Update 13 October 2025: We have today released a small maintenance update to Dorico 6.1, bringing the application to Dorico 6.1.10. This fixes a few important issues that have been reported since the release of Dorico 6.1, and is recommended for all Dorico 6 users.
We have today released a free update for all Dorico Pro 6, Dorico Elements 6, Dorico SE 6 and Dorico for iPad users. Dorico 6.1 not only includes a number of important improvements to proofreading, condensing, guitar notation, and more, but Pro and Elements users – and Dorico for iPad users with an active subscription or the Lifetime Unlock in-app purchase – also receive a brand new grand piano instrument, Etude Elements, at no extra cost. Read on to find out more!
As always, my colleague Anthony has prepared a short video outlining the changes and improvements in this version:
You can also download the Dorico 6.1 Version History PDF for full details of everything that’s new and the full list of fixes.
Etude Elements
Earlier this year, we released Etude, a deeply-sampled Yamaha C3X grand piano instrument for HALion Sonic, and our sound designers have now produced a carefully reduced version of the full 18GB library, slimming it down to just 3GB while retaining its character: delicate harmonic richness at the top end, and deep, warm tones in the lower octaves. Etude Elements is available for purchase from today, but if you are a Dorico Pro 6, Dorico Elements 6, or Dorico for iPad user with an active subscription or the Lifetime Unlock in-app purchase, it’s included in Dorico 6.1 at no extra charge.
To get to know Etude Elements a little, check out Anthony’s video:
In addition, you can download a zip file containing three example projects that all show off the lovely sound of Etude Elements:
Download Etude Elements examples
Make sure you update to Dorico 6.1 and install Etude Elements before you play these projects in order to hear them played back with the new sounds. Before you run Dorico 6.1 for the first time, run Steinberg Activation Manager and force a license refresh by holding Shift and clicking the “refresh” button in the top right-hand corner: this will ensure your Dorico 6 license is updated with the extra entitlements for the Etude Elements sound content. (You won’t see a separate entry in your list of licenses for Etude Elements, however: like all of the content included with Dorico, the license is built-in to the Dorico license itself.)
In Dorico for iPad, Etude Elements is included in the monthly or annual subscription, or the Lifetime Unlock in-app purchase. To download the sounds, go to Reset Sounds in the application menu (the “hamburger” at the right-hand end of the toolbar), and tap the Download button. Once the sounds have been downloaded (the samples are 3GB in size, so the download may take a little while, depending on the speed of your connection), tap the Use Iconica Sketch and Etude Elements button in Reset Sounds to apply the new sounds to your project.
Automatic playback template
Dorico 6.1 also introduces a new automatic playback template, designed to take best advantage of the sound content provided with the software. Instead of having to choose a specific factory playback template named after the individual content you want to use, by default Dorico will now use a new playback template called Auto that automatically makes use of all of the installed content. When you install, say, Etude Elements, Dorico automatically adds it to the Auto playback template, so that when you start a new project and add a piano instrument, it will be assigned to one of the new Etude Elements patches instead of the previous default, the Yamaha S90 Piano.
When you first run Dorico 6.1, if you are currently using one of the existing factory playback templates, you’ll be prompted whether to make the Auto playback template the default for new projects. If you decide not to do this right away, you can go to the Play page of Preferences to make the choice later. When you open existing projects, Dorico won’t automatically apply the Auto playback template (as this would remove any manual overrides or changes in Play mode), so if you want to use Etude Elements in an existing score, either manually load one of the patches into HALion Sonic in Play mode, or alternatively apply the Auto playback template.
Proofreading
We continue to enrich the capabilities of the new Proofreading panel, and Dorico 6.1 introduces two new areas of proofreading.
Firstly, a new Instrument ranges category has been added. This allows you to quickly find any places where there are notes that might be out of range: even if View > Note and Rest Colors > Notes Out of Range is activated, it’s hard to find all instances in a large project quickly. Now, you can simply click on each issue in the panel, and be taken directly to it. Beyond this already very useful functionality, Dorico goes much further, and will report on specific cases for particular instruments (for example, B3 on the flute, which requires the foot key; B1 on the trombone, which is never playable, though pedal notes from E1 to Bb1 are playable, and the notes between C2 and Eb2 that are only playable with the F attachment; notes that contradict the current harp pedal, or if conflicting pitches are found for the bottom two strings of the harp, which aren’t affected by the pedals).
Secondly, the existing Repeat structures category has been greatly expanded. Dorico will now report on problems with repeat markers and jumps (D.C./D.S./Coda/Fine, etc.) and repeat endings, mismatched repeat barlines, and so on. This makes it much easier to pinpoint latent problems that could cost rehearsal time when your players try to make sense of the repeats.
Beyond the new cateogries, Dorico now saves the state of the Categories filter in the Proofreading panel in the project, so the choice of which kinds of issues you want to see reported is persisted between sessions. And on the Proofreading page of Preferences, you’ll find new options for which categories of issues should be enabled by default in a new project (or a project opened in Dorico 6 for the first time).
Condensing
When condensing is enabled, and music for multiple players is shown on fewer staves, certain limited editing of the graphical appearance of the music is possible in Engrave mode, but it has never been possible to adjust the appearance or position of rests in condensed music. This limitation has caused significant problems over the years, and I’m pleased to be able to write that it has been substantially removed in Dorico 6.1.
When you, say, set the Rest pos. property on a condensed rest to adjust its vertical position, the property value itself will apply only to the condensed staff, as you would expect, but in order for that property to be saved, the rest needs to be made explicit, and it has to be stored in the musical data belonging to the instrument.
Normally this will create no problems: in most cases, the rest that you see in the condensed music corresponds exactly to an existing implicit or explicit rest in one or more of the source instruments whose music is notated on the condensed staff: the rest in the source instrument has the same duration, so adjusting its position has no visible effect on the uncondensed music, which appears in the part layout, or in the full score when condensing is disabled.
However, in some circumstances, the rest that appears in the condensed staff may not match an existing implicit or explicit rest in the uncondensed source material. If you adjust the vertical position of such a rest, it becomes explicit, and will now appear in the uncondensed source music with that duration – though the adjustment to its vertical position will only take effect in the condensed music.
Despite some remaining limitations, we hope that these changes will make it much easier to get precisely the appearance you want to see in your condensed scores.
Guitar notation
Dorico 6.1 includes a handful of improvements that will hopefully be of particular interest to guitarists and those writing for fretted instruments. Firstly, you can now much more easily influence the choice of default chord diagrams for different chord symbols. In Library > Chord Diagrams, it’s now possible to mark individual chord shapes such that Dorico won’t choose them by default, eliminating shapes that you don’t want to see and making it quicker to choose the desired shape. You can also now export a library file containing all your custom chord shapes, so it’s easy to transfer them from one project to another.
We’ve added a new option for the appearance of the guitar vibrato dip, matching the conventions of publications like Total Guitar and Guitarist magazine. You can now choose between showing the “tick-like” angled line or a curved line on the Guitar Techniques page of Engraving Options. In a similar vein, the conventions followed by Guitarist and Total Guitar for handling tied notes in tablature are also now accommodated, with new options in the Ties section of the Tablature page of Engraving Options.
There are also some minor improvements to the positioning of multiple voices in tablature, particularly when stems are shown.
Engraving improvements
As usual, this update includes several other improvements to the engraving capabilities of the software. Here’s a quick round-up:
- It is now possible to align pedal lines across the system, so that they are all at the same vertical position. This is controlled by a new engraving option on the Pedal Lines page of Engraving Options, activated by default in new projects but not in existing projects. Be aware that the precise appearance of existing projects where multiple pedal lines (e.g. sustain and sostenuto) are active simultaneously has changed in Dorico 6.1, so you may wish to keep an older version of Dorico 6 alongside Dorico 6.1 if that will present a significant problem for you.
- Another new option for pedal lines allows you to specify precisely where the final lift of a pedal line should be positioned relative to the barline.
- The appearance of arpeggio signs on slash voices has been improved, with a new engraving option provided to specify their default length.
- You can override the appearance of an individual staccatissimo articulation via the Properties panel, since in some critical editions it may be necessary to use different appearances within the same project
- At combined end-start barlines, Dorico always places changes of clef, time signature, and key signature in between the end and start repeats; some publishers instead prefer to show these changes after the combined end-start repeat barline, and this is now possible via a new option on the Barlines page of Engraving Options. (In future versions, we intend to make it possible to show clef, time signature, and key signature changes to the right of a start repeat barline too.)
- We have begun to extend the options for harmonics, such that the Node property now displays only valid nodes for the chosen Partial, and the Node value now affects the notation of harmonics on notation staves, which is especially useful for stringed instruments.
- Percussion grid group labels can now use rich text formatting, like other kinds of staff labels.
- Greater control over smart quotes in text has been introduced, with a new option to choose between different styles on the Text page of Engraving Options.
- You can now specify character styles in File > Project Info, allowing richer formatting of text substituted by tokens in text frames.
- A new engraving option provides a minimum length for the portion of a tie that continues after a system break.
- New properties for adding parentheses and brackets around tuplet ratios have been added, useful for indicating that tuplets are editorial.
Workflow improvements
We have also included a handful of workflow improvements in this release, including:
- When you use Edit > Select More with a single break selected, Dorico will now only select breaks of the same type, rather than selecting all breaks.
- A new preference has been added allowing you to specify whether Dorico should create system breaks when you use Lock Layout in Engrave mode, or only frame breaks; if you want to have the flexibility to move bars between systems while keeping the same bars on the page, this could be a useful thing to try.
- New commands have been added to make it easier to select bar numbers: you can either add bar numbers found within the selected range of events to the selection, or select only the bar numbers in the selected range. This makes it easier to select multiple bar numbers in order to, say, nudge them in Engrave mode.
- MusicXML export has been further enriched in this update, with considerably more graphical information now included.
- A new File > Revert command has been added, allowing you to quickly go back to the last saved state of the current project.
- Window > Counterpart Layout now retains the selection in Engrave mode, so you will always be taken to the right place in the new layout.
Installing the update
Dorico 6.1 is a free update for existing Dorico Pro 6, Dorico Elements 6 and Dorico SE 6 users. If you are currently running Dorico Pro 5 or Dorico Elements 5 or earlier, you can buy an update to Dorico Pro 6 or Dorico Elements 6 from the Steinberg online shop.
Assuming you already have Dorico 6 installed, you can update to Dorico 6.1 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 Steinberg Library Manager, MediaBay, and on Windows the Steinberg Built-in ASIO Driver) that may be outdated on your computer.
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 6, Dorico Elements 6, or Dorico SE 6, depending on which product you have installed. Select this, and on the right-hand side you will see Dorico 6.1 Application Installer. Click the Install button immediately to the right. This will download and run the Dorico 6.1 installer. Be sure to also install the Etude Elements choice if you want to take advantage of the new piano instrument included with Dorico 6.1.
If for any reason you cannot use Steinberg Download Assistant, you can find all the installers you require here.
If you already have Dorico for iPad installed, it will probably update automatically, but if you need to update it manually, you can do so following these steps provided by Apple.
What’s next
We are already hard at work on the next Dorico 6 update, and we’re looking forward to sharing more details about that in due course. In the meantime, we look forward to hearing your feedback about Dorico 6.1.
If you are a new Dorico user who has switched over from Finale recently, you might also be interested to know about our ongoing Fall For Dorico programme of events designed to help you become more comfortable with Dorico. We are running a series of live YouTube masterclasses with product specialist John Barron, have commissioned Finale expert Jason Loffredo – the famous face behind the Conquering Finale video series – to produce a new series of videos designed to draw connections between Finale and Dorico, and are sharing some success stories from just a few of the thousands of former Finale users who are now happily using Dorico for their projects. If you’ve been struggling to get to grips with Dorico, now is the perfect time to take advantage of these opportunities to learn from the experts.
Hi This is great I’ve been using Dorico for around 5 months now and I love it, I came over from Musescore.
I am writing big orchestral scores. One thing I would love to see, so please please please think about this- is being able to re arrange the instruments on the mix desk. It honestly gives me such a head ache looking for instruments that are all over the place. I am also a pro tools user and it’s so easy to rearrange the mix desk on that platform. I assumed you would be able to do it in Dorico and was so surprised that I couldn’t!…. also adding on to this groups would be good as well again thats from protools. Where you could say have all the strings in a group or winds in a group etc etc and then mute or solo them all together as a group.
ok I really hope you can look into this its the one issue that is really problematic in the program which is other wise amazing
thanks for listening
Martin Mackerras
Yes groups would be a nice option. Generally all the instruments are in score order, and if not then when you reload the playback template they will be reassigned in score order. Hope that helps.
can not get past the screen thatn says eutude elements not loaded…. I give up!
@Henry: Run Steinberg Activation Manager, hold the Shift key, and click the “refresh” button in the top right corner. Once you see the little spinning icon at the bottom of the SAM window disappear, quit and restart Dorico, and that should take care of it.
I wish to download the update, but I have problem with Steinberg sign-in. It asks for the 6 digit verification code found in the authenticator app. Wonderful. Where do I find the authenticator app? So far after using Dorico I’ve used the emergency codes. But this cannot continue. Help!
@Al: When you set up two-factor authentication on your Steinberg ID account, you would have used an app like Google Authenticator or the Passwords app on your iPhone or Mac. That’s the app you need to use to get the six-digit code. You could alternatively use one of your recovery codes to sign in, then temporarily disable two-factor authentication so you can set it up again from scratch.
Just used Dorico for the first time after being forced across from Finale. What a mess this software is, and now there’s already a paid upgrade lol what a swizz.
Sorry to hear you are struggling. We have lots of resources and are here to help if you need it. Try starting with the First Steps guide on http://www.dorico.com/getting-started
Also, there’s no need to upgrade unless you are interested in the new features in version 6.
Give it a chance Malcolm. I moved over under the same circumstances, having been a professional Finale user since version 3.5 (1995?), producing hundreds of books for Music Sales / Hal Leonard and countless other projects. I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by what it can do. Don’t write it off, Finale isn’t coming back, in my opinion Dorico really is the way to go.
Jason Loffredo (Conquering Finale) has started a new series, Finale to Dorico: Conquering the Transition. His first videos cover where to find your favorite Finale tools in Dorico, and the logic behind their placement. Even though I made the move immediately, I find this series quite informative.
Here’s the first one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrwTExSuvNY
Whoa, give it time, buddy. It’s a different program. You will learn it and love it.
Hang in and hold on tight! I have been a Finale user since Finale. It’s a lot of habits to break, but once it settles in, you’ll love this. (I still struggle with the speedy note numbering system.) There are features in Finale I miss, but with so many other smarter movers in Dorico, it’s been worth it!
You don’t need to update if Dorico 5 has all the features you need.
I’ve used Finale since ever (1.05 with a dozen 3.5 disks). I had to switch to something and while Steinberg frightened me, gave it a shot.
It was terrible for about two weeks (I’m stubbborn).
There are plenty of help videos but they went by too fast.
Like everything it will take time and slogging work.
Here’s what I figured out way back at the start with Dorico.
The sequence of actions I used in Finale needed to be kind of reversed. But what is more- Dorico separated out the various stages of set-up, writing, playing, etc into their own menu categories (my words).
And slowly, without crying over Finale, I wrote a little sketch. And that was it. Next came putting a Finale file into XML format and opening it in Dorico. It worked. So hundreds of files later, I have my Finale output safely available to Dorico.
Like everything else, it takes time and adjustment, but I’ve become as comfortable with Dorico as I became with Finale- maybe even more so.
Thank you for your comments and giving hope to others! Glad you’ve joined us.
I think the conversion of quotation marks in different languages is a great feature. However, in Switzerland, we use the French version without the spaces between the quotation marks and the text. Would it be possible to add an option to disable the spaces? That would be great, because even with this option, I still have to type the quotation marks manually.
Greetings from Switzerland
Padruot Nogler
We’ll see what we can do!
Sirs,
I successfully installed Dorico 6.1 using your instructions (thanks very much!). It isn’t obvious (to me, at least) which is/was the ‘refresh’ button in the Activation manager. I just Shift-pressed whatever I saw. Perhaps you could consider adding a label to the icon, or a popup when you mouse over the icon.
We’ll take that onboard, thanks. Ideally that step wouldn’t be needed either!
Ottimi consigli grazie
Fabuleux de propreté et vérité!…
Bravo!
I too am a former Finale user. Dorico is so confusing and not at all user friendly. I’ve been trying to input notes in ONE measure for about 45 minutes. Here’s the sequence: quarter note, half note, 2 eighth notes. I can get the quarter note fine, then the half note. The second I select eighth note to input that on the staff, the half note changes to two quarter notes tied together. It’s such a headache and if this is how complicated 4 simple notes are, I can’t imagine trying to to the things I used to be able to do very easily in Finale. I’m so frustrated and ready the throw in the towel and write notes with a pen on staff paper. They said this was a very similar program to Finale. Well, that definitely is NOT true.
If you need help please try the first steps guide on https://blog.dorico.com/getting-started as it a great lesson on how to do note entry etc, and there are many other useful resources there too.
To download this update, it says to use Steinberg Download Assistant. I start it, I get a “Sign In” button, I click on it, I get in my browser the message “Authorize Steinberg Download Assistant
To authorize Steinberg Download Assistant, you must allow your browser to open Steinberg Web Launcher. Once authorization is completed, you can close this page and continue working with Steinberg Download Assistant.”
I have no idea what this means or how to do it. Please advise.
It sounds like you were following the process correctly and had logged in, so I think you press ‘ok’ in that dialog and it should carry on. If you’re still stuck please get in touch via the dorico.com/forum where it’s easier for us to help you with screenshots etc.
After the update, Dorico replaced my playback template. This is infuriating, because I don’t hear all instruments, the volumes are all changed, I lost so much of what I did over the summer. I am so angry and humiliated. I hate this.
Dorico doesn’t change the playback in any of your existing projects unless you reload the playback template. You can also look in your Backup Projects folder (inside your Dorico Projects folder) for earlier versions that might be from before you made a change.
this is ok, thanks. but the most important thing: where is the download?
Best would be an Update Button direct in the app. it’s so easy to implement that, and much more easy for the users.
You can download updates using the Steinberg Download Assistant that you used to first install Dorico too. We’ll take that on board though as we’re always looking to improve, thank you.
Not a big deal, but one of the three example pieces I downloaded above doesn’t play back. I got Dorico 6.1.10 and Etude Elements installed successfully. (Once I realized Etude Elements had not been installed automatically as part of installing 6.1.10, I found it in the Download Assistant’s long list of “VST Instruments & Plug-ins” under “All products”.) The Bach and Sebastian Breiter examples play just fine, and they’re clearly using Etude Elements. However, the Martin Wiese example does NOT play – the playhead moves, but there’s no sound output at all. In Play mode, with Piano selected, the drop-down list under VST Instruments says “02 – !! HALion !!”, rather than “02 – HALion Sonic”; and clicking on Show Instrument does nothing, i.e. it doesn’t bring up the HALion Sonic 7 dialog. Maybe something is missing in that project? Just thought I’d mention it.
If they aren’t working, try going to Play > Playback templates and press apply to reset the playback template.
Could you please consider adding the ability to put measure numbers in two locations? I need to be able to label measure numbers across the bottom on every measure (centered under the measure and in a box) AND put the measure number at the top left of every system (so just the first measure of each system). Thanks!
That’s a lot of bar numbers!
Can you give us some more examples on the dorico.com/forum (since you can upload files etc there too and it would be easier for us to help.)
Thank you
I am becoming comfortable with Dorico 6.1, having mourned Finale for a while. However, there was a long list of styles available in Finale which I really regret losing. For instance, there was differentiation between different period practices in Harp playing which I miss a lot. and there were easy Romantic, Swing, Baroque and Classical settings. Regarding Harp, the Garritan Harp sounds were much more lovely than the generic and cold Harp in Dorico. I have purchased other harp VST instruments, but cannot got them to show up or sound in Dorico. I need a lever harp sound for a massive teaching project, but I must use the generic cold harp in Dorico, and I also want a wire-strung harp VST for a period dramatic project, but once again, I cannot got Dorico to use those instruments. Please advise.
There are some playback templates for Finale sounds available here: https://blog.dorico.com/playback-templates/ but if you want to manually assign a sound you need to add the ARIA player in the VST rack in Play mode and then assign that to your harp in the track inspector. This video has more details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXhnvgUUy4k&list=PLoyaeouPUsdsMHXTObOrumSXFUusdI-Eo&index=4 or please get in touch on dorico.com/forum where it’s easier for us to help you.
Hello Dorico,
I currently have Dorico 6 installed but I see in the C Steinberg folder that there are folders of the previous installations (Dorico 3.5; 4; 5!!!).
—Why do you not delete the previous version when a new version of Dorico is installed? Or at least ask the user if they want the previous version to be deleted?
—What is the folder name that has the jumplist file of the recently opened Dorico files that normally show on the taskbar when Dorico is pinned on it and also on the Start Menu when Dorico is also pinned on the Start Menu?
—With Dorico 6, I do not have anymore the jumplist links showing up of the most recently used files both on the taskbar and on the Start Menu!!!
What can I do for Dorico 6 to start creating again such a useful and time-saving jumplist of recently opened files both on the taskbar icon for Dorico and on the Start Menu icon for Dorico?
Thanks for your feedback on these points. Michael.
Hi Michael. We don’t delete the previous versions as each new version is a separate installation. Sometimes people want to keep the previous version while they get used to the new version and since it’s not just ‘Dorico’ but a specific version number (e.g. ‘Dorico 6’) it isn’t a common process to uninstall/replace a previous version. I do have jump list recent files displayed when I right-click on the task bar. Maybe toggle the option in the Windows settings and/or restart Windows. If that’s not working then please get in touch with more details on dorico.com/forum
I was using the free trial of Dorico 6 Elements. I just purchased and installed the same version. Will my trial files stay in tact with the switch? A pop up keeps reminding me that my trial expires in a couple of days and asks me to purchase – which I already have? Advise? Thanks
Yes the project files tha tyou’ve worked on will all stay in your documents folder. You only need to add the purchased license in the Steinberg Activation Manager – no need to reinstall.