I’ve just completed a 360-measure silent movie accompaniment with 15 layouts (one for each scene), and in the process I compiled a list of feature requests and bugs.
My question is, is there already a thread where I should post my lists, or should I just put them up in my own post?
Thanks very much,
Lew Buckley
You can just post them here, in this very thread that you have already started.
OK, here’s my list, with the caveat that although I read through the additions/fixes in v. 1.0.30, I may have missed some that may have been taken care of in that upgrade. If so, my apologies.
I am anxious to switch to Dorico—I love the way it’s set up—but I’m just not going to be able to do that until some of the features requested below are added. The silent movie accompaniment I mentioned in the post at the top of this thread took WAY longer than it would have in my usual software, and I just can’t go through that again—most of my writing is for pay and on a deadline.
I write mostly large ensemble music (concert band, occasionally orchestra and big band jazz) in almost exclusively traditional notation, so the majority of my requests reflect that context. I’m sure you folks at Steinberg know your customer demographic and adjust your work accordingly; but piano pedal markings, for example (on which you spent many paragraphs in your Upgrade 1.0.30 announcement), while certainly an eventual necessity, are so far down my list of immediate large ensemble needs as to be nearly irrelevant right now, as is spending major development time on improving playback. In short, I just need to be able to engrave music quickly and easily.
So here are some things that are important to me:
Above all else a detailed Sibelius-like manual.
Switching-to-Dorico deal breakers for me:
Feature requests;
Inputting music
Bugs:
I’ll continue to add things as I come across them. I’m still using Dorico on an experimental basis and for small ensemble writing, so I’m staying closely in touch with it.
Thanks so much for your good work and especially for listening to your customers as earnestly as you do. I remain confident that Dorico is the engraving software of the future, and I look forward eagerly to seeing it develop to maturity.
Control/Command Home and End instantly gets you to those two places at least.
+1 on Repeats and Endings.
+1 on percussion mapping.
In band (marching and concert) music, we can do without lots of things, but alternate endings and full stave percussion mapping are NOT on that list.
In case you missed the ‘workaround’ to get alternate endings to engrave look here: Temporary workaround for making 1st and second endings - Dorico - Steinberg Forums
I trust the Dorico team to know how best to put this massive application together, but I also find support for alternate endings, and ‘working repeats during playback’ (An arrange mode?) to be very a high personal wish.
Having the score scroll with the play-head in write mode…also at the top of my list.
All of your feature requests are well-known and I promise they are all on the list to be tackled as soon as it’s practical for us to do so.
- Single line perc parts:
– Opt-Clicking to copy a selected passage to another single-line staff below, copies the passage to the nearest 5-line staff > above > or doesn’t copy it at all
– Can’t select/drag staff vertically in Engrave Mode, except very occasionally randomly
– Can’t select text in Engrave Mode to move it. The workaround is to select it in Write Mode, then use the arrow keys to move it. Obviously not ideal.
Single-line instruments are in general not fully implemented yet, but you should find that at least for adjusting their spacing, you can reliably use the handle at the start of the system.
- Vertical spacing between staves in general doesn’t take into account text entries in staves—they collide w/dynamics, tempo markings, etc.
This was changed in 1.0.30: there’s an option on the Text page of Engraving Options, which is set to allow collision avoidance in new projects, but which is not set in existing projects, for fear of changing the appearance of scores in which you’ve manually fixed the position of these objects.
- Using the keystroke to select the tuplet tool doesn’t work. It selects the tool but doesn’t actually set up the selected measure for a tuplet. To make it work, you have to click on the tuplet tool with the mouse
There may be a bit of confusion here: the button in the toolbox creates a triplet, whereas the shortcut ; shows the popover to allow you to specify whatever ratio you want – these two operations are not equivalent.
- Similarly, in Engraving Options, the arrow keys move up and down through the topics, but to actually view any topic, you have to click on it. Only a minor nuisance, but what’s the point of the arrow keys if you still have to reach for the mouse?
Yes, this is a minor nuisance and I hope we’ll be able to fix it in due course.
- Dorico often creates extra manually-undeletable bar(s) at end of flow (although Trim Flow will fix it)
Dorico never does this on its own! It will only lengthen the flow when you do an operation that causes the flow to get longer, but it will not ever automatically shorten it again, which is where Write > Trim Flow comes in.
- In perc parts, you can’t put a tremolo on one note tied to another without the tremolo appearing on both; common practice in perc parts to indicate a roll on the first note and release on the second
You can do this, in fact: switch to Engrave mode, select the note in the tie chain that should show the tremolo, and enable the appropriate property in the Properties panel.
- Even when Bar Numbers are set to None, undeletable bar numbers show at points where a Bar Number Change takes place.
You can hide the bar number by selecting it, opening the Properties panel, and enabling the ‘Hide bar number’ property.
- Bass Guitar part recognizes during midi input that it transposes at the octave, but not when changing between Edit:Concert and Transposed Pitch for viewing the score.
That’s correct behaviour, and consistent with other instruments that sound an octave higher or lower than written, e.g. double bass, piccolo, and the like.
Thank you for the thorough reply, Daniel. I know how long it would have taken you to write this, and given your apparent schedule, it’s more than we have any right to expect.
I’m looking forward to going through your answers and applying them.
Thanks again!
OK, I’ve had a chance to go through each of the particulars in Daniel’s detailed answer to me (thanks again, Daniel!), and some questions remain. I really don’t want to bother Daniel again if anyone else knows how to set me straight.
The things I understand and have discovered to work as Daniel said they would are adjust staff spacing in single-line instruments (it works), collision avoidance with “staff text” (found it), Dorio’s adding measures to the end of flows (it doesn’t), and hiding a bar number using the Properties panel (found it).
The remaining issues, which may still be my not understanding something, are below.
Re: my question about assuming that clicking on the tuplet tool was supposed to actually open the popup to make a triplet:
There may be a bit of confusion here: the button in the toolbox creates a triplet, whereas the shortcut ; shows the popover to allow you to specify whatever ratio you want – these two operations are not equivalent.
OK, I see—I though it was supposed to be a one-step process. Having said that, could it be? For example, since the majority of tuplets are triplets, could selecting the tool immediately show the popup at the location of the selection with a 3 in it so all you have to do is hit enter to move ahead, while still leaving the option to change the 3 to something else?
Re: my question about putting a tremolo on the first note of two tied notes:
You can do this, in fact: switch to Engrave mode, select the note in the tie chain that should show the tremolo, and enable the appropriate property in the Properties panel.
I’ve tried to do that, but 1), I can’t find any way to just select one note in a tie—it selects both notes—and 2) even if I use scissors to delete the tie, put the tremolo on the 1st note, and then put the tie back in, it immediately adds the tremolo to the second note. I’m guessing I’m doing something wrong; can someone help me out here?
Re: my question about bass guitar parts (and double bass parts, I’ve since noticed) not showing in different octaves in concert pitch and transposed pitch:
That’s correct behaviour, and consistent with other instruments that sound an octave higher or lower than written, e.g. double bass, piccolo, and the like.
It does appear to be true of the piccolo, but not for baritone saxophone and bass clarinet, which transpose both an octave and an additional interval. In concert pitch view, both show not only the concert pitches but also the sounding octave. Sibelius, for example, does the same thing but changes both parts to bass clef and shows the correct pitch/octave for both of those instruments.
Daniel’s certainly the expert when it comes to “correct behavior” (above), but it certainly doesn’t fit with my experience. In any case, when I’m writing, sometimes I really want to see exactly what the sounding pitches are going to be in concert pitch view, and I can’t find any way to do that. Once again, if I’m missing something, would someone please clue me in?
Having said all of this, I want to repeat again how impressed I am with Steinberg’s (and especially Daniel’s) openness to our input and patience with our questions.
Thanks much!
OK, I see—I though it was supposed to be a one-step process. Having said that, could it be? For example, since the majority of tuplets are triplets, could selecting the tool immediately show the popup at the location of the selection with a 3 in it so all you have to do is hit enter to move ahead, while still leaving the option to change the 3 to something else?
The eventual plan is for the button in the toolbox to have a menu attached to it from which you’d be able to choose a few of the more common ratios.
I’ve tried to do that, but 1), I can’t find any way to just select one note in a tie—it selects both notes—…
You need to switch to Engrave mode (Ctrl+3 on Windows, Command-3 on Mac) to select individual notes within a tie chain.
…and 2) even if I use scissors to delete the tie, put the tremolo on the 1st note, and then put the tie back in, it immediately adds the tremolo to the second note. I’m guessing I’m doing something wrong; can someone help me out here?
Once you’re in Engrave mode, you can select only the second note in the tie chain, and then you’ll find the ‘Single stem tremolo’ property in the ‘Notes and Rests’ group, and you can set it there.
It does appear to be true of the piccolo, but not for baritone saxophone and bass clarinet, which transpose both an octave and an additional interval. In concert pitch view, both show not only the concert pitches but also the sounding octave. Sibelius, for example, does the same thing but changes both parts to bass clef and shows the correct pitch/octave for both of those instruments.
This comes down to what instrument types we’ve provided so far: when adding e.g. a bari sax to your project, take a look at the three variants that appear in the third (rightmost) column of the instrument popover: I guess you want the ‘Bass clef full score’ variant.
Once you’re in Engrave mode, you can select only the second note in the tie chain, and then you’ll find the ‘Single stem tremolo’ property in the ‘Notes and Rests’ group, and you can set it there.
OK, finally got it to work. (As an aside, I was able to select either the first or second note in the tie, not just the second.) I was in fact in Engrave mode before, but it just wouldn’t work. (Maybe restarting helped for some reason?)
But I have to say there is reason for confusion on the user’s part. One of the standard principles of Dorico is that you add/change actual material in Write mode, and you deal with appearance in Engrave mode.
Since there are tremolos in the Notations panel of Write mode, it never occurred to me that they might be in two different places, nor would I have looked in Engrave mode because to my mind, a tremolo counts as actual musical material, not appearance, and therefor “shouldn’t be” in Engrave mode.
Unless there is some reason other than that’s the only way you could program it for now, I really hope that will change at some point in the development process.
This comes down to what instrument types we’ve provided so far: when adding e.g. a bari sax to your project, take a look at the three variants that appear in the third (rightmost) column of the instrument popover: I guess you want the ‘Bass clef full score’ variant.
I muddied the waters by mentioning the bass clef in the transposed view of the bari sax in Sibelius. My primary point was why does the transposed view show the bari sax and bass clarinet in their sounding octave, but not the piccolo or double bass/bass guitar? As I said, sometimes when I’m working I want to see the actual sound I’ll be hearing, and as of right now, the only way I can do that is to enter it an octave too low (double bass) and when it’s all there, transpose the whole part up an octave.
As always, thanks for listening.
The issue is, of course, that you can only select the tied note as a whole in Write mode, which is very unlikely to change. We could add further buttons to the tremolos panel to allow you to specify whether or not the tremolo should be on the first or last note of a tie chain, but even that wouldn’t solve the issue fully generally, because you could (for reasons best known to yourself) want to put the tremolo on, say, the middle note of a tie chain, and that wouldn’t be supported.
My primary point was why does the transposed view show the bari sax and bass clarinet in their sounding octave, but not the piccolo or double bass/bass guitar? As I said, sometimes when I’m working I want to see the actual sound I’ll be hearing, and as of right now, the only way I can do that is to enter it an octave too low (double bass) and when it’s all there, transpose the whole part up an octave.
This could well be my own ignorance, but I’ve never seen a published score in which the piccolo or double bass are written at sounding pitch. It’s not something you would want to be possible to leave active by accident when printing your project, as neither a piccolo nor a double bass player would assume that their part is written at sounding pitch, so there could be some red faces in rehearsal. So the simple answer to the question is that it’s the kind of thing that seems to us to do more potential harm than good, and so we haven’t implemented it.
The issue is, of course, that you can only select the tied note as a whole in Write mode, which is very unlikely to change.
When I woke up this morning, I realized a much simpler way of saying what I sort of wandered through yesterday, and your statement above sums it up perfectly: the coding seems to be driving this decision, not the musical needs. In Dorico, a “tie-chain” is just that—a single unit that can only be treated as such. I’m sure you’re sick of comparisons to Sibelius (after all, you wrote it and know it better than any of us), but two tied notes remain two notes that you can always treat as single notes, not a unit.
I thought about what you said above, particularly “which is very unlikely to change.” If there’s a good musical reason for that that I haven’t thought of, great. If it’s code-driven…well, not so much. I can only say that I’ve been using Sibelius intensively since 2004, and I never once found that method of dealing with ties to be the least inconvenient.
And I promise that’s the last I’ll say about it. 
This could well be my own ignorance, but I’ve never seen a published score in which the piccolo or double bass are written at sounding pitch. It’s not something you would want to be possible to leave active by accident when printing your project, as neither a piccolo nor a double bass player would assume that their part is written at sounding pitch, so there could be some red faces in rehearsal. So the simple answer to the question is that it’s the kind of thing that seems to us to do more potential harm than good, and so we haven’t implemented it.
I still don’t agree with it, as a matter of logic. But just as I was marshaling my strongest arguments, I went back and checked Sibelius and discovered (as I’m sure you knew) that it works exactly the same way. Since I’ve clearly been living with that for 13 years and apparently didn’t realize it, I guess I can’t complain too hard about continuing to live with it when I can finally switch full-time to Dorico.
It is entirely musically driven, not code driven. In fact I’m sure on some level it greatly complicates what Dorico has to do that we have to conjure up multiple notes and tie them together from a single note, so it’s certainly not driven by the code. No, it’s because a tied note is, logically speaking, a single note: that’s how we perceive it, that’s how it’s played by the performer. We can’t hear ties!
And think of all of the serious problems you have with tied notes in Sibelius: you can repitch one half of a pair of tied notes independently of the other, rendering the music nonsensical; you can add an accidental to one half of a pair of tied notes, but the other half won’t follow suit, rendering the music nonsensical; you can select both halves of a pair of tied notes and add an articulation, and that articulation will be added to both notes, rendering the music nonsensical; when inputting lyrics, you have to hit Space twice to advance past the second half of the tied note, even though in musical terms it really is a single note; similarly when repitching, you have to repitch each half of the tied note independently, and so on, and so on. Not one of these problems exists in Dorico.
I think it’s very easy to decide that something makes sense simply because it’s how you’re used to thinking about it. But I think if you reflect on this, you’ll at least be able to see the point that Dorico’s handling of tied notes comes from a musical perspective rather than a technical one, even if you want to cling to your old ways of thinking a little while longer!
OK, I’m convinced. I’ll keep working at learning to use it as thoroughly as possible, and I continue to look forward to the day Dorico will be my full-time engraving tool.
And once again, I can’t stress enough the quality and openness of your customer support – thank you so much!
I don’t want to poke an old wound, 
but I was searching the forum in an attempt to avoid starting a new thread so here I am…
I had an interesting experience today; I think based on some of Daniel’s comments above, this is perhaps unavoidable. While inputting notes, I had a half-note, followed in the next measures by two whole notes tied together. (2, 4_4) I decided to experiment with tying that first half note to the whole notes already tied together. When I decided I didn’t want the tie (I did some other processes in between and hence couldn’t command-Z) I was unable to “untie” that first half note. The only fix I could figure out was to delete the half note. Doing so deleted all 10 beats since (as I read above) Dorico now perceived all the notes to be a single unit (fair enough).
I’m wondering if in write mode it would be possible for Dorico’s ‘T’ command to work both ways. IE- hitting T will add a tie if there isn’t one, and hitting it again will remove the tie at that particular location in the chain. This would prevent whole chains from disappearing. Perhaps I could have switched to engrave mode or something… but I just wasn’t able to figure out how to undo my mistake in that moment.
Wouldn’t the scissor tool do it for you? You might need to re-tie your whole notes, but that’s to live with, I think…
If you position the caret between the two specific noteheads in the tie chain whose tie you want to cut, then use the scissor tool (shortcut U for cUt), then only that single tie will be removed; if you use the scissor tool outside of note input, i.e. when the caret is not shown, then all ties in that chain will be removed.
Thank you to you both! This is another example of my brain being fixed into old methods. But this is certainly easy enough and I will add it to my toolkit.