Integration with Cubase

Will Dorico integrate with Cubase? Mock up a piece in Cubase and use Dorico for scores.

Jim

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Dorico is currently a standalone notation program, so there is no integration, apart from being able to import MIDI and Music XML files.

DG

And what about FireWire?

Do you mean DV over FireWire for sync with video? Or something else?

Certainly Dorico does not yet have any specific video features, but this is in our plans for future versions.

I imagine RimasG means Rewire.

Thank you, Laurence, I mean about ReWire exactly and confuse terminology. I’m so sorry :slight_smile:

Now my question about ReWire possibilities.

No, this is not possible at the moment.

DG

The market SO wants a notation-based music production system, with audio/video tracks and full access to their choice of sample sets.

It’s going to get SOME of that…

There is a book that was rather famous in Silicon Valley during the 90s called “Accidental Empires”. The thesis of the book was that some of the most successful companies actually missed the mark they were really shooting at, but ended up with something better, at least partly by accident. Their instincts put them in the right ballpark, but the real prize was different from what they thought it was. That is not to say that Bill Gates and Andy Grove were bumbling dummies who did everything wrong, yet just happened to stumble into success. Quite the opposite, they were people of great vision and instinct, but just didn’t have their marketing radar fully calibrated. Their instincts got them close enough for the market to bring them the rest of the way.

That is the vibe I get from Dorico. Clearly the core team has been really focused on making a fundamental, generational step forward in how we go about building and expressing the notation. And nobody denies those advances will be most welcome. But it is does seem to be an accident of history that the product will be married to DAW technology, more-or-less from the ground up, like it or not. THIS, I believe, will prove to be the real breakthrough in the end.

Dorico won’t end up there in the first release, but I hope there will be enough in the first release for the whole team to start to realize the power that can come from marrying notation and production much more seamlessly.

Whatever we may hope and dream, I’m afraid “Dorico is currently a standalone notation program, so there is no integration, apart from being able to import MIDI and Music XML files.” doesn’t sound much like being “married to Cubase from the ground up”. Is DG giving us information or an opinion here?

Integration with Cubendo is very important, as it is for Halion, for instance. Until now I’ve preferred using Cubase Score, instead of Sibelius or Finale, that I’ve experimented many times, exactly for this reason.

Therefore I cannot lose my hope, even if Dorico group is in London and not in Hamburg. For sure integration needs time & hard work, but it’s worthwhile :wink:

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But its sound-related bits are derived from Cubase as I understand it. Therefore, some commonality between the two products will naturally happen, even if it isn’t planned that way. This is the “accidental empires” stuff I mentioned.

I hope that the parties will come to understand there is a real market for further steps in this direction.

I assume that Presonus will eventually figure this out with their Studio One + Notion, just as Avid might eventually stumble upon this with Protools + Sibelius. But Steinberg has an opportunity to get out way ahead.

Steinberg had an opportunity (whether a practical one or not) to integrate Dorico as the Score Edit page in Cubase. It seems pretty clear that it has chosen not to.

…until now… :unamused:

I fear you must integrate from day 1. After that, all you can do is try to hook in.

Yes, Laurence, for sure! :slight_smile: But I understand that a true integration from start, for a lot of reasons, architectural, political and geographical, would have been very hard. Anyway there are many forms of integration, more efficient than importing MIDI or XML. We have just to wait to understand :wink:

“Hooking in” cuts both ways. If Steinberg had wanted to make a notation app that was constrained by a MIDI-based concept of how music should be represented, one could consider the questions whether (1) they would have needed to hire the Dorico team to build it and (2) whether the Dorico team would have accepted the job if it had been offered.

But another strategy would be to modify Cubase (or its successor) to “hook in” to Dorico, if that isn’t too much of an intellectual stretch for sequencer users who are happy working with technology that hasn’t changed much since the 1980s - i.e. MIDI.

All this is pure speculation on my part, of course.

That is not necessarily true.We know from various discussions on this forum that the Dorico design (at least at the philosophical level if not the code level as of today) includes:

  • the concept of players and parts that can map directly to Cubase tracks
  • adoption of Steinberg code (presumably derived from Cubase) as the playback engine
  • a playback GUI (eventually if not in the first release) that is Cubase-like
  • the intention to support VSTis and VST effects in a more or less open manner, although they will not support all the older VST protocol levels
  • the ability to operate on the MIDI separately from the notation to alter note lengths etc

This is a very good starting point. The part that would not necessarily come easily would be to compose in the “DAW view” and have the MIDI end up seamlessly as Dorico notation. That would be “the” big advance. I don’t mean to trivialize that. It would be a significant development task. But given the other foundations enumerated above, it just doesn’t sound that overwhelming to me.

And nothing says that all of these things must be in a single product. I could easily see the basic Dorico shipping with a “Cubase ultralight”, but also having the option to hook Dorico to full (purchased) Cubase. And likewise, Cubase has its own limited notation, so there could be an optional product that would enable Cubase users to operate seamlessly with Dorico.

I am mainly a SONAR user and also have StudioOne. I have never bought Cubase, but would do so in a heartbeat if there were good integration between Dorico and Cubase. And I bet there are loads of current Cubase users who would be happy to buy Dorico if that meant there was an easy way for their Cubase-based compositions to be notated in Dorico.

Clearly the things I’m discussing are not (and should not be) the priority for the first release or two. But it also shouldn’t be a 3-year project to add these capabilities.

Unless they come up with an integrated solution, I see no use in Dorico. I bought Cubase 7 on the premise that their notation software was good enough for me to input some music I’ve done, and then use their VST to assign instruments. I had nothing to record at that point and I figured it would still have been a valid teaching of how Cubase works. It would have get me started. And I paid more that 500 canadian dollars.
The notation software they offer in Cubase is a total scrap unless you want to spend your evenings figuring out all the maths implied in it. A Mathematician job, not a Musician job. I didn’t understand at that time why there were some notation software like Sibelius and Finale that worked with the musician instead of Cubase notation software that worked against the musician,
So until they come up with an integrated solution, it’s no use. Count me out.

That’s ridiculous. There is no “math” involved and Cubase has arguably the best notation inside of a DAW. I work a lot in Cubase notation and have no problems with it. It will never be as full featured as a dedicated notation program and there are things they could improve on but I really have no idea what you’re talking about.