I'm LOVING the new D5!

Maybe it’s just taken me a long time to start to “get it,” but wow, I’m blown away at how awesome D5 is!

This has probably been in Dorico for ages, but I just discovered Shift + B, then -2 to delete a couple bars (or +2 to add a couple).

BRILLIANT!!!

And the new ability to apply dynamics to lots of parts at once is just astonishing and wonderful!

As long as I’ve used Dorico, I’m still a total newbie (Sib dropout). I’m finally warming up to this magnificent achievement.

What times we live in!

Mike

PS HATS OFF to Daniel and his tireless kindness and amazing support, and to the entire Dorico Team!!!

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Yes… :grin::relieved::wink:

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This release is an interesting one, while as substantial as any it doesn’t have quite the splash feeling of earlier ones, which introduced large fundamental improvements like the key editor or condensing. But on thinking on it a few days I’ve come to see that while not obvious it is as big a change as the others.

Putting aside a pile of tweaks and additions, the main focus here is playback. I think this is a continuation of last year which was the key editor, a necessary step to world class notation playback. Now we’re in the final part of that which is the VST side. So we see the introduction of a new popover which is the MIDI trigger region (oddly bound to ‘)’ or Shift-0), I’m not sure of a memory aid there). We also get the VST (MIDI) drag-drop functionality (e.g. Drum Agent patterns), and not least the Live stage and Live Space.

Finally there’s the humanization - in the blog Daniel said this would continue to improve in updates. Clearly the team has a new development model which is for really large features, release the architecture basis in the mainline release, and then build on that the rest of the year in updates. I think by the end of the year we’ll be blown away by the automatic humanizing.

So music that moves - moves you emotionally due to the humanizing, and literally with the Live Stage. I guess that will basically round out the playback side of it with the Key Editor last year and the humanizing and other parts this year.

Summary - this stuff is really a game changer for so many of us bread and butter composers, with the astronomical cost of live musicians and the quality of samples we can do so much, but the problem is that DAW’s basically suck, being 40 year old technology. Dorico is moving us into the 21st century and we finally can focus on the music and let the computer get us most of the way to good stems.

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Never underestimate the tweaks!

I actually think the productivity improvements – ‘intelligent’ multiple selections, double-tap dotting, and much else – are massive timesavers in an already very speedy process.

Versions 2 and 3 brought out some innovative and unique functions, like Flow Headings, Condensing and Figured Bass, which showed how Dorico had been thought out from day 1; I wouldn’t entirely expect them to keep coming up with revolutionary stuff every year; though I wouldn’t be entirely unsurprised either…

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I’m not, but if I got into that my already long post would have taken the rest of the day to write! :grin:

The double tap duration in write mode has to be the darling of the tweaks.

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When I see what seems a larger than usual number of folks reporting trouble adapting Dorico 5 to sound cards, drivers, and the like, I figure Dorico must have made a significant change in at least one of their modules. Although the difficulties caused for some users (I feel lucky not to have had these problems yet), I expect this positions Dorico for even more capabilities in the future and I look forward to seeing (and enjoying) the developments that lie ahead.

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Ooooh, that’s an interesting point. Let’s see, well I have to believe the VSTEngine just receives MIDI over a pipe or some such. Problems with sound cards has to be only related to the engine. But in response to a query of mine, trigger regions are output to MIDI, and humanizing clearly is, so that would all be done up in the Dorico part which is what I would expect.

So what if anything is going on with the Engine? Don’t know but I doubt it’s any headline feature, I’d guess maybe some work was done for better reliability or compatibility, but don’t see a case for it to be more than that. This is all guesswork of course.

Possible memory aid: ) looks like a trigger.

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!!!

love it

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Since we’re probably in a playback development cycle, an interesting speculation is how far this will go on the Mixing/DAW side of it. While MIDI creation is nothing but good for composers who want to focus on notes and not digital output, there are many who don’t want to deal with a DAW at all so are asking for more on the mixing side.

I’ve said before I’m not a fan of that, feels too kitchen sink for me. And my needs go way beyond what Dorico would ever do anyhow, as my final output is ATMOS which only is available in Nuendo (and will likely stay that way). So we did see some additions - I forget but there’s some kind of output bus or side channel addition? Anyhow, I mean sure if the team can figure out a way to keep Dorico tight and clean with more mixing I’m fine with that, but my guess is we’ll maybe see some continued small additions like that, but ultimately Dorico won’t try to replace the DAW.

Which begs the question of will we see DAW integration this year in an update, maybe towards the end as a bow on top to finish it out? That would be lovely, we can have Dorico create top drawer MIDI, we can tweak and put the final polish on it, then just send off to the DAW for final mix.

Yeah, you can add FX Channels now. Obviously then they will appear in Sends, but it seems really important to use 'em with the Space template, so you can have completely separate Reverb settings for Near and Far sends. Anthony Hughes gets a nice effect with this when he demonstrates it in one of the vids with some EQ added as well. Otherwise, when you use the Stage template, I think it’s simply a graphical representation of what we’ve always been able to do, adjust the panning, and adjust the reverb send. Having Dorico sort of balance the two sends based on Y axis stage positioning is actually what’s new with the Stage/Space templates, so it seems to me adding the FX channel is a pretty important step.

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Aside - and I forgot to mention Scrub playback! Another playback feature I’m finding really useful.

OK so on the FX channels somebody here mentioned being able to do 5.1 with that? Seems like a kludge, but your explanation makes more sense in that it’s needed for better reverb. Which is a great addition, I’ve never mucked with reverb much but now it seems to be easier.

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OK I’ve noticed something new, now when you pull an audio interface you get the same dialog as is used in Cubase/Nuendo, before Dorico just silently changed interfaces. So I think all that happened is that the engine got greater compatibility/code with the DAW’s is all.

Dorico’s entire audio engine comes from Cubendo, so that is not surprising.


I don’t like that they included fonts in the installer that are also installed by the Finale/MakeMusic Fonts installer. Is everything from there included with Dorico, or will users run into problems if they have to reinstall Finale and then remove everything later on (including the MMFonts package).

The license allows redistribution, so why not just use their installer and install it during the Dorico installation (optionally giving us a choice of whether or not we’d like to add them)?

Me.? I’d put money on 100% not… Nor even within the v5.x.x lifecycle. Maybe wishful thinking for inclusion during v6 . :slightly_smiling_face:

Given all the discussion/frustrations from folk, and the team responses, over what’s in or not with v5 its clear there’s a deal of work to prioritise - isn’t there always.! However this time user feedback will, I believe, play into what really gets/deserves some attention now. Note that one or two of those areas ‘definitely wanting to be achieved’ (within v5.x.x.?) will each require major amounts of effort, said Daniel.

Lastly, Cubase DAW (audio engine) integration needs co-ordination across the whole of SB. Its possible the two teams of engineers (SB and Dorico devs) won’t be able to ‘coincide’ diaries on this for many months.

Honestly, I wouldn’t work up your expectations.

Finale installs several more fonts than come with Dorico. For starters, you get all the old ‘legacy’ Maestro, Petrucci, etc, fonts, which most non-Finale users won’t want.

Users won’t run into problems: if you reinstall Finale, you get all the fonts you need for Finale; if you reinstall Dorico (before or after), you don’t gain or lose any Finale fonts.

Yes, but the question is: Wenn users uninstall Finale, will the Finale fonts that came with Dorico also be uninstalled?

No, fonts are not typically uninstalled by applications when they are uninstalled. Standard practice is to leave fonts behind, since they can be used by other applications.

From Finale’s instructions for deleting all the relevant files, it doesn’t look like Fonts are mentioned.

If they are, and you find that your fonts are now missing, you can of course just restore them from your backup. At worst, you can reinstall Dorico.

Hardly a reason not to include the fonts, though.

Finale comes with its own MMFonts installer integrated into the installation process. It’s an installation option when installing the application, and it includes a couple/few that Dorico doesn’t package. So, a practical requirement (esp. if interchanging files with other users who may use them), as at least one of the legacy fonts that was ported over to SMuFL is not included with Dorico.

When a user uninstalls MakeMusic’s software (e.g. Finale, MMFonts, GIFF, etc.) the SMuFL fonts are also removed when the MMFonts package is uninstalled (otherwise, there is no point in having an installer/uninstaller - as the fonts don’t really have much “weight” to consider).

The user has to be conscious of the fact that Dorico also packages those fonts and NOT uninstall the MMFont package if Dorico 5 is installed. That, or they must be willing to lose access to those fonts on that machine. If not, they will have to reinstall Dorico 5 after uninstalling MMFonts.

I haven’t tested this on macOS, but on Windows most applications will remove fonts when the application is uninstalled for a couple of reasons. One is licensing, and a second is how Windows can be bogged down due to font bloat. Windows synthesizes font variations that do not exist for fonts installed, and if you have too many fonts the system can be sluggish in applications that access them.

So, applications typically will remove fonts that they install when the application is uninstalled. Install them to an application directory and access them there directly (so they’re uninstalled de facto - somewhat common for non-system UI fonts, etc.).

Or - when they package tons of fonts - they will install them to a non-system directory and leave it up to the user to decide what fonts to install/register (this is why some creative applications would come with font manager software).