Dorico 6.1 adds Etude Elements, condensing improvements, and more

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:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb76WFMweJ0&pp=0gcJCfYJAYcqIYzv

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:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiM5AcY6Vrw

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.