The Dorico team should have waited to release this package. I can’t compose with it in it’s current state. I can’t hear the notes I input. What is going on with that. How can you orchestrate if you can’t hear the notes. Single dongle activation. Can’t use it on two devices. Steinberg come into the modern era. Right now Notion 6 is the way to go. I wish I could get my money back. WOW- totally disappointed.
Could you have over-reacted here, tmwise923?
I agree that it’ll be good when we can hear the notes as played in Write mode.
But it’s always been made plain that release 1 will be built on, not a definitive end-product.
What an exciting journey to be in at the start of!
MarkSealey, while I do agree patience will probably solve all of that with upcoming updates, I do still think that at $650 (which is MORE expensive than Steinberg’s flagship cubase 8.5) some very basic features are missing. Ones that render Dorico at its current state completely unusable to most (Notably the horrible responsiveness).
So, if Steinberg had an undercooked product, why release it and tell people updates are coming? and why charge 650 dollars( or euros in europe).
On the other hand, if they believe this is in fact a mature, ready to be released product, one that they can charge more for than any other similar product in the market, then we are in big trouble.
Speaking for myself, I prefer NEVER to hear a single note I write when I orchestrate. I suppose that’s one of the consequences of learning in the “pencil and paper” era…
Last I checked, paper and pencil don’t cost $650.
I too don’t mind not having playback, I do mind a hundred other things though.
It’s been nearly four years of honest, detailed, straight-forward communication, with Daniel — not central marketing — being the visible face. I really can’t see how you can complain about wasting money when you dive headfirst into something you quite obviously hadn’t seriously considered.
If Notion does everything you want, nobody is going to complain if you use that instead of Dorico.
Actually I’ve never tried a demo of Notion, but since neither Finale or Sibelius can do what I want without an insane amount of futzing about, I don’t expect Notion would either (I did look at an early version of Notion, and I wouldn’t have bothered to install that even if it had been free).
I absolutely agree Dorico has some features “missing” right now, but for me they are pretty trivial compared with what it can do already.
And I learned how to “orchestrate without hearing notes” before personal computers were even invented - I do it the same way that everybody from Bach to Stravinsky used to do it, and it didn’t seem to stop them writing some pretty good music…
Same here. I actually pity the guys who for some reason need a notation program to play what they are writing. Pencil and paper should be enough if you think you are a composer. But Dorico will be a GREAT new pen. 
But pencil and paper never would kick out the individual instrumental parts (I remember that well); so (as I’m sure you agree) Dorico has (or will have) a great deal over pen and paper.
I’m using Sibelius since version 1.0. and I’m reading through this forum since tests of Dorico are obviously not yet available.
I earn my money arranging scores and I certainly don’t need to play back the notes I’ve written but: hey, a playback-function is essential and can be found in even the cheapest notation apps. There has always been a rumor that the first version of Dorico will miss quite some features, people like me are accustomed to. But I didn’t expect it to be that basic.
So I guess I’ll stay with Sibelius for the next 2-3 years and wait for Dorico to catch up. It looks interesting though and I’m excited to see how this project is going to improve.
There IS a playback function, but notes do not play as you write them in the score.
Notes play back (reportedly) while entering them if you do it from a MIDI keyboard — currently.
Ah, NOW I understand. Sorry for the confusion.
This is going to be a journey. I compose at my keyboard and I am use to hearing what I’m playing. Many people compose this way. Some composers feel that paper and pencil work, others don’t. No technique is better or worst than another. The art of composition has evolved since Bach and the use of technology is a great tool. This may work for some and not others. What ever works for you is fine. However as stated Dorico is missing some very basic features and for the price a customer has the right to product satisfaction.
For the record, I have found it very hard to get away from using pencil and music paper in a dead silent room, and move to a computer. It is much harder than it was to go from pencil/paper (then typing the final handwritten draft) to working directly in a word processor.
I recently tried the Notion-demo (guess you could call it a kind of pre-Dorico anxiety) and I got the feeling that it’s best used for “conventional” music and wouldn’t do for contemporary art music.
When touch-typing from a hand written score, auditory feedback is essential, as it’s very cumbersome to have to look at the screen. If you don’t want to hear what you’re typing, you could always turn the sound off 
Is there something wrong with my workflow that I do actually need to hear notes as I input them (Not from MIDI)?
Please rest assured that this is a feature we plan to add pretty quickly.
Hopefully this will also imply that existing notes (optionally) will sound as you click on them…