I am basically ready to give up. I downloaded everything in Download Assistant. Then I simply tried to play one of the pre-loaded pieces that came with Dorico Elements 5. Guess what? Most instruments wouldn’t play. I got a pop up message saying several sound files were missing. Well, what can I do? I downloaded what the told me to download.
It’s Saturday, so I can’t call anyone. What is up with that? People who work Mon-Friday can’t call because they are at the office working. There has to be something better.
Welcome to the forum, @gschoolar. Sorry that you’re having problems getting the sound content installed. As @Janus says, if you attach a diagnostic report, we should be able to help you get up and running pronto.
This is your first post here.
Instead of a flouncing post, how about asking a calm, specific question, and waiting the probably very short delay until you get an answer that may correct the error or at least point you in the right direction?
Can you share a screen shot of that? You need to have installed everything that comes up when you click Dorico Elements 5 in the SDA, not just the Dorico application. You should have all of these installed, otherwise Dorico won’t be able to correctly play back with the default sounds:
I gave up a couple of years ago as the learning curve was too steep. Went back to Sibelius and was happy. Now I’m back again because a project I’m involved in requires me to use Dorico. The learning curve is still the same and Dorico frustrates the crap out of me but I’m pushing through, thinking not all music creation has to necessarily be fun. I hope the frustration eventually goes away but am not very optimistic about it.
I’m sure you’ll get through it. Most people reach a point where they “get it”, and then everything becomes easy, because they understand the way things work, which are usually consistent across the whole program.
I’d also recommend watching any amount of the ample video tutorials on YouTube – either the in-depth ‘Discover Dorico’ sessions, or Anthony Hughes’s mellifluous introductions. There are loads of third-party ones, too.
I am currently working with Musescore, I have the same feeling exactly. I understand. We have all had to learn new software.
I could have done what I need to do in Sibelius or Dorico much easier. However I do not think it is Musescore’s fault or design, it is not helpful for me thinking this, they are unlikely to change it to be more like S or D just for me, best for me to actually learn it, in the way it was designed and functions, input processes etc. and using their manual and various videos I have found.
As you know, if you have problems with Dorico for the next step or need clarifications, then post them here at the forum for help. It is something I miss with Musescore or other software I am learning, missing a friendly helpful forum like this.
I also don’t think they are going to change the program just to cater to my needs, however user suggestions are something I think they are listening to, and if enough people are hoping for certain improvements maybe they’ll get programmed in. And for what it’s worth, I think this forum is outstanding and it’s much, much better than the Sibelius user group.
I thank you for the word “mellifluous”, I’m waiting for the opportunity to use it in a sentence next time I’m speaking english with someone. And yes, the videos are very helpful, as are everybody in these forums.
As an ex-Finale and Sibelius user, I can only confirm what others have already said. Most of us had our difficulties getting used to the peculiarities of Dorico, but most of us have managed it and never look back.
That reminds me of something Glenn Gould said about how he managed to give public concerts despite inner resistance. He said to himself: "Well, who the hell said it was supposed to be fun anyway? … I settled on it as a motto.”
I can say that I was a bit frustrated as well in the start, missing certain workflows from my previous program – but after a rather short while, the advantages of the new ways of Dorico got so overwhelming that I just accepted it. I am way more efficient and productive now than I ever was before, and that is largely thanks to Dorico.
But we all have different needs. If you say something about what your stumbling blocks are, maybe we can help you get past them.
Yeah, ideally everything you do in music would be super nice and rewarding, but of course that’s not the case. I don’t remember learning Sibelius was as hard as this. Perhaps my younger brain was better suited for the task, and perhaps, just perhaps, Sibelius is more intuitive. I can produce a drummer-friendly lead sheet in a fraction of the time it takes me to do it in Dorico. That’s why I think I’ll be doing those in Sibelius in the future as well and use Dorico for the project I’m currently working on. But thanks for the supportive comments, everyone here is super nice!
Thanks for the encouragement. The list of grievances is too long to fit in here, some things feel alien just because I don’t know how to do them yet while some aspects are annoying on a conceptual level but I’ll tell you what I do like: popovers are great! As is the ease of changing bar numbers. Printing and exporting is also better than what Sibelius has to offer.
Or perhaps because it was your first scorewriter, if this is the case. Usually we adapt to the first modus operandi to achieve something so much that learning a different approach feels way more difficult than it would have been had we learned the later way first. This somewhat clouds our perception of any software being intuitive or not. As we just cannot freely erase our memories, habits and general concepts of thinking that we may have gained from working with a different scorewriter before, a significant fraction of us will not be able to start learning Dorico as a tabula rasa. And as Dorico entered the market relatively late and the dev team decided to apply entirely new approaches from the ground up, a very differently working software clashed with a user base that was already used to other major players on the scorewriter software market. I suppose Finale and Sibelius did not have to overcome this very obstacle back when they entered the market, at least not to this extent.
Funny you mention this… I was a long-time Notion user before I switched to Dorico ~ v.2 I think. I never deleted the Notion app and opened it this morning for the first time in 2, maybe 3 years: I literally forgot everything. I couldn’t even remember how to input notes. So, whether freely forgotten or knowledge simply replaced by working with Dorico, it’s gone.
I would assume the latter, that significant amounts of old habits have been overwritten. But I am no psychologist, but merely an interested layperson utterly unable to keep his brain from thinking about the inner workings of things.
I noticed exactly the same after half a year having switched from Finale to Dorico. In my opinion it’s definitely caused by “reprogramming” muscle memory.
