Importing a score with Aggregate time signatures from Dorico to a DAW (Cubase)

Dorico
1

Just finished a work in Dorico couple of weeks ago, and I want to now set up a project in Cubase (9.5) to start tracking some of the parts myself, using an import from the Dorico file as a template.

In the original Dorico score, I have quite a few aggregate time sigs such as 3/4+3/8, or 4/4+3/8, etc. When I try to import an XML, it seems to do odd things in that for example the first bar like this (a 3/4+3/8) it seems to be missing the 3/4 part and in fact some the material from that bar seems to be on top of the 3/8 material. In fact in all of these meters, only one of the signatures has shown up. I had assumed that in exporting it would split the bars back into two time sigs, since most DAWs don’t recognise ‘a+b’ style meters. But that hasn’t happened.

Importing the tempo track (midi file actually) just omits the second party instead of the first part, as does creating a new Cubase project from a midi file generally.

Is there a way to succesfully transfer the time signature information in such a way that the beats and meters are preserved (albeit not in their original aggregate format)? I realise the bar numbers would all change but I can live with that.

If there isn’t, can anyone suggest a solution that isn’t just going through bar by bar and putting all the meter changes in Cubase manually (which is not a great use of time)?

2

I think you will have to change the the aggregate time sigs to simpler ones that Cubase will understand (9/8, 11/8 etc.)

Why would you expect Dorico to export like that? xml is a format that seeks to preserve the layout of a score.

3

That’s what I was afraid of. That’s going to be very time-consuming.

What I mean was I sort of presumed that it might be imported in some sort of way that preserved where all the notes and beats were in relation to each other, and splitting the bar at the aggregate barlines seemed to be the most logical way of doing that. That or turning each into a 9/8, 11/8 etc. It seems to me that sometimes software does a thing ‘under the hood’ to get it to display something quite different. I guess I thought that under the hood these meters were maybe either still separate bars or alternatively a larger bar in each case.

4

What you are describing sounds more like an issue for Cubase than Dorico. Dorico’s responsibility would be to export XML info to reproduce the appearance of the music; Cubase would be responsible for the conversion to a format to reproduce the sound of the music.