just installing Dorico for the first time for evaluation. Sharing experience in hope it’s useful for devs.
Background: hobbyist musician. Not much formal training. Have used MuseScore and Sibelius briefly in the past but has been a while since I installed any notation software.
comments from first tries at getting a score to play:
- No sound! The titles of the playback downloads could make it very clear they are related to each other just by including “HALion” in the name of the part or even calling them Part 1/2, Part 2/2. Currently they look like alternative choices.
- Default should not be to take exclusive control of the audio imo. I thought Dorico had corrupted my sound driver.
- Struggled to add notes!
- Downloads: download assistant could do more to streamline the process. Having to make a lot of choices on where to put files without really knowing long term implications. Also running installer to … install the installer… makes the process quite ong winded.
- Still no sound
Search the web to find help. Find recommendation to watch a youtube video on a forum.
- HALion install part 2- I’m asked whether to install trial or full. I’m trialing Dorico but should I install the trial of this library? Isn’t it included in Dorico? clicking “More info” didn’t provide any more info to help me choose. I installed Full…
- Sound! It works with Generic ASIO driver and allowing ASIO host application to take exclusive control. Great but I’d like to be able to listen to tutorial videos whilst working in Dorico. If I turn off exclusivity sound stops again and then it seems I have to flick between drivers on my system to get the settings that work to stick again.
Conclusion : this has to be one of the worst experiences I’ve had getting an initial test done when evaluating a new product. I’ve used up the time I had to explore Dorico this morning just trying to get sound out of it and I’m still not in a good place.
the sound engine doesn’t look integrated and that’s a potential achilles heel. I am a technical person and this is stretching my patience. I probably will have another go because Dorico looks cool and I like shiny things but if my main goal was to be productive, the story might end here.