We are delighted to announce the release of Dorico 1.2.10, free for all existing Dorico users, which is focused around polishing the revolutionary new unpitched percussion features added in last December’s Dorico 1.2 update, but adding a few other modest improvements along the way, including system dividers, wings on repeat barlines, and a handful of other changes. Read on for all the details, or if you can’t wait, go and grab the update now.
Percussion improvements
The suite of features for working with unpitched percussion added in Dorico 1.2 was very significant in scope, and we knew of a couple of rough edges that needed to be smoothed away as quickly as possible following its release, so that has been the primary focus for Dorico 1.2.10. For example, playback of playing techniques for percussion instruments is now much more reliable in general, and the playing technique overrides set up in the Playback of Articulations and Tremolos section of the Percussion Instrument Playing Techniques dialog now play back as expected. Furthermore, ghost notes (noteheads in parentheses) are automatically played back at a lower dynamic level.
Improvements have also been made to the appearance of percussion notation laid out on grids. Grids are especially challenging because it is possible to arrange things such that the lines are unevenly spaced, and in Dorico 1.2 it was possible for rests and tuplets to end up in less than ideal positions – in extreme cases, it was even possible for half (minim) and whole (semibreve) rests to be left floating in space, rather than sitting on or hanging from a line, thus making the notation ambiguous. Thanks to some hard work from the team, the positioning of rests and tuplets has been significantly improved in Dorico 1.2.10, even for complex and irregular grid setups.
Copy and paste both within and to and from percussion instruments is significantly improved in Dorico 1.2.10. You can copy material from an unpitched instrument to a pitched instrument, or indeed from a percussion kit consisting of multiple unpitched instruments and paste them onto a pitched instrument (Dorico will attempt to maintain the relative staff positions of the notes in this case), and you can also copy in the opposite direction, i.e. from a pitched instrument to an unpitched instrument or a kit of multiple unpitched instruments. Copying and pasting between different kits is also supported, and Dorico will look for identical instruments in the destination kit, even if the order of instruments in the grid or position on the five-line staff presentation is different, and map the material accordingly. Do beware that if the destination kit has different or fewer instruments than the source kit, some of the material may not be mapped, and will not be pasted.
Finally, there are a few improvements to note input on percussion kits: firstly, if you are using the Use percussion map setting to input onto a conventional drum set that uses the General MIDI percussion map, when you play Bb2 (MIDI note 46) to produce the open hi-hat sound, Dorico will automatically add the open circle playing technique, which saves time; and secondly, when using the Use staff position setting, you will now hear the percussion instrument that corresponds to the staff position of the pitch you played, rather than the sound produced by that note in the General MIDI percussion map. (This sounds more complicated in theory than it is in practice: what it really means is that you will hear the right sound during note input!)
Choosing what to play back
One of the minor improvements that makes a big difference to the utility of playback is that when you choose Play ▸ Play From Selection (key command P), Dorico now plays back only the instruments that were selected, making it much easier to focus in on a particular combination of instruments without having to open the Mixer and solo the instruments you’re interested in. If you have a single note selected, hitting P will play back the whole ensemble (technically, it will play back all instruments that are not muted in the Mixer); if you have multiple notes on a single instrument selected, hitting P will play back only that instrument; if you have multiple notes on different instruments selected, hitting P will play back only those instruments.
Going beyond this useful improvement, if you find yourself wanting to work on a passage for a particular combination of instruments, you can use the new Play ▸ Solo Selected Instruments command to set the Solo state in the Mixer for the instruments in the current selection. For example, you might want to revise a passage for the four horns in your orchestral score: simply select a note from each of the four horns, and type the new key command Alt+S to solo just those four instruments for playback. This has the advantage of being “sticky”, so you don’t need to make the right kind of selection before starting playback: you can use Space (to start playback from the playhead position) or Shift+Space (to restart playback from the last start position) and only those instruments will be played back. To reset the Solo states so that all instruments play back again, choose Play ▸ Deactivate All Solo States, or type Shift+Alt+S.
One further thing in the realm of playback: although much still remains to be done with determining how to switch between different combinations of playing techniques, the simple case of switching between (say) arco and pizz. for strings now works reliably in Dorico 1.2.10.
System dividers
Dorico 1.2.10 introduces support for system dividers – the thick, black oblique lines that are shown between each pair of systems on a page – and these can be switched on for each layout in your project using the new options on the Staves and Systems page of Layout Options. By default, the option to show system dividers in the full score layout is switched off in a new empty project, but if you start a new project from any of Dorico’s built-in templates for large ensembles, you will find that the option is switched on for full score layouts; it is always switched off by default for part layouts.
As ever, we have tried to implement this feature in a flexible way: when choosing to show system dividers, you can also specify a minimum number of players that should be present in a flow before system dividers should appear. This is helpful in situations where different flows in your project have different numbers of players: for example, you might decide that system dividers should never appear when there are fewer than four players in the flow. Note that whether or not system dividers appear is therefore calculated based on the number of players in the flow, not the number of staves visible at any given point: so if you have chosen to hide empty staves, and the staves for only (say) three players are visible, a system divider will still be shown between that system and the next on the page if you have specified that system dividers should appear for four or more players. The idea is that a given flow will always show system dividers, or it will never show system dividers, and you won’t find system dividers appearing or disappearing between systems in a flow because the number of staves in each system varies.
Also in Layout Options you can choose between three lengths of system divider: the longest one is perhaps most suitable for large format scores with small staves, while the shorter ones are more generally useful. On the new System Dividers page of Engraving Options you can also specify whether system dividers appear on the left- and/or right-hand side of the page, and if you want them to be inset from the margins on either side you can specify that, too.
Wings on repeat barlines
One more small improvement to mention new to Dorico 1.2.10 is the ability to show wings on repeat barlines. Adding wings to the tops and bottoms of end and start repeat barlines can help to call them out and make them easier for the musicians to see. To enable them in your project, open Engraving Options, choose the Barlines page, and scroll down to the Repeats section: there you will find the option Wings on repeat barlines. Simply set this to Show wings and away you go!
As of this release, repeat structures are not yet played back, but this is something that we will certainly be working on in future.
More details
There are some other changes in Dorico 1.2.10, including: a subtle but significant change to the way the curves for slurs and ties are drawn which makes them look more elegant; the use of optical variants for clef changes, which gives them a more balanced look; the choice of using square or round noteheads for double whole notes (breves); a categorised menu for noteheads, to make it easier to find the notehead you’re looking for; and new tokens for inserting the current date and time, or the date and time the project was last saved, into text frames. As always, full details can be found in the Dorico Version History PDF. When you’re ready to download the update, it’s waiting for you here.
If you’ve not yet tried Dorico for yourself, you can download a free, fully-functional trial version of Dorico 1.2.10 from our web site.
What’s next?
The team is already hard at work on the next Dorico release, which will be available later in 2018. We have delivered no fewer than seven significant updates at no additional cost since Dorico 1.0’s release in October 2016. As such, the next release will be a paid update for existing users, but the update cost will be modest, and we will pack as many features and improvements into that release as we can. I plan to tell you a bit more about some of the things we’re working on for this new release in a new instalment in the development diary series in early Spring, all being well.
Until then, thank you for making Dorico a part of your musical toolbox. We are committed to making Dorico into the best music notation software it can be, and we welcome your feedback to help us achieve our goal. Leave a comment here, or come and find us on the Dorico forum.
Thanks Daniel. Appreciating Dorico more and more as I go along. Three piano staves when you get a chance please.
@Julia: This is definitely on the list for the next major release, as part of a suite of features for smart management of instruments’ staves. Watch this space! I’m glad you’re enjoying Dorico in the meantime.
Three piano staves : great !
With ossia stave : I’ll buy it !!
I sure do hope that the update cost are VERY modest as I cannot see that Dorico even begin to play in the same league as Sibelius yet. Take for example the fact that keyboard shortcuts are tied to only a few languages and if I as a Swedish user want to use it I must switch to English keyboard layout. In retrospect, I should have waited with changing.
@Bengt-Erik: I’m sorry that you are not satisfied with Dorico as yet. I don’t believe Sibelius has specific support for Swedish keyboards in its keyboard shortcuts either, though, so I’m curious to know what problems you’re having with keyboard shortcuts. Perhaps you could start a thread about the issues you’re experiencing on the forum and we can try to help you.
Hello Daniel,
What can you say about players sharing staves? Is that something you will add to the next update?
Thanks
@Augusto: No, it is not something that we will be able to do in our next update. We are working on some features that will serve as a step in that direction, related to improving the ease of managing staves for instruments, but it won’t go as far as the long-awaited features to automatically condense music for multiple players onto a smaller number of staves. That is definitely still coming, but it requires more time and effort than we have available to us before our next release.
Daniel,
Dorico is quite promising as a full notation replacement Sibelius. The only thing that keeps me from using Dorico alone for the composition process is the playback engine; as I am a NotePerfomer user in Sibelius, I find the quick auditioning ability invaluable. Undoubtedly, you’ve had many requests to work with Arne to develop a version of NotePerformer for Dorico, and I am sure it is something that will be done when the playback engine has matured to a point where this is a possibility. I am excited for what is to come and I wish the best for you and your development team.
Regards,
Devin
@Devin: We are of course in touch with Arne, and he’s able to make quite a lot of progress without us making any changes, but we absolutely plan to make changes to Dorico to make NotePerformer work as well as possible with it in the future. The next news on this subject will come from Arne, I think!
Hello Daniel
For next release
– As Logic 10.4 now includes Articulations handling, can you add the articulations in the import of XML
– Can you make editing in Dorico as user friendly as Logic
Many thanks
Cyril
@Cyril: It’s up to Logic to export articulations in MusicXML files: if it exports them, Dorico will import them.
Hello Daniel,
the fastest way to enter notes, is to play a keyboard in realtime.
This is the main thing i miss in Dorico.
Is it possible to integrate this in next releases?
Or make a direct data exchange with Cubase. (e.g. with clipboard)
Many Thanks
Achim
@Achim: We know that many users are waiting for real-time input from a MIDI keyboard or other device. We do plan to add this functionality as soon as possible, but at this stage I cannot promise that it will be in the next major update. We have done some experiments with dragging and dropping MIDI data from Cubase into Dorico, which looks like it may work quite well for some kinds of input workflows – we’ll keep everybody posted on our progress.
to AND from Cubase right Daniel? that would be very conducive to flow.
also the ability to edit while in playback on loop. this is something i enjoyed in previous Sibelius although newer version do not do this. (i mean you can not edit during playback.) this is a very productive feature that i would be appreciated by many…
ans thanks very much to Daniel and the whole awesome Dorico Team!
@Erik: You can already actually edit the score during playback in Dorico, but the edits won’t be reflected on playback until you stop playback and restart. We don’t have looping playback in Dorico yet, but this is planned for the future.
The only thing that’s holding me back is lack of automation tweaking in the midi editor. Once that’s there I’m on board.
I do think however once automation lanes are added in the midi editor this will be my go to software for notation and playback.
@Jacob: We will be working on automation lanes very soon – they have always been in our plans and we are soon going to be in a position to make them a reality.
Hi Daniel,
I recently bought Dorico and I think it keeps its promises and I can not wait to see how it has changed. I worked with Sibelius for a long time and in the past, I started learning computer music with Encore …
There are two functions that I can not wait to find in your software:
1) Can write music with the keyboard in real time.
2) Ability to use NotePerformer.
With these two functions in Dorico, I would not need Sibelius to work so fast. But, it is clear to me that your approach is not only the best but also very well structured and effective.
Looking forward to reading what you concoct as innovations!
cordially
Frédéric
Bonjour Daniel,
Quand aurons-nous une version en français de ce logiciel avec lequel je travaille depuis la fin 2016. Je pense que cela aiderait beaucoup de monde. Je ne pense pas être le seul utilisateur français de ce logiciel magnifique.
@Jacques: The user interface is of course already fully translated into French, but we are working on a fully translated set of documentation at the moment, and we expect it to be available in French and in all of our other supported languages later in the spring. We’re sorry for the delay!
The main feature missing for me is figured bass notation.
In the pipeline?
@Andrew: Yes, it’s planned for the future, but I can’t say when it will be implemented.
Hi. I’m a Sibelius user looking to purchase crossgrade. If I purchase now, would I still need to pay for the next release? The app looks promising but I wouldn’t want to pay twice in one year.
@Kim: Yes, if you purchase Dorico now, you would need to pay for the update to the next major version when it comes out. The update cost will, however, be modest.
Daniel,
Is it going to be possible, on the next release, to set a Tempo Text to not break a multibar rest? Are you thinking of something like that?
Thanks
@Augusto: I’d be interested to hear more about the problem you’re having, since generally speaking it is the accepted practice for tempo instructions to split multi-bar rests. Feel free to email me at d dot spreadbury at steinberg dot de with an example of the problem you’re having, so I can take a look.
Are Codas, D.S., D.C., etc. planned for the next release?
@Mike: They may not make it into the very next release, but they are a high priority and you can expect them soon.
Daniel hello,
Really nice to see that the development of Dorico goes well. 🙂
I’m one of those who really need real-time recording and good playback with the libraries I’m using in Cubase. And I’ll wait until this happen to buy Dorico.
I have another question… When you are going to integrate VST Plugin Manager? Because such function, which has to be by default there, missing and the users have to manually edit xml file, and some other file to allow some VST2 plugins.
Thank you! 🙂
@Atanas: Thanks for your feedback. We won’t be able to add real-time recording in our next release, but it is a high priority item and we hope to be able to add it quite soon. We have discussed adding the VST Plug-in Manager, but because we are trying to phase out VST2.x plug-ins, there are no current plans to include it, as VST3 plug-ins, by contrast, can be detected automatically by the host application because of their installation in standard locations.
Is there going to be an update on the next version of Dorico? Been waiting for a while 🙂
@John: Yes, there will be an update soon! We’ve been heads down working on a whole bunch of new things, but the wait won’t be too much longer.
Hi Daniel, wow! I followed Dorico’s development on your Taking Notes blog from way before the release of 1.0, and I’ve been waiting for percussion support, then managed to totally miss the amazing job you did of adding it to 1.2. I saw in the release notes for 1.2 just now that one small thing missing was support for percussion stickings (L, R) — but also read that you can use lyrics as a workaround. I can’t tell if these were added in the 1.2.10 release with all the other percussion improvements. I appreciate that for composers (probably your main target market) they aren’t needed, but they are very important for teachers. (Aside: I’d also totally missed the amazing page layout features you added, also super important for teachers. Incredible job.)
Anyway, I’m about to download the free trial, and am pretty certain I will now be buying Dorico as you seem to have added everything I was waiting for.
But could you clarify whether support for stickings has been added yet? (And if not when you think it might be?)
@Darren: I’m really pleased to hear that you like the look of the percussion support added in Dorico 1.2. I’m afraid we don’t have a dedicated feature for adding percussion stickings quickly yet, but you do have two options for working with them in Dorico: you can use the “real” playing techniques, added via the Shift+P popover and then easily copied around your project using Alt+click, or you can use lyrics, which are quicker to input but don’t have any effect on playback.
What about a video playback engine? Dorico currently isn’t an option for composing to picture like Finale and Sibelius. Considering Steinberg released its own engine with Cubase 9, when can we expect such a feature in Dorico?
@Daniel: Watch this space. We would very much like to bring features to help composers work with video in future versions.
You can expect it last week: https://www.dorico.com/new-in-2/