starter library. Iconica Sketch might be useful for layering for strings on top of Prime, but I doubt you would really find it appreciably better than Prime, except maybe some patches here and there might work better in certain contexts.
For someone who already has Prime and likes it, my recommendation for moving forward would probably be to upgrade to the full Synchron libraries, starting with the collection that you feel most limited by in Prime, but still like the sound of.
Speaking as a harpist, the biggest change for me will be having an actual harp sound. For reasons I’ve always found mystifying, HSO loads a meagre-sounding guitar patch for the harp. Even mediocre harp patches have been around for 20 years. The move to Iconica Sketch will be welcome.
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I just purchased Iconica Opus during holiday sale.
Please update Iconica Full version playback template, too.
I had hard time using it because it is mapped with old version of Halion Sonic SE that does not even load anymore with uptodate version of VEPro.
Thanks for all the hard work!
Will Iconica Sketch also be available for Dorico iPad? Would be delighted to have some better default sounds there as well (e.g. woodwinds and brass in general, string articulations like pizz.).
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Thanks for the insight. I really am impressed with Synchron Prime. It works great with the VSL template, in Vienna Ensemble and with NPPE. Also very easy on resources. I suspect Sketch will be a bit more resource hungry than Prime. We’ll see.
I don’t think so: sounds in the iPad have a specific format and few libraries comply to that (at least, nothing as satisfactory as NotePerformer— now PianoTeq works fine on iPad, and that’s a good thing!)
My understanding of Sketches being available for Pro and Elements is that an answer to Musescore 4 play engine was very much needed, and this would fill the gap. At least for those who accept to pay for Dorico.
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I never thought of that an would therefore use the SWAM-Sounds (string sections should be developed for iOS) with a template with expression maps in it. But the Iconica would be great.
But I never managed a good workflow in Dorico for iPad . I hope for 
input (like a mouse, not like hand writing recognition). Good sounds would be a welcome bonus
Things have improved a lot for those who want to use the mouse with Dorico 5… Are you using that version? What problems do you encounter if yes?
I edited my post. I never managed a good workflow in Dorico for iPad. Here I would like the pencil to behave like the mouse on the desktop. @dspreadbury already said, that it is on their radar but not so easy to implement, because of reasons I don’t understand
Dorico on my Mac and pc changed how I compose. With mouse and keyboard. Absolutely intuitive.
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Hi!,
Any idea as to how to uninstall Iconica Sketch from my PC? I’ll wait for the update of Dorico 5 later this month. Thanks!
Why bother to uninstall now? Chances are the SDA will recognize the existence of the sound files on your machine and save some time by not trying to download them again.
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I don’t think you need to do this. It is all controlled by the Download Assistant and Library Manager. The instruments are available to any apps that use them.
Dorico contains a licence for Sketch, but that could also come from Cubase, or a direct purchase.
Thanks so much! I’ll keep it, then.
A long time Finale user, I’m interested in acquiring the Dorico Pro 5.1. Do I get it right that it will be possible for me to use sounds from Halion (I’m assuming Halion will still be provided), Iconica Sketch and my VSL Synchronized Special Edition 1 in the same piece?
I also happen to own Garritan PO4-5, but reading through the relevant discussions here, I’m not sure if it will be possible to add Garritan sounds to the above mentioned mix on my Windows 10, 11 machines. Lately, there was mention of using some other program in place of ARIA to make it happen. I don’t know, though, whether in that case it would be possible to use a Garritan KS instrument, as with the ARIA player.
Yes, you can assign each Instrument to a different VST – HALion, Kontakt, ARIA – and each VST can assign whatever instruments it has to a given channel.
With Playback templates, you can automate the process of assigning instruments to various VSTs/instruments.
ARIA Player and GPO5 should work fine with Dorico on Windows, as long as you’re using the latest version.
You can mix and match VSTs very flexibly in Dorico. But you will need to invest time in acquiring or constructing appropriate Expression Maps and possibly custom Playing Techniques to trigger specific VST patches.
Thank you benwiggy and Janus for your replies. VSL provides dedicated Playback Templates for its Synchronized Libraries, and reading/watching through relevant material, I understand that it should be possible to use VSL sounds side by side with native Dorico sounds via configuring manual Playback Templates for each project. Still, it is relieving to hear confirmation as to its practicality from actual, long time users.
How practical it will be to use GPO5 KS instruments in Dorico and add them to the above mentioned instrument mixes remains to be seen, I guess.
Thanks again!