Aided by Janus’s post above, as an experiment I removed all of the time-modification blocks (of four lines each) and then imported the edited file into Dorico. The import worked - see pic.
PS It looks like I had “tuplet visibility” turned off in the xml import preferences.
When cross-grading from Finale to Dorico, can we keep Finale registration or we have to give it up? There is no information about it anywhere… Thank you!
As many others apparently, I was at first deeply devastated by the Finale announcement yesterday. But I’m likely to go for the Dorico offer. (It would ordinarily be too expensive.)
But I have questions. I can’t really test much until I install a new C drive or a new computer. LOL of the day, right? Hence my questions here before I’ve even started. Meanwhile, the “free trial” clock is ticking.
I’ve been using Finale for both orchestral composition and playback since 1995, so an old hand. I stay current with updates. But I only have about 300 files to convert. I rarely print scores; it’s too much hassle to format, and I’m not worried about notational quality or engraving; Dorico seems nice for that.
What I’m most anxious about:
PLAYBACK: I use Finale for orchestral composition and for playback using four separate Garritan libraries. They have worked well, and I depend on the pretty flexible “human playback” of Finale. How do others feel about Dorico’s ability to playback humanistically from a score? (I.e., interpreting the score with some feeling, expression, and rubato, etc.)
TUNING: In Finale I always use the feature to load Scala tuning files in the Aria player, and this is absolutely essential for my work, which is all in a variety of alternative tunings. I’ve heard that Dorico “plays well” with Aria player. Does it handle the Garritan libraries well? Or at all? (I saw someone added expression libraries for Garritan GPO5 and JABB3. Does anyone out there know about also using COMB and/or World Instruments with Dorico?)
Since I can’t get a large symphony orchestra to play in arbitrary non-standard tunings, a warm, natural-sounding playback is really necessary. Also, I dislike working with “piano roll” type MIDI interfaces; hopefully Dorico has some good playback that doesn’t force one into using MIDI-level editing by hand?
Are there any other non-12 people out there working with Dorico? What symphonic libraries do you use?
Thanks for any pointers and tips, and links to info.
Hi @rickiejrockett , and welcome to the Forum!
Here a couple of hopefully useful thoughts about your requests (in your post #67, immediately above this):
Sorry that I don’t know about Garritan Libraries, but:
there are various playback options that influence dynamics, timing, humanisation, note position, pitch contour etc…
Here a video about pitch contour emphasis, for example:
Or about polyphonic balance:
…and many other options…
The global settings can be customised, or overwritten in the expression maps for specific libraries, as desired.
Sorry that I don’t know about Aria player (I am sure someone else will tell more about that).
But in Dorico for example you can create your own Tonality Systems
This is called Galley view in Dorico, where you can edit your music with no pagination, also taking advantage of the very well implemented instrument filters
Dorico offers built in sounds for a myriad of instruments (orchestral, synth, drums etc) using very comfortable built in Playback templates you can switch very easily between different libraries, and you can create your own Playback templates also with mixed libraries for every specific instrument or instrument family. It is very powerful.
Here one of the many videos that explain these functionalities:
Another approach to manage your sounds, is using Note Performer (with their new Note Performer Playback Engine). And you can mix NP with other libraries of your choice in customised Playback Templates.
Here the Dorico Concepts from the Manual.
Dorico works semantically: every element that you write in your score has a musical meaning that Dorico translates in a musical way (not as other software that are mostly graphic based). So the majority of elements that you insert in the score are (translated into) musical information. In the key editor you can personalise your desired result, if needed (but these needs are usually very seldom, and using the key editor is very easy and powerful, when you need it).
I am sure other will add useful information.
What is the Dorico equivalent of Speedy Entry in Finale? Play notes on the MIDI keyboard and press a key for a note length value. Does this exist? Or do I need to go back to my mouse to change a note length value?
Hi @gaker , and welcome to the Forum!
Maybe this can help:
Scroll View: @drewnichols posted this which might be relevant (when you get to Dorico)
User guide Expression map reference
I’m not concerned by using Dorico: I’m not married to my tools, and I use both Dorico and Finale.
What I’m horrified at is the prospect of man-hours of hunting down and converting all my older scores.
Since Steinberg is “partnering” with MakeMusic, are you working on an update for Dorico that will enable it to read the proprietary file types used by Finale?
This has been requested ad nauseum. Whether it will happen is just speculation on the part of us users.
@LorraineHM
Dorico allows three activations for Dorico Pro.
Thanks! Very good to know 
Thanks, but let me try again.
How can I do this without taking my hands off of my computer keyboard and my MIDI keyboard at the same time. In my circle of Finale Users, this is what is giving us the most anxiety. Speedy entry on Finale has been great since the beginning. We’re willing to learn a new way. but context switching between mouse and the keyboard is tough. I’m sure I’m totally missing this, but if I am, I feel other long time Finale users are as well. Help us out.
I was hoping to post a link to a quick screen grab of me putting nonsense into Finale with speedy entry, but the forums didn’t allow me. Anyway, in speedy entry I do not move my mouse. My left hand does not leave my computer keyboard, and my right hand does not leave my MIDI keyboard. How do we do something like this in Dorico?
Totally possible; this is what I do. Just press K for pitch before duration. You will also want to change the setting in Preferences for dots.
Thank you very much for the answers. It’s all extremely helpful info. Looks like Dorico offers a great deal of control in playback.
My experience is coming from composing/arranging/copying jazz & big band music. I appreciate the videos I’ve seen so far. But this is what is missing for many in the same boat as me. It feels similar to why a lot of us didn’t want to switch to Sibelius. Our speedy entry workflows kept us fast and making money!
We’ll plunk down chords while not taking our hands off of our midi & computer keyboards using speedy entry, explode it into 4-5 parts after putting all the articulations in.
I’d love to see a video explaining how our workflow should change in Dorico.
Tutorial Video ideas:
1.) Single voice line with articulations, varied note lengths, rests, etc. Octave jumps, etc. Without clicking your mouse.
2.) Enter 4-5 voices at a time in block chords. Number of bars don’t matter. Explode that into different parts. Let’s say 4 trumpets.
Not trying to be difficult, but trying to help ask questions I know the Finale community has.
Thanks!
This is one area where Dorico is way better! Extend the cursor through the staves and you don’t even need to bother with exploding. Here’s a gif where I write into the whole trumpet section at once.:
I’m using pitch-first input with a MIDI keyboard (like Speedy) in that example of course.
YES! Okay now we’re getting somewhere! Thank you!
With pitch-first input, you’re saying I need to read here, right?
www.steinberg.help/r/dorico-pro/4.3/en/dorico/topics/write_mode/write_mode_note_input/write_mode_note_input_inputting_notes_pitch_before_duration_t.html
Thanks!!!
ETA: Sorry, I can’t include links. So I’m sorry for not having a direct link to the above.
Yep, that’s it, although you’ll want to make sure you reference the 5.1 manual. I almost always use pitch-first input. (20+ years of Finale workflow, plus I think duration-first is terrible for composition.) The Dorico “First Steps” tutorial and many videos are set up for duration-first, but it’s simple to change. Just change this Preferences setting and forget about it:
Nice Brilhart ligature in your avatar BTW!
Hi. I 've seen this today. I wonder for existing Dorico users who already owns Finale (earlier than Finale and doesn’t support MusicXML 4.0) do you Steinberg offer a paid upgrade option to allow us to upgrade our Finale to v27?
(I have Finale but not v27.)
Also, another thing is that when you offer Finale v27 to crossgraded refugees please make sure the Japanese version of Finale v27 is also available to them (whether free or not) since (as I mentioned above) the Japanese version has dedicated features which are crucial to Japanese users but missing in other language versions of Finale.
