Re: [Finale] (Off Topic) Dorico [lengthy Froom to Bailey reply - delete if not interested]
To add to what David Bailey wrote about Dorico: You can set your own keyboard shortcuts to be just about anything, and you can easily change the ones they provide. I changed the durations shortcuts to match Finale’s (so I don’t have to relearn from nearly 30 years of Finale practice). I moved the enharmonic change (among other things) to match Finale. I’ll keep tweaking their shortcuts to match my learned instincts. David B talks about moving between Write and Engrave mode. That’s just cmd-2 and cmd-3. Writing is for putting in notes, dynamics, slurs, adding cautionaries, while Engraving is for moving things around from their default positions and general page layout. There are also modes for Setup, Play, and Print. In the first release, there was no vertical staff adjustment, but that’s been added in the first update, while note and measure horizontal adjustment is coming soon. So, for me, now that I have a sense of how the program works, my workflow is virtually the same as Finale simple entry for note input (both midi and keyboard typing). Slurs and dynamics and articulations (which can be put in as you go or later without tool switching) are fast and easy, and kind of like Sibelius. Tuplets are a different process, but easy and very flexible (nesting is easy if you want it): you set the underlying duration, type ; then x:x (where x are your numbers), hit return, and enter the notes. Triplets are just entering 3. The program isn’t ready for real work. Lots of basic notational things still aren’t possible or they require work-arounds. Dozens of things are promised and should be coming in the next 6 months or so. Playback, even with Garriton (which is possible but took some effort to get to work) is still pretty bad but they say will improve. There has been one free upgrade (a good one) and another promised by the end of the year. They are meeting their announced deadlines. Right now, they have a demo download to try out. I’d say in about 6-12 months, this could be a genuine contender. The thing that REALLY stands out, right now, is the general spacing algorithms. I have yet to find a situation where I would want to respace notes or move measures around (except for page turns), even in highly complex music. This all constantly recalculates as you enter things, though you can freeze systems and pages if you want. The look is quite beautiful, general choices they’ve made quite good ones. They are listening closely to the early adopters, and making long fix-it lists they are telling us about, sometimes as the developers fix them. Daniel Spreadbury reads EVERY post on the forum, and responds unless someone else chimes in first with accurate information. The potential for wonderfulness is also in the way they have conceived layout. I haven’t figured out the fancy things, but generally speaking, music is in “flows.” Those might be separate movements, but also could be anything. The flows generate automatic parts. In Engraving mode, you can create and position music “frames” and text “frames” any way you want. Then you can associate any flow or part from a music flow into any music frame. So, for example, you could write a 4-hand piece for piano with the pno 1 on the right facing page, pno 2 on the left facing page — nothing to fix or tweak except the page turns (which is easy to do). It is strange notating without thinking about meter — but the music in Dorico really is just a long stream that isn’t connected (behind the scenes) to bars. You can put in or take out barlines, add or change meters, whatever you want. The music re-notates as you go in something that is usually more-than acceptable — or you can fairly easily override the details. But you can also just set a meter and go or change meters whenever you like. If you change meter so that, for example a 4/4 ending with a half note is now a 3/4, it automatically becomes tied 1/4 notes, AND vice versa. 16ths are automatically regrouped according to the preferences you can set up. I never took to Sibelius, and as a Finale user since version 1, I think there is nothing I can’t do in Finale. I have a real sense of its ins and outs and behind-the-scenes brains (or lack thereof). I was surprised, though, how, at least for me, Dorico was not too tough to begin to learn. I would not yet want to start a serious project in Dorico, and when I prepare classroom stuff, I go to Finale first. At least for now. But it is conceivable to me that in two years, I might be a dedicated Dorico person. I say this almost completely because of the spacing algorithm. I became aware of how much time I spend tweaking that in Finale when, expecting bad results that would need fixing, Dorico instead did it right the first time. If they got this SO right in v. 1, it makes me expect that they will get a lot of other things right down the line. The cost for educational crossgrade is pretty cheap ($179?). The non-edu
Re: [Finale] (Off Topic) Dorico
On 12/2/2016 1:52 PM, Michael Lawlor wrote: > For those of you who have tried Dorico, does it treat the bar as the > basic metrical unit (as in Finale and Sibelius) so bar lines have to > align, even if they may use different time signatures? Trying to get a > constant beat with different time signatures, so the bar-lines of the > parts do not coincide is what I would really like. Doing this in Finale > is time-consuming and spacing is never satisfactory. Dorico does just what you want -- barlines do not line up for different meters in different parts, so the speed is constant (an 8th-note is an 8th-note regardless of the meter on that specific part). What Dorico can't do yet is to have the barlines line up such that having one part in 2/4 and another in 6/8 with the duple feeling of both parts be equal. -- David H. Bailey dhbai...@davidbaileymusicstudio.com http://www.davidbaileymusicstudio.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu https://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale To unsubscribe from finale send a message to: finale-unsubscr...@shsu.edu
Re: [Finale] (Off Topic) Dorico
On 12/2/2016 1:52 PM, Michael Lawlor wrote: > For those of you who have tried Dorico, does it treat the bar as the > basic metrical unit (as in Finale and Sibelius) so bar lines have to > align, even if they may use different time signatures? Trying to get a > constant beat with different time signatures, so the bar-lines of the > parts do not coincide is what I would really like. Doing this in Finale > is time-consuming and spacing is never satisfactory. Dorico does just what you want -- barlines do not line up for different meters in different parts, so the speed is constant (an 8th-note is an 8th-note regardless of the meter on that specific part). What Dorico can't do yet is to have the barlines line up such that having one part in 2/4 and another in 6/8 with the duple feeling of both parts be equal. -- David H. Bailey dhbai...@davidbaileymusicstudio.com http://www.davidbaileymusicstudio.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu https://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale To unsubscribe from finale send a message to: finale-unsubscr...@shsu.edu
Re: [Finale] (Off Topic) Dorico
For those of you who have tried Dorico, does it treat the bar as the basic metrical unit (as in Finale and Sibelius) so bar lines have to align, even if they may use different time signatures? Trying to get a constant beat with different time signatures, so the bar-lines of the parts do not coincide is what I would really like. Doing this in Finale is time-consuming and spacing is never satisfactory. Regards, Michael Lawlor ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu https://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale To unsubscribe from finale send a message to: finale-unsubscr...@shsu.edu
Re: [Finale] (Off Topic) Dorico [lengthy Bailey reply - delete if not interested]
On 12/1/2016 8:40 PM, Steve Parker wrote: > I’ve spent a few hours playing with the Dorico trial. > The workflow seems terrible.. > Can anyone answer some basic things? (I’ve rtfm…) > How can I add bars? > Can I use the arrow keys to input notes rather than a, b, c etc? > I was really hoping that Dorico would be open and modeless, in the sense that > if I grab something, I should be able to move it. > That doesn’t even seem to be the case with basic text. > How do (easily) move a bar from one system to the next. Things like this (I > thought) had been solved simply by Finale and Sibelius already. Dorico seems > to be re-inventing the wheel for the hell of it (or patent avoidance..?). > > In general, is there some way to create a layout of systems and bars and > *then* add the notes? > > If you can help, maybe reply off list. This is in no way urgent! > To add bars once you've entered a time signature, in "Write" mode hit shift-B then enter a + sign plus the number of bars you want to enter. Easier than either Finale or Sibelius where you have to use a menu or ribbon to get to the option to add more measures. The workflow is different. I don't think it's terrible, but it's certainly something which requires people using Dorico to approach it as a brand-new program and try to learn it from the ground up rather than try to apply Sibelius or Finale workflows to it. You can't use arrow keys in combination with numeric keys to enter notes like you can in Finale. You can't do that in Sibelius either. In Dorico you use number keys to select the duration and then a letter key to select the pitch. That's the same as with Sibelius although which number key relates to which note is different from either Finale or Sibelius. In Dorico you can simply select the duration with the number key or click on a palette (like Simple Entry in Finale) and then click on the line/space where you want the note to appear so you don't need to use the alpha keys to set the pitch. And you can also use midi keyboard entry. To move a measure to the next system, click the something in the measure you want to be the first one on the next system (I find it easy to remember to click the barline that ends the measure) and hit shift-S. This is different from either Sibelius or Finale where you click the barline at the end of the measure you want to remain on the current system and hit enter and the next measure moves to the next system. Dorico's developers have tried to create a program which will be good for composers to compose at as well as for engravers to create elegant output for publication. And they felt the best way to accomplish that is to separate what they felt were the five basic aspects to creating a score into separate "modes." So they have Setup, Write, Engrave, Play and Print as separate modes. Just as a composer would start by deciding what instruments/singers to write for and start out by creating a blank score, then would write the music without worrying about how the final layout would look when it was printed, then worry about how the layout would look for the printed version, then finally worry about the printing details when it was time to print. And getting playback correct for demos etc. has always been a hassle in Finale and Sibelius, so they broke the playback aspect out into its own separate mode. The reason you can't move text while in Write mode is because the location of things as they will finally appear on the printed page isn't important when creating music. We've all been forced to think of layout issues while working in Finale's or Sibelius's "Page" mode so that often the way things look on the page distracts us from simply getting the music into the program. Dorico separates those issues and users have to learn not to worry about page layout issues while entering the music. Interestingly enough, while in Dorico's "Engrave" mode where the user can worry about the page layout issues, it's very easy to get back into "Write" mode simply by double-clicking in a measure. You can playback the score in any of the five modes if you wish because the playback controls are always visible onscreen. It is possible to create your layout first and then enter the notes if you wish. Or you can simply start entering notes (in the Write mode) without even entering a time signature or key signature -- just start getting your thoughts down and then worry about meter and key later. Dorico will reflow the music and adjust the accidentals to fit meter and key once you have decided those. Or you can set them up before entering any music. For playback, Dorico makes it so much easier than either Sibelius or Finale to get into the nitty-gritty of whatever VSL softsynth a user wants to use so it can be tweaked to get the best playback. Dorico will work with most VST3 softsynths and will work with some VST2 softsynths although getting them to work with Dorico is
[Finale] (Off Topic) Dorico
I’ve spent a few hours playing with the Dorico trial. The workflow seems terrible.. Can anyone answer some basic things? (I’ve rtfm…) How can I add bars? Can I use the arrow keys to input notes rather than a, b, c etc? I was really hoping that Dorico would be open and modeless, in the sense that if I grab something, I should be able to move it. That doesn’t even seem to be the case with basic text. How do (easily) move a bar from one system to the next. Things like this (I thought) had been solved simply by Finale and Sibelius already. Dorico seems to be re-inventing the wheel for the hell of it (or patent avoidance..?). In general, is there some way to create a layout of systems and bars and *then* add the notes? If you can help, maybe reply off list. This is in no way urgent! Thanks! Steve P. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu https://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale To unsubscribe from finale send a message to: finale-unsubscr...@shsu.edu
