The Sound Board

Having messed with it some, I would have to say that Musescore will probably do the job (and you can't beat the price), but the learning curve is fairly steep and the program is very unintuitive IMO. I've found it somewhat easier to play a melody in Cubase, fix the lengths, export it and import it into Musescore, but it's still no walk in the park from there....for me, anyway.

I don't get much of a chance to use notation, but a project came up where I needed to take the Trombone part from a Keyboard player and give it to a Trombone player. My version of Sibeius (6) runs pretty slow these days, as it is not 64 bit.

SO, I decided to give Dorico a shot - downloaded the 30 day demo and spent the last 8 hours in it. After getting around the learning curve (which took an hour or so - to be able to do what I needed to do) here are my initial thoughts, at least as far as this little project goes:

• - Way easier to use than Sibelius (at least for me). Again accounting for the lack of knowledge, I was able to get in and get things done with couple trips to the online help. But I just get a feeling this is a much better way to work.
  
  - Flows are really cool. I was able to do all the songs from the show in one document, and keep them separate. Maybe Sibelius and Finale have this function, but it isn't as intuitive as Dorico - and I don't think it is in V 6 of Sibelius. Maybe they have something the same, but it is really cool.
  
  - The way you add dynamics and tempo info is killer: Select a group of notes and type in mp<mf>mp and it does the rest. puts in the hairpin lines - it is pretty cool.
  
  - The caret is very helpful, once I got used to it. No midi input this time around, did everything via computer keyboard. It worked well, again once I figured out some key commands.
  
  - Separating out the writing from the engraving is brilliant. They way you can mark things up, move things around, and link pages like in desktop publishing apps is pretty cool and useful. I just touched the surface on what you can do with this, but it is really nice.
  
  - Printing: I hit the print button and nothing happened. So I hit it again - nothing. I didn't have my printer on because I wanted to create a PDF. So I thought it was a limitation of the demo. But. looking at my print ques there were three jobs ready to go. It is so fast at sending to the printer, I didn't ever realize it had gone. I found another button to create a PDF, which again was so fast.

That's about it for now, But I can say that I really enjoy Dorico. Pretty sure I will buy a license, since I have more of this kind of thing to do. And since it is the same as upgrading Sibelius, it is a no brainer. I won't ever give another penny to Avid and Sibelius.

I know it isn't as complete as the others (yet) but it is off to a great start in my mind.

Hi Kayle and all,

I went ahead and crossgraded to Dorico a few weeks ago. I haven't used it for any serious projects yet, but from my relatively little experience with it at this point, I agree with pretty much all of your observations. It just seems to be a better paradigm than Finale or Sibelius (I've used Finale since version 1.0, which the conservatory at which I taught ordered months before it shipped, and Sibelius since maybe 2001).

All of the features aren't out yet (percussion notation, cues, some playback options, fingering, etc. aren't there), but it's getting to be in the ballpark, and the next update should address most of the things I just listed. I'm very glad I crossgraded, and I'm very impressed with the thinking behind its paradigm and its usability. If I were on a tight deadline for a complex piece, I might still revert to one of the older programs, since I know them and they are certainly (overly) mature and full-featured.

Just a heads-up: the Scoring Notes review of the latest Dorico update (https://www.scoringnotes.com/reviews/do ... r-release/) mentions September 30 as the last day for the crossgrade. I'm not sure that that is accurate (Steinberg has extended the crossgrade ending date several times). But if it is, I thought some of you might want to know.

Also on the heads-up front: I got the crossgrade from JRR Shop, and with the "FORUM" discount code, saved some money. A few days later, an e-licenser from JRR Shop arrived unannounced (I'm not saying it will for you, too; I was just surprised to receive it).

I enjoyed Dorico for the 30 day trial and I think it is going to be great. But for the amount of notation work I currently do, the $279 cross grade price is a bit much for me to justify.

Which leads me to Overture 5 as per Rob’s endorsement. Playing with the demo it seems very capable for my needs and less than half the cross grade price of Dorico. This may just be what I am looking for.

Make it’s easier too that to update Sibelius 6 to 8 is $299. Are you kidding me?