Some of the special track types from Dorico for macOS and Windows are not yet implemented in the brand new, rebuilt MIDI editing tools. They will be included as we continue to build up the new Key Editor.
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I think you should be able to start playback, then tap the score with four fingers and it will switch to Read mode, but be warned that it will try to turn pages for you automatically!
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Regarding the limit of 12 players, weāre definitely open to changing this. It is very hard to prejudge what the use cases for the app will actually turn out to be. Obviously we had our own ideas about what people would want to be able to do, but, as a wise (?) man once said, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.
We have to balance the capabilities of the app and its price point against the desktop software, for example. And we have to ensure that we donāt unlock so much functionality that it causes the app to run poorly on less powerful devices, and so on.
We are listening to the feedback, you can be certain of that, and thinking about how to respond. I will note that at this point the app has been available for not quite 24 hours, so I hope you will give us some time to give these issues some careful consideration.
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Hi everyone,
I want to use the Apple Pencil to enter notes directly on the staff, but I canāt find a way to do that. Is it only possible to enter notes with the keyboard and guitar fretboard? Thanks.
Mike
Thatās correct: there is no direct note input where you tap with your finger or Pencil or write with your Pencil on the score itself. If youāre looking for handwriting input where you actually write the music out longhand and have the software interpret it, youāll need another app (StaffPad, NotateMe, Notion, Symphony Pro all provide this feature, either built-in or with an in-app purchase, and your mileage will vary in terms of how well it works for you).
We are certainly thinking about how we can make practical use of the Apple Pencil as an input device in Dorico for iPad, but I can tell you now that handwriting the music long-hand is not something we plan to work on.
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I am currently working with a project that has well over 30 individual instruments. I tried opening it with the ipad app and to my delight it worked without any problems! Navigating through the score was smooth and it even played the score back (though it sounded quite hilarious compared to noteperformer 
). I have an iPad Pro 12,9ā, I think second generation.
I wonder if it would be possible to open up the player limit for those who own Dorico Pro for desktop?
Congratulations for the fantastic app!
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This would be a GREAT addition. Quite logical, really.
I wonder if they could at least compromise and make it so that you can still edit larger ensembles if they were created using the pro version one a desktop.
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Thank you, Daniel, for your reply. Although Iām not interested in drawing the notes with the pencil, I would be interested in entering the notes with the pencil. Oh well, I guess you canāt have everything. Dorico for iPad is a wonderful beginning.
Mike
Yes, I was talking with Ant just yesterday (the first time I had seen him in person since February 2020) about this, and we do have some ideas about how it might be possible to use the Pencil to at least indicate pitch in a way that makes sense, but without trying to do handwriting recognition.
As you say, Dorico for iPad is a version 1.0 product. If it does well, there will be plenty of opportunity for us to continue to build it up.
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Hi Daniel - so, what about the 3rd party solution thatās in Notion and Symphony Pro, which is MyScript digital ink ( Music features | MyScript Developer ).? Not that Iām yearning for it or its any kind of deal-breaker, but just wondering if its been considered (and dismissed.!)ā¦
Well, okā¦ that all sounds interestingā¦ 
Iāve used all the apps that implement this tech, and theyāre all quite disappointing.
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Iāll be honest, on my midling-sized ipad, I did find using the pencil convenient a time or two, at least to select objects in the score since the tip is so much more precise than my finger. Iām not particularly interested in handwriting recognition (a monumental task to implement by any measure) but I will be using my pencil just to facilitate other kinds of interaction and input.
Indeed; any app that Iāve tried has been an utter waste of my time. Unless itās better than that (or would become so very quickly) itās just not worth it.
Hmmā¦ ok; thanks for replyingā¦
I admit Iāve no personal experienceā¦ I saw someone using Notion on an iPad, at a rehearsal not too long ago and it seemed to work okā¦
Itās unreliable and far slower than any other note entry method.
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Yeah to replace a pencil it has to be as good as a pencil, which has 100% recognition (it just writes what you do!) Pencil is really only good for art I think.
I wouldnāt mind pencil for more accurate tapping, but it might be more bother to pick it up than itās worth.
When I tried this, the switch to Read mode stopped playback. I appreciate the suggestion and will keep my fingers crossed that some version of this capability will appear down the road.
I donāt know whether people have as long a memory as I do, but in the latter days of our time at Avid, there was a Kickstarter project for an iPad-based music notation app. This was in the days of the iPad 2, literally within a year or so of the iPad being released. It was from a start-up called ThinkMusic. Amazingly you can still watch the Kickstarter video here. As you can see, the project foundered about 10% of the way to its goal of Ā£122,000 (!).
The only concrete technology to come out of that abortive project was the development of the MyScript music recognition technology, and I was in touch with the people at MyScript at the time. We had just released the Scorch reader app for iPad (which has come to the end of its life on the same day that the new app worked on by that team has arrived on the App Store, which seems poetic somehow) and the people at MyScript wanted us to license the technology from them, since theyād built it and now the ThinkMusic app was never going to materialise.
It didnāt work very well at the time. Iām sure itās improved somewhat in the intervening 10 years, but Iāve not plunked down my money to try it out in Notion or Symphony Pro, so I canāt offer any direct experience. On a fundamental level, though, Iām just not interested in it. I donāt think itās ever going to work well enough to be anything more than a sideshow and to be a distraction from input methods that work first time, every time.
Iām waiting to be proved wrong! I know many of the developers of apps like StaffPad and NotateMe and have the utmost respect and admiration for them and what they do. But I think the fact that weāre 10 years in and itās still not a solved problem despite a lot of effort and money being expended tells you something about the likelihood that a breakthrough is imminent.
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