Hey all! I’m looking for some assistance from anyone who uses Dorico to score to picture. I think that it would be totally doable with relative ease, but I have very little experience in the area of film scoring so I’m just looking to see how some people do it. I’ve had some issues in the past attempting it myself with the clips not quite lining up properly with the score itself, even though I’ve thought I had set the timecode correctly. I also wonder how you go about adding so many tempo changes and whatnot, or if there’s a way to write using the “daw” portion of the play section of dorico and worry about strict tempos later? Like, can I write at whatever tempo I see fit within the daw and worry about the scoring part after the fact?
Hear me out - I know Dorico is NOT a DAW in the way that something like Cubase or Logic are, but I feel like there’s some real potential here!
Appreciate it! Not sure how I missed those videos, but yeah I have read some of the documentation - was mostly looking for practical stuff from people who have worked with it a bit just to see how other people are using the software!
I’ve used Dorico several times to score to picture. For me it has a few quirks as far as timecode sync goes, but usually once I’m up and running it’s otherwise business as usual: just write music as I normally would. And then regarding precise timing to picture I use stuff like manual metronome markings, tempo automation (under the play tab), and meter changes to ensure I have specific downbeats hitting an exact frame, for example.
If I need more precise control or a cue has a lot of very exact “hit points” (such as an action cue), I like to use Cubase to create all those hit points using its tempo tools, and then import that into Dorico as a tempo map. It’s just easier for me to be more precise in Cubase. But if I’m scoring a more simple dramatic dialogue scene without any precise hit points, then I don’t really fuss with any of that. And then I export everything back over to Cubase when I’m done for actual mixing work.
Is there anything more specific you’d like to know?
Cool, appreciate the advice! Honestly I’m just looking for… well anything.
I’ve never actually had a gig or anything scoring to picture, I’ve only dabbled a little in the past, but I’d love to do it in the future so I’m just looking to practice, but tbh I’m much more comfortable in notation software than in the DAW so was just looking for some best practices if anything
