With every update of Dorico I have more and more the feeling to belong to a very special species (perhaps a unicorn?). Obviously I find myself in a world of musicians where weird lines and basso continuo are much more important than my apparently rather exotic needs. Therefore I will describe my everyday life as a musician and teacher, as exotic as it is.
One field of work is, that I transcribe modern songs and arrange them as choral or band arrangements. I would also like to make these arrangements available to my choirs/bands for viewing and listening (as MP3 files; or as online scores). When I want to do this work in Dorico, I have problems in three areas.
Firstly, the transcription and synchronisation of songs to music notation, for which Dorico still reveals great weaknesses, is still very complicated to use.
Secondly, the layout of songs still requires a lot of additional work in the Engrave window, which in my opinion is far from reaching Doricoās usual standard.
Thirdly, I wonāt even talk about it here, because the Dorico team hasnāt even thought about an online sheet music player (like Scorch for Sibelius), which I can live with. But points 1 and 2 are slowly becoming a problem for me and reduce my joy in this good program.
Point 1)
The integration of audio files is not possible at all, because first I have to convert my audio file to a video and only then I can import the song. Dorico doesnāt seem worthy of this, but I hope that this will be fixed soon. But that such a complicated fiddling with markers has to be done during the synchronization, I donāt understand in the least. Other programs do a better job (Noteflight cf. https://support.noteflight.com/hc/en-us/articles/360020579152-Sync-Scores-with-YouTube-or-Soundcloud, Soundslice cf.How-to: Syncpoint editor (basics) - YouTube). Here Dorico is below average and rubato passages like in the Soundslice video are a nightmare. Now all Dorico believers will scream that I should use these other notation programs after all, but Iām already making this detour by creating a first lead sheet in Logic and importing it via midi into Dorico. This first point is a missed opportunity and scares away all who make transcriptions.
I have already written a thread for it (Audio or Video synchronizing cf. Audio or Video syncronising - Dorico - Steinberg Forums). So I just wait and see.
Point 2)
But at the second point I notice how my patience is getting a bit thin. There are so many little things that make my job as a composer/arranger or transcriber quite difficult and I have to put up with elaborate work-arounds.
The following list is not complete and for me is sorted by urgency. For example, the positioning and alignment of system text or of text in general turns out to be a big labor-intensive job, that has to be done in each and every part separately.
- rehearsal marks as form labels (Suggestion: Rehersal marks as form labels ("Verse", "Chorus", "Bridge 2" etc) - Dorico - Steinberg Forums)
- positioning of system Text (frame and/or page align) System Text positioning - Dorico - Steinberg Forums
- positioning of Tempo Text (frame and/or page align) Default tempo text placement - Dorico - Steinberg Forums
- Turn off the vertical spacing for rehearsal marks and text
- Horizontal text alignment
- Chord symbols parenthesised/alternative chords chord symbol in parenthesis feature request - Dorico - Steinberg Forums
- double barline and repeat barline both showing when system break is made Missing "double line" after a system break? - Dorico - Steinberg Forums
- Tempo equations & swing indications
- Handling of GM instruments
- Fermatas centered on stem
I already hear certain power users saying that all these problems can be solved (by workarounds). But by now Iām used to the high level of Dorico and this unnecessary extra work I have to do to write notations according to more modern standards is just baffling considering the level of Dorico.