I’ve just printed out my first Dorico fumblings - the look of the score (a piano quartet) is superb. It looks much more like the lovely editions from Henle, Barenreiter and the like than anything I ever managed to achieve in Sibelius. It’s not that Sibelius is bad - but it is a bit like comparing ‘thin’ digital to ‘warm’ analogue.
Agreed. I put in part of a Chopin Nocturne and the output is beautiful.
This is the same thing I have noticed so far with Dorico. Although it is missing many features that I need and seems to have a number of bugs or unintuitive UI, the default look of the notation is generally better than anything else I have seen.
In fact it is a very good thing that they have spent so much time getting the core, the internal plumbing of the application correct. A lot of these features that are missing should be fairly easy to develop now, although there will also be bug reports coming in as more users try out the software.
It is a much worse problem to be stuck with a legacy application core that is hard to change, and then you end up building new features in kindof a hack-ish way on top of this core, band-aid solutions. It is harder to make changes to the application core vs. creating some new add on ‘patch’ later to add the missing functionality. They have spent so much time getting the core of the application working well that they can side-step the band-aid solutions that other notation vendors often have to implement.
I’ve picked up Pictures at an Exhibiton was a test piece; I’ve engraved the first Promenade: at first very slowly, then picking up steam as I got used to the workflow.
I’ll be honest, I don’t know where half the stuff is yet, but all the choices that Dorico is making are very much alike the engraved version without me doing anything. This is what was promised, and so far it was delivered.
I have been working for quite some time with a port of Bravura in Sibelius, so I already knew how good the font was. It might not top, say, November, but it is definitely better than the default fonts in the other programs, which everyone bar the professional engravers end up using.
One thing I can’t wait to be updated, though, are the slurs. I feel they are miles ahead of Sibelius’s, in terms of balance and intelligence in default positioning, but I want to have manual control over them.
You do have manual control over the slurs, in Engrave mode. There are more than 50 options to control the default positioning of slurs in Engraving Options, and there are also dozens of properties in the Properties panel for tweaking individual slurs, plus of course you can simply click and drag the slurs around in Engrave mode too.
I’m really pleased to hear that people are enjoying the default engraved output of Dorico. We really have worked very hard on that, and I think the hundreds of little details really add up to a beautiful result, so I’m glad to see people noticing the difference.
Ah, but of course. Since I’m only a few hours into Dorico — and since the default output is rather splendid — I’ve pretty much ignored the Engrave mode!
Cheers for the lifesaver (as always!)
Just saying - you can get the same output from brand X and Y by choosing appropriate weights for lines and curves. The font has some effect, but not as much as you might think, in my opinion.
I’m glad the makers of Dorico have chosen to model its default output on real world music engraving.
I will add my voice to this chorus. The default output is absolutely gorgeous. I’m also picking up speed. The interface is really quite wonderful. I’ve had some issues, but on the whole I’m very impressed. Just started a major project on it (after testing it on a minor one). I’m confident I can finish it on time despite the little niggly missing things that slow me down like adding an interval, transposing etc … The work-flow is very enjoyable.
A sufficiently proficient user can get pretty much the same output of, say, Sibelius and Finale. But even if one can, one won’t, due to time constraints, personal preferences and so on. So yeah, if the tools speeds up workflow, it’ll probably be welcome. As Alexander Plötz said in his review, Dorico does most of the things his trained eye would incite him to do. I tend to agree. I’ve just been corrected by Daniel regarding something extremely simple that I haven’t had the chance to come across because I haven’t felt the need to tinker. It’ll be a bit sad to see people taking what today can only be achieved by a competent engraver, but hey: as long as the scores look good…