To be honest, I’m finding note entry difficult and slow in Dorico. I’m persisting (daily!) but not really making a great deal of progress by way of getting faster. I’m struggling with the keystrokes, swapping in and out of voices, managing rests etc. As there’s more than enough evidence from others on here that they’re not finding it so difficult I’m sure the fault lies with me and not the program. Basically, I need a bit more help to get me up to speed. Hopefully I’m not the only one - if I am you can safely ignore the rest of this post!!
What would be very helpful would be to watch a video showing a fairly involved piece of music being entered into Dorico by someone who knows the program back to front, someone who is fast. It’s not about being taught how to do it all, it’s about watching someone fully experienced with the program doing it at speed and learning that way. It would be useful to watch the carat position bouncing around, the mouse being used and see all the keystrokes being displayed in a corner of the screen as they occur. A piece of music that goes beyond the basics and pretty much nails 95%+ of what most scores are likely to cover at some point. So: chords, multiple voices, a couple of instruments, copying, hiding, cross-staffing, different bars, time signatures, slurs, ties, respelling, dynamics, text, engraving corrections etc. etc. etc. It may be a fairly lengthy video, but that’s only because it will cover a huge amount of ground. What would also be useful is having the eventual piece available as a Dorico download so that it could be printed out beforehand. That would make it a lot easier to follow.
I write to suport David Tee. I have been a power user of Sibelius since the first time it was called Sibelius 7, and I am highly frustrated by my lack of progress in the mastery of Dorico. It is not totally clear to me why this is so, but I am bound to say that I think the provision of a few (non comprehensive) videos – which I have watched – plus the online help is not an adequate substitute for the books that used to come with Sibelius. My frustration is at the same level as that I encountered with Finale c. 1986, and which I never overcame. Well-designed software, which I am convinced Dorico is, should not be this hard to master.
Sitting down with a well-written book and trying things from time to time (or just rememnbering that they exist in the book) is unparalleled in my experience. My frustration is increased by frequently coming across snippets of information in postings to this forum that I feel I should have absorbed in the normal course of use of the program. For instance, I am an inveterate user of the R command in Sibelius. I only discovered that this can be used also with Dorico (which I had no right to expect) in passing – in a forum answer on a slightly different matter. This should not be so.
I dont think it is all a question of my being too used to Sibelius: I am quite happy to ditch the “4 = crotchet” of Sibelius and learn a different convention, but my problems go deeper than this.
Thanks, but I’ve already watched those - in some cases, several times. They’re useful but all fairly basic. I’m interested in taking it up several notches from there. This is a powerful piece of software, I’d like to see it being used by a power user and learn from that.
I’d like to second this – it’s pretty slow going for me as well.
This would be a good example - Australian orchestrator / arranger Tim Davies explaining in detail his workflow in Finale, including all the technical nitty gritty. Obviously this is a different program and the details of the customized user interfaces are not relevant to Dorico, but I’m talking about the idea in general.
Having a video like this about Dorico would be very helpful in coming to grips quickly with the basic functionality, and then take it from there.
OT: Tim Davies’ youtube channel is excellent, by the way, lots of good stuff on orchestration; also check out his website with interesting blogs and videos.
I’ll second this as well but, like david-p, I really want a well written and comprehensive reference manual that I can sit down and read and then refer to as I try things out. It might be very “old school” but that is the way I learn best.
But in the pursuit of training to speed up our work flow, I hope they do not make the pace of the videos too rapid for things to “sink in.”
I love and use exclusively VSL within Cubase and, hopefully after the initial update, Dorico. VSL is a perfect example of technical experts literally flying through their videos at such a rapid pace that it’s very difficult for me to fully understand and absorb what they are covering. I have to keep stopping the video and replaying in an attempt to do so. I feel like I’ve been invited into a car with open door only to have the driver speed off before I can even get it.
Perhaps it would help if a third party adept at video instruction was involved, someone not so technically involved with the product that it’s hard for them to appreciate the difficulties of someone unfamiliar with it’s use.
BTW, I imagine Daniel and company have more videos planned as soon as they can get past the release of the first update.
The existence of a FAQ section of this board with very basic questions on it that seem to be unobtainable elsewhere seems to me to point clearly to the need for a comprehensive indexed reference manual, so that this basic information can be learned in a methodical manner and not just by happenstance!
Another idea would be to have a couple of training videos, similar to the Sibelius training videos which Daniel put together way back when, with sample projects to practice on; how to set up a score; how to quickly format; how to do this; how to do that.
That’s a more interactive way which tends to get you up and running faster.
Shortly before Dorico was released, Daniel mentioned, that there will be a comprehensive manual, and tutorials coming. I think we need to be a bit more patient. Yes, money was paid, but we were told before the release what the situation would be.
As the OP said, there are people out there who are making progress. They are also facing challenges, however, those are more in line with the current capabilities of the programme, rather than knowing how to drive it.
I understand your frustration. I am not asking you to apply my approach, but I plan to wait until the first update in two weeks before trying to do any experimenting with the programme. This is partially to give myself time to get rid of current projects, but also, to give the team some breathing space to get the update done. After that, I’m sure they will have the time to get the manual and the tutorials going.
In the grand scheme of things, I think getting the initial kinks worked out will be higher up the totem pole than the manual and tutorials. We won;t to have them rush those through and not do the job we require.
LOL - I’m not frustrated, I just spend a few hours a day trying to learn the program. No one is going to die if I don’t get it before year end, I still have Sibelius (including the subscription plan) and will continue to use that for the foreseeable future. I think a lot of people have a similar approach. It’s not just the features that haven’t been implemented in Dorico yet, if you collaborate with other people who have Sibelius it’s just a lot easier to all work with the same program, and right now I’m pretty familiar with Sibelius. It’s like learning a new instrument. It’s all good, all good things to those that wait.
You’ve misunderstood. Nobody here is asking for anything within the next two weeks.
I take a different approach to you. I’m using the time between now and whenever Dorico can supplant Sibelius as my existing scoring software to get to know the program and, more specifically, to be able to use the program so that I am as fast with it as I am with Sibelius. That’s going to take time and practice and - the point of my request - help. Unlike you, I’m happy to start learning now as the fundamentals of note entry have already been set with v. 1.0 - they’re not going to change significantly.
To Peter Roos, david-p and batwell - I fully support your request for a comprehensive manual (which IIRC is already in the pipeline). For me, it was the only major disappointment with v. 1.0 although I will say that the more I work with Dorico, the more I am being charmed by it.
I dont think that any of us in this thread is knocking Dorico; we are just venting our frustration that at the moment discovering how to make it work is like an “Easter Egg” search!
As many of the features that I need are yet to be implemented, I cannot use Dorico for much serious work yet, so I shall be patient and wait for the updates. But I am glad to read here that a comprehensive manual is on the way!
Dorico is a very welcome improvement on other similar applications, I am particularly looking forward to being able to apply high standards of music engraving without the excessive amount of work required to do so in the other notation applications available (notice how careful I am being at not mentioning Sibelius and Finale let alone Amadeus of the early 1980s). I understand that a ground up redesign has been necessary in order to avoid the pitfalls of previous apps. which has resulted in an entirely new GUI and workflow but with some more elegant interactions available than before.
However, I’d like to echo the requests for a Manual/ Reference Guide and more of the videos already posted on the Dorico YouTube pages which are brisk and informative. I dare say Lynda.com and others will eventually offer training courses.
As to what medium the Manual should be made available, I do like to have parallel PDFs and HTML pages, or at least PDFs with full search and content links with the document. To get started I used the HTML locally hosted Help Pages but they only go so far.
I can understand why there is no printed manual at this early stage. I don’t like that fact but I understand it. I just work better with an actual book in front of me. The next best thing to that however, would be a PDF manual with full search and contents links. I believe this is essential. I hope that would be available very soon.
I find the present HTML help pages very cumbersome. It’s very hard to find what you are looking for. And when I do a search too many items are found or none at all. It’s all very frustrating. I would definitely prefer an extensive PDF document.
Are there plans for a PDF manual that is updated with all the new releases? David
For those Finale users who liked to criticise Sibelius that it DIFFICULT TO LEARN and has a BIG LEARNING CURVE…wait until you work with Dorico! This software is potent, but it’s going to take some learning juice to get a grip of it!
Try checking out the demo video I posted last night. It should assist with basic concepts. If the demand is there, I would consider posting more covering more advanced features. Here’s the link:
