First of all, congratulations on the fantastic overhaul of the Score Editor in Cubase 14! The integration of Dorico’s technology is a game-changer, and as someone who has been eagerly awaiting such advancements, I am absolutely thrilled to see it come to life. The ability to export from Cubase to Dorico for more detailed notation work is incredibly useful, and it’s clear a lot of effort and thought went into making this workflow seamless. Kudos to everyone involved in this massive project!
That said, I have a question: Is there a way to go in the opposite direction—to export projects from Dorico back into Cubase? I’m aware that Dorico’s powerful tools for engraving and layout make it the go-to for final notation, but sometimes it would be helpful to bring these notated projects back into Cubase to continue working on MIDI or production.
If direct export isn’t available, are there any recommended workarounds or best practices for achieving this? For example, would exporting MIDI or MusicXML from Dorico and then importing it into Cubase retain the musical integrity of the score?
Once again, thank you for the incredible work on Cubase 14—it’s a truly exciting time for users like me, and I can’t wait to explore all the new possibilities!
Yes MIDI export has been there for a long time and is the standard way to do it. I opined recently that it would be great to have Cubase/Nuendo support directly reading in .dorico binary project files - that would be the ultimate solution IMO. DAW’s are a downstream app from notation software IMO.
When exporting via MIDI, does it maintain the formatting of the Dorico project in any way? Or is it essentially just the raw MIDI data without any structural or layout information from the original project?
I’m curious about how much of the original work can be preserved during this kind of transfer.
It’s great to hear that importing Dorico data into Cubase projects is being considered for the future. This would be a fantastic feature to streamline the workflow between the two platforms.
By the way, I’m not entirely sure what the current export options are. Could you clarify what methods are currently available to transfer Dorico projects to Cubase? Also, are there any workarounds that could help in the meantime?
Thanks for the reply! I get that it’s “just MIDI,” but I was curious if you’ve tried it yourself—especially with more complex scores, like polyphony or detailed dynamics.
Does it transfer smoothly, or is it more of a “try it and prepare for chaos” situation? Any tips are welcome!
It’s a bit of a strange question. Transferring MIDI from Dorico to Cubase will be no different in terms of what you lose and keep vs. transferring MIDI from Dorico to any other DAW, like Reaper or Studio One or Pro Tools or Digital Performer, etc. There’s nothing special about going from Dorico to Cubase and no special integration there (currently).
MIDI doesn’t contain any “dynamics” - it contains CC values and note velocities that are used as control values that are used to trigger the production of sounds that were sampled of instruments playing at certain specific dynamics. MIDI itself has no idea what pp or ff are.
Because the data is only MIDI, the printed score won’t be transferred at all. All of the MIDI data from the piano roll like notes, velocities and MIDI CC’s will be transferred, but keyswitches will be transferred as literal notes instead of being transferred as expression map entries.
Thanks for the thorough explanation! It’s always great to learn something new about how MIDI really works behind the scenes. I guess I was hoping for a little “Cubase magic” when it came to importing from Dorico, but it sounds like it’s all just good old MIDI mechanics.
I’ll keep in mind that pp and ff are just decorative dreams in the MIDI world (if that’s really the case)—guess I’ll have to give the expression maps some TLC manually. Appreciate you setting the record straight!
