Greetings. I was wondering why Dorico doesn’t incorporate the free MuseScore sounds into their program. Even StaffPad incorporated them. Any thoughts?
MuseGroup bought StaffPad, explicitly to obtain the rights to their technology. It’s unlikely that MuseGroup would allow a competitor to have access to them. They are free for the user, not for a rival company.
The MuseScore sounds also require considerable ‘tailored’ pre-processing by the MuseScore app itself.
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The Iconica Sketch sounds that are going to come for free with the next free minor update for Dorico 5 are quite good. I played around with them in Cubase and was impressed. They are a substantial improvement over Halion Symphony Orchestra.
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And they will be available with Dorico Elements, which is (another) major improvement for Elements in this Dorico 5 cycle.
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FYI, Simon Amburgey did a video on Iconica Sketch just a few days ago where he dove into most of the patches to try everything out:
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I’m still trying to work out why Dorico 5 Pro and Cubase 13 Pro have no synergy between them? It’s almost like 2 different developers. I’m sure there are quite a few DAW to score or vice versa composers out there.
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That’s because it is. Dorico was written from scratch looooooooong after Cubase, mostly by former Sibelius devs.
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It’s been requested for a while and the team has replied, you should find the answer if you do a search, I don’t remember in which thread it was but it should be easy to find 
Does it still use soundfont (sf2/sf3) and sfz? I haven’t looked at it in a while, but my understanding is that it can still use those.
If so, you can get the free sforzando player by Plogue. It works quite well in Dorico.
I have no idea what format the ‘plugins’ from ‘musehub’ are using these days, but if they happen to stash sf2/sf3 or sfz files somewhere you could drag them onto sforzando and use it from there.
It’s not a SoundFont. They created their own dll plugin format as a somewhat replacement for VST3 and Muse Sounds is a plugin for their new plugin format.
To clarify: MS4 can still use SoundFonts yes, but they are a secondary thing now, and the MuseScore sounds that the original poster is asking about is not a soundfont.
Marc, I think we can use Iconica Sketch with Halion 7 in Dorico??!! I just found this:
Will try it out right now.
Yes you can. And with 5.1, you’ll get the expression maps to make them work (but if you’ve got some time to loose, which I know you don’t, you can create those yourself!)
Yes, sure …can’t wait to hear these new sounds, it’s downloading here.
I wonder whether those who already have Iconica Sections & Players and the corresponding NPPE already have what will be forthcoming.
(Not that I begrudge the Sketch subset becoming available free for those who do not have Iconica already. I think it’s a great move for Steinberg to include the option with Cubase and Dorico.)
Most likely, Sections & Players has more articulation options, so it would try to trigger articulations that do not exist instead of simulating them for things like trills potentially. You’d be best off taking that map and deleting any articulations from the maps that do not apply to Sketch, or just waiting a bit longer.
Actually, I do not need to use Sketch if I have the larger Iconica package and NPPE. I just wondered (and doubted) whether there would be any additional instruments or capabilities in the later, if reduced, package.
Well. I don’t have Iconica, but HOOPUS and NPPE. But what I think might be a reason (for some of us) to still use Iconica Sketch, is the ability to export MIDI with all corresponding cc data (that hopefully will improve with 5.1 to be similar to what NP does and import it in any DAW to adjust them more and continue working with Audio. I’m really looking forward to it…
What do you think of the sounds? Do you like them?
Hi, I’ve tried almost all the sounds, they sound huge and so warm!! maybe better than NP4… (I think.)
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Here’s a basic PT for Iconica Sketch (made in a hurry last week, no guarantees 
)
SKETCH
SKETCH-project.dorico (3.8 MB)
(eh, yes, the percussion map is incomplete )
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