Hi, I have a trial version of Dorico running. Unfortunately my first steps end up being hopeless. I export a horn section score from Cubase via xml, trying to import this in Dorico. The result is the following error message:
ERROR - Element ‘midi-program’: ‘0’ is not a valid value of the atomic type ‘midi-128’.
At line 40 of /Users/chrismacbook/Music/Cubase Projects/Unbenannt/xml/Black and Blues TP.xml
ERROR - Element ‘midi-program’: ‘0’ is not a valid value of the atomic type ‘midi-128’.
At line 51 of /Users/chrismacbook/Music/Cubase Projects/Unbenannt/xml/Black and Blues TP.xml
ERROR - Element ‘midi-program’: ‘0’ is not a valid value of the atomic type ‘midi-128’.
At line 62 of /Users/chrismacbook/Music/Cubase Projects/Unbenannt/xml/Black and Blues TP.xml
ERROR - Element ‘tuplet’: This element is not expected. Expected is one of ( beam, notations, lyric, play ).
At line 242 of /Users/chrismacbook/Music/Cubase Projects/Unbenannt/xml/Black and Blues TP.xml
Other apps are able to open this without failure. What’s wrong?
Unfortunately Cubase’s MusicXML export does have a few bugs that Dorico struggles to deal with at the moment. The most recent Cubase updates for Cubase 8.5 and 9.0 include some fixes to MusicXML export, so I suggest you make sure you are up-to-date; I believe the next maintenance updates for both 8.5 (the final one in this case) and 9.0 will also include a couple of further fixes that should make bringing MusicXML from Cubase into Dorico smoother. I’m sorry for the inconvenience in the meantime.
A fairly easy fix might be to edit the XML code in your favourite text editor. Global search/replace could take care of some of the repetitive work, if there is any. Best, Michael
One thing I noticed once was that Cubase will happily notate double dotted notes, but it’s not able to export them, instead exporting single dotted notes and thus leaving bars incomplete. This may not account for all errors, but at least some…
Daniel, thanks for your info. But as mentioned other apps are able to open this. I think a testing routine which prohibits the usage of a defective or imperfect file is the wrong strategy and just annoying. There should be a list of remarks or warnings but it should open.
Also there should be a more direct connection between Cubase and Dorico. Like this there is very little attraction for a Cubase user to choose Dorico instead of other software.
I don’t disagree that it would be better for Dorico to be slightly more permissive about these kinds of things, but in our defence, this is a straight-up syntax error in the file, and because we use schema validation to check that the XML file is well-formed before we try to parse it, it’s non-trivial to ensure that if we start opening invalid files (files that do not conform to the rules of the MusicXML schema), we won’t then end up with garbage data that could lead to the project behaving weirdly or, worse, the application crashing. I hope that over time we will be able to relax Dorico’s strictness in this area, but it’s by no means a simple thing to do.
Over time we also expect to build stronger and more powerful interoperability between Dorico and Cubase, but please give us some time to do this.
Oh of course Daniel, I give you all the time you need. Please don’t get me wrong! Its just for me the well known “buy- or don’t buy” question right now. I am more or less depending on a mostly flawless integration of a DAW and a score editing app. I run the trial version for 30 days and we’ll see if I will be convinced about the functionality of Dorico.
It is so sad …