Dorico 4.3.30 maintenance update now available

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of Dorico 4.3.30 for macOS and Windows, a minor bug fix release for Dorico 4 that solves an important reliability issue, and also brings a few useful smaller fixes. Read on for more details.

HALion Sonic 7, MediaBay and Dorico 4

In February, we released the new generation of HALion products, including HALion 7 with its amazing new sound design workflows, FM synthesis module, new Spectral Zone, and much more. With the release of the HALion 7 generation, the free HALion Sonic SE instrument that Dorico has always used for playing back its included sound library has been retired, and replaced with the new HALion Sonic 7 instrument. HALion Sonic 7 is now what is offered for download when you download Dorico 4.

Along with HALion 7, we have also released a new version of the MediaBay component, which is the universal interface used by Steinberg’s instruments to choose and manage patches. MediaBay is now installed automatically by Steinberg Download Assistant, because it is a shared component used by different instruments and host applications.

Unfortunately, the specific combination of the new MediaBay and HALion Sonic 7 caused a problem in Dorico 4 whereby closing a project that used HALion would cause the MediaBay server to shut down, and subsequently opening another project would hang because the MediaBay server is not running.

We have now deployed an updated version of MediaBay, version 1.0.20 (please run Steinberg Download Assistant to be sure it gets installed on your system!), which in conjunction with Dorico 4.3.30 solves this issue. As such, we recommend that you install the Dorico 4.3.30 and MediaBay updates as soon as possible.

Other fixes

There are a handful of other useful fixes in this update. For example, a long-standing issue with the jump bar where hitting J to open the jump bar followed immediately by Return to execute the last-used command would execute the wrong command has been fixed, which will probably come as a relief to quite a few users. And there are some subtle but important fixes for playback. As always, we recommend you read the Dorico 4 Version History PDF for full details of the included fixes.

Installing the update

Dorico 4.3.30 is a free update for existing Dorico Pro 4, Dorico Elements 4 and Dorico SE 4 users. If you are currently running Dorico Pro 3.5 or Dorico Elements 3.5 or earlier, you can buy an update to Dorico Pro 4 or Dorico Elements 4 from the Steinberg online shop. (If you are reading this before 5 April 2023, Dorico updates are currently on sale for 30% off, so it’s a good time to move up to Dorico 4.)

Assuming you already have an earlier version of Dorico 4 installed, you can update to Dorico 4.3.30 free of charge. First, quit Dorico and any other Steinberg application that you are running on your computer. We recommend that you run Steinberg Download Assistant, which will automatically update Steinberg Activation Manager to the latest version, along with any other elements of the Steinberg run-time environment (including eLicenser Control Center, Steinberg Library Manager, and very importantly in this case, MediaBay) that may be outdated on your computer. You are especially well-advised to make sure you are running the latest version of Steinberg Activation Manager, as recent updates have improved reliability when running our applications in low or no Internet environments.

Once Steinberg Download Manager has finished updating any required components, go to My product downloads in the left-hand list, where you will find Dorico Pro 4, Dorico Elements 4, or Dorico SE 4, depending on which product you have installed. Select this, and on the right-hand side you will see Dorico 4.3.30 Application Installer. Click the Install button immediately to the right. This will download and run the Dorico 4.3.30 installer.

On Windows, pay close attention to whether it is recommended to restart your computer at the end of the installation process: if recommended, do restart your computer, as this should avoid font cache problems that you might otherwise encounter, which result in some icons in Dorico’s user interface and some music symbols in the score not appearing correctly until you restart your computer.

What’s next

We are hard at work on the next major version of Dorico, which will arrive later this year. In the meantime, we hope this last little bunch of fixes for Dorico 4 will help make your daily use of Dorico more pleasant and successful. As always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions for how to make Dorico even better, so please do come along to the forum, or find us on social media, and share your experiences and wishes for the future.