My first immediate conclusion is what a mess. After what I think (a couple weeks) is a reasonable time with Dorico 5, my thoughts are Dorico 5 has an amazing ability to make even the most simple of tasks impossible or impossibly difficult. I use Photoshop and can do advanced photo editing. I use Excel where I make some fairly complex spreadsheets with cells that determine results depending on other cells. But Dorico 5 puts them to shame for ambiguous, cryptic, convoluted and confusing menus plus unclear verbiage. And therein lies the problem. It is a foreign language that who knows where they came up with.
Yes, to get a basic score like a solo instrument and piano is simple enough but a full concert band score is a horse of a different color. Simply putting measure numbers at the bottom of the score with an outline box and a bigger font it nuts. Stem direction, what’s with that? On and on! I am coming from Finale where everything is generally in a contextual drop down or a simple one screen menu box. Everything that can be done with measure numbers for instance is in one simple small menu box.
Steinberg got my money but I still think I need to give MuseScore 4 a good look at. I didn’t like the few demos I tried with Sibelius years ago, but perhaps they need another look too. It is probably more like Finale than either of the two others.
Thanx for putting up with my rant, I truly wanted Dorico to be the answer.
You know one bad thing is all the Youtube vids out there are for or can be for whatever version of Dorico. And, I have version 5 which isn’t the same as some or most of them.
Did you ask for help here? The short list of examples you mentioned are easily solved.
If your measure of a good program is figuring out how to do everything by just randomly fiddling around and not seeking help, then you’re right, Dorico is not that.
However, if you’d like to know how to do these things, just ask. There are plenty of users here to help, and many excellent tutorial resources available. Almost none of the existing videos are deprecated; 99% of the content still applies, which is testimony to Dorico’s thoughtful development over the past several years.
For example, to change the bar numbers in the score, go to Layout Options—Bar Numbers. There you’ll find quite a number of options, explained clearly.
For stem direction, it’s true that Dorico handles things a little differently. I recommend turning on voice colors (via the View menu) to make sure you are keeping things straight. Feel free to ask about any specifics there.
Welcome to the Dorico forum @eebiggs1. Apart from recent Finale users, on this forum you will find a myriad of former ex-Finale users who have very happily moved to Dorico and wouldn’t go back even if they could. As @dan_kreider says, don’t hesitate to ask for help here when problems arise and you will find both experienced users and Dorico team members ready to help. If you stick with Dorico and become familiar with its UI and logic I expect you will appreciate the differences that are today frustrating.
With all due respect, I have watched hours of vids and read manual instructions. “For example, to change the bar numbers in the score, go to Layout Options—Bar Numbers.” I see or saw no place to use a bigger font.
Before you condemn me please know I truly wanted Dorico to be the answer why else would I buy it? The couple samples I listed are that just a couple. I have done the manual and Youtube.
Thanx for the reply though,
EB
Guys excuse me for a while as I have to go sell and/or rent instruments to 5th graders this evening for my Meyer Music store herein OP, Kansas.
But I will come back perhaps later or tomorrow morning.
Thanx,
EB
Sorry to hear that you’ve not found the manual helpful. However, where did you read that sentence you quoted? I don’t believe it appears anywhere in the current manual (for one thing, I never write “go to” in that type of context) so I’m wondering if you’ve used an AI generator which has hallucinated results. It can happen, unfortunately.
I’m aware that you might well be accustomed to using other terms than we use in Dorico (like measure vs bar number) and so synonyms/alternative terms are things I try to account for in the manual. Hopefully you should still get relevant results when using most reasonable terminology - like being given the glossary entry for “measure” which points you to “bar”. So do search the online manual in as free a way as you like; it should suggest fairly good topics based on however you’ve phrased your search term.
I´m only another user, not very proficient, so you have to take that into account when reading this.
And indeed, Dorice works differently from Finale. Which to me was very frustrating at first, i came from Sibelius. It takes quite a bit of work to get the gist of some of the things - they might become intuitive after a while but dont start out that way. It’s like starting to play a new instrument, say like learning to play the bassoon. And maybe that is the best way to approach Dorico, by small steps forward. Anyway, you don´t start the basson playing with the solo from Spring Rites.
So, some thoughts here. Read if they help, disregard otherwise. This is how I think about it.
Dorico starts in the write mode. This is definetly not placing graphic things on the page. Here I enter the “meaning” of the music. This meaning will be used later to both create graphic output and the sound output. Dorico is a bit like a child in some areas here, really wanting to understand. If as example I want to change the tempo Dorico does not accept “increase tempo and play with a nice feel”, it simply does not understand this and cannot make it into how to do the sound output. In the tempo box I have to write what Dorico understands. (Some text is simply text, not having any meaning to Dorico)
Now over to the Engrave mode. Here Dorico takes the “meaning” of my note input and places it on a page. This process is very different from Finale. It helped me to understand that Dorico is built on the expectation that I will do about the same thing many times. The preferred way to influence the placing of things on the page is using global settings and Page templates. The good thing about this is that once I have a good setup, it will work well without further input on the next piece I render to graphics, and the next and the next. A lot of the “rules” of engraving are encased and automatically applied, and a lot of them can be changed. Not easily necessarily, but they will apply to this score and the next. And yes, there is a bit of logic where things are placed in the menus but it was not intuitive to me at first. Takes a bit of work to understand. The good part is that is quite consistent. As example if you want to change the font used for various types of text (remember, different types of text has different meanings) they are in the same place.
Apparently you didn’t read my post as I have done a few simple pieces trying to learn stuff. But that has to end to get to the concert band stuff. Now I want a score the way I want it. That is the problem.
Of course that is a problem I was not aware of. And that can only double the issue learning Doric 5. I did notice you have to be careful as to which version the responder is talking about as they are not al the same. Menus and or placemenot items in menus.
At this point I think I am going to shelve Doric 5 and wait. My Finale works well and will for at least a year. However that may be the time slot I need to learn Dorico 5.
MuseScore announced that they’re immediately going to make Musescore more friendly to Finale users. Beefing up functionality for more professional engraving. Musescore announced they’re looking to include a version of Speedy Entry, as well as giving a “Finale profile” to make the UI/hotkeys more like Finale.
What is needed is a more musician-termed notation program. I mean menus labeled “dynamics” and “articulations” instead of the software-speak such as “lines” and “shapes.” Why does Dorico force you into the software’s lexicon, not a musician’s.
I do appreciate all replies I know you don’t have to so thanx for that.
EB
This is exactly how Dorico is set up to be: hence the panels for notations on the right in Write mode, which put eg all dynamics together in one place, whether they are musical glyphs like “mf”, expressive text like “molto” or “dolce”, or hairpins or “cresc…” lines.
Take your time – there’s no rush. But Dorico is a very powerful and mature programme, with musical intention at its heart. I think if you have the opportunity to get familiar, you’ll really like it.
One good project to work through to get your bearings is our First Steps guide: it will introduce you to Dorico terminology and workflows, whilst giving you exact steps to follow. Written by a person (me), not AI!
eebiggs, I am sure you have heard about Popovers in Dorico, like Shift-D for dynamics. That’s probably even better than a menu, because instead of following menu suggestions, you can just write your intended dynamic.
You might be interested to read a conversation between a new Finale convert and Daniel Spreadbury, chief developer of Dorico. This conversation is 8 years old, and the then Finale convert is now one of the most proficient Dorico users:
(And…Daniel bans me)