Tell me, as a long time frustrated computer user/Sibelius user, is Dorico better? Tell me its faster, easier, more efficient. Cheer me up.
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Yes it is. I have now forgotten how to do stuff in Sibelius (and I used it from the early days)
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Itâs different. And whether itâs better etc. depends on that you accept/embrace itâs different.
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Well, if you decide to make the switch, youâre most definitely in for a steep learning curve and a thorough nerve cell rewiring, as many things are approached very differently from other scorewriters. More often than not you will be asking âWhy this way?â and it will take some time to understand that the Dorico way makes very much sense. Perhaps the concept taking the most time to get used to is the separation of Write (what is in the music itself) and Engrave (how is the music organized on the page) mode.
Should you take the step and feel the need to ask questions: Go ahead! One word of advice though: Describe what you want to actually achieve rather than asking for a certain function analogous to your previous scorewriter.
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Hi @judsonics, as a former Sibelius user, I can assure you, that once you will grasp how Dorico works, and what you can do with it, you will not regret for a second the switch to Dorico.
If you are willing to learn it, I suggest to go to the resources site and start with the Dorico First Steps Guides videos/PDF.
You can then look at the many other videos in the Dorico Youtube channel (also organised in Playlists, for example this Playlist with 11 videos about Note Input).
Then the detailed Manual (Web Help) that you can use as reference, with a great search functionality. I suggest to read the Dorico Concepts chapter, to start understanding the âphilosophyâ behind the software.
And you will find in this forum a wonderful community that is alway happy to help and to answer your doubts and questions.
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You may know that the Dorico development team used to be the development team for Sibelius. So, Dorico is their âsecond chanceâ, to do it better. Itâs everything they learnt from working on Sibelius.
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Thanks for your replies. The community here has been so professional and polite.
Iâm just grieving over the hours/years spent looking in manuals for answers that arenât there, manuals with no index, versions that are not in the manual, online forums that are out of date, A.I. that is empty, answers almost like what Iâm after but its not 2017, and then the answer that looks a 7-step process to write A#. I recoil in horror that their may be things here that are very unintuitive, or require 3 hands and mouse to perform one function. Like most musicianâs home studios, we acquire software/hardware easily, and I have like 75 manuals at 300 pages each to study now, and have to integrate one piece of software nested into 3 others. I donât have another ten years to get this up to walking speed.
I was fortunate enough to meet by coincidence one of the worldâs esteemed mix engineers completely by accident last year (and I donât mix in any musicianâs circles at all), whom recommended to me Nuendo above all else, and was fortunate enough to get version 13 at 50% discount. And Iâm very happy with it. I just want to know that Dorico is its equal before I invest more. And I really want it to be better than Sibelius, which is wonderful when it works.
I was just balking at some of the online advice about making things work, and I had some issues here (slow playback), etc. Again, I want Dorico to be sensational. Need to be. I havenât got time for anything less. No one does. Weâre wanting to create masterpieces; this software must be flawless and superfast. Every extra mouse-click is one less note written. Regards and best to all and the software engineers here, much appreciated.
Music to my ears. Gracious.
Iâd recommend first watching some of the many videos that showcase how it works and what it can do; and then when youâve got some understanding of its concepts, get the 60-day trial, and then work through the First Steps tutorial.
This will give you a chance to assess it; but bear in mind that it can be daunting to learn how new software works.
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It wonât be sensational or flawless. No software is, really. Thereâs never enough budget or time to do everything that could be done.
Dorico will irritate you sometimes, Iâm pretty sure.
But the choice is not between Sibelius and an imaginary rival. Dorico is, IMO, better than Sibelius, which was my previous software.
Be prepared to spend stepping back from your immediate tasks to understand how it works. Just trying things out can lead to frustration (for some people, not for everyone). Things will seem strange. It takes a while to realise the design is structured and logical, initially you may feel the software is putting up barriers.
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Fortunately Dorico is heavily keyboard related 
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Dorico is definitely better. Itâs incredibly powerful: you can do things with it that youâd never even dream of attempting in Sibelius. The level of control it offers over notation, layout, and playback is on another level. Itâs built with a very deep internal logic and a separation of modes (write, engrave, play) that allows for extremely complex and refined work.
But no, itâs not faster. In fact, in my view, itâs often surprisingly unintuitive, and the learning curve is brutally steep. You can easily get stuck on things that should be elementary, simply because many functions are hidden, rely on obscure inside menus, or depend on a deep understanding of how Dorico thinks. If youâre coming from Sibelius (or Finale), the first days can be maddening. Even basic layout tweaks or note input can feel convoluted.
That said, if you manage to get past that initial wall and take the time to really learn it, it becomes an incredibly precise tool. But itâs not something you just open in a rush to throw together a quick part, at least not until itâs fully second nature.
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Thatâs a good thing. There really arenât that many things to have to input in a basic score. If I can do it with one click or two Iâm ok. Having to get mouse, keyboard, look around the screen, then synthesizer is the slow up looking in 4 places.
If the music doesnât have too many unusual time changes (being the most difficult thing to notate in music) then inputting should be fast, and navigating through it at speed possible. I imagine the programmers have most difficulty with pagination and engraving rules. Probably redundant statement.
My main issue is finding help; for example inputting chords in the PDF links to page 239. but it doesnât mention how to navigate through and edit afterwards. And so I get frustrated and turn to the internet which may be faster. Or go back to hit-and miss. As an aside, I bought a really nice drum machine with software, rock solid all round, except that..the manual has no index (!) facepalm. I need another $350 to learn how to use it. it takes longer to figure out how to use it, than using. Regards
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Hopefully not. Hopefully its the logical way which requires the shortest synapse.
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In hindsight, it will probably be the shortest, but rewiring it this way will be the hardest part. 
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I imagine thatâs the difference; they could build that from the ground up whereas Sibelius has had to grow in stages from an unlikely beginning, and core changes are too complex, hence patching it up. Separating out these editing parameters likely gives the designers chance to make optimal changes at the root level, and to integrate it into Nuendo even further, ideally. Thatâs all good to hear.
And if I had any money I would have Sibelius too, its magic. These score writers (and the editing power of Nuendo etc. is simply staggering), when it works, is like Xmas all day everyday.
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That is definitely not the case. More often than not, it feels like Dorico expects you to adapt to its internal logic, not the other way around. Things that should take one step often require three, scattered across different modes or buried in panels and submenus. Thereâs no way anyone can claim it consistently follows the âshortest synapseâ principle. If anything, it regularly challenges your assumptions about how basic notation tasks should work, and not always in a productive way.
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Iâm hoping I can make the shortcut menu work for me in this regard.
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Bordering on being irritating:
I almost never use Dorico on the road or even on a laptop. Therefore the three most workflow enhancing parts of my setup are:
- A MIDI keyboard, freeing up letters A to G for additional, single-press shortcuts,
- Dual monitors, negating mode switching completely, all I have to remember is going to the rightmost monitor for engraving edits. Or having galley view and page view open at the same time. And finally,
- Elgatoâs Stream Deck, so I can (using a free plugin together with the package from Notation Central) access 64 single-press key commands and macros!
Again, I hated Dorico in the beginning (2016âŚ), but these made it into the magic that Finale and Sibelius could and can never be.
Benji
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Dorico is generally better, except for the lack of plug-in/scripting and batch handling capabilities, which are, IMO, significant drawbacks in Dorico. Perhaps they will be implemented in a future version. As for fine-tuning and finished looks, Dorico is far, far superior to Sibelius. You will not regret upgrading to Dorico Pro.
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