I tried the Dorico demo a couple of months ago. It seemed to be missing some of the functions that I have been hoping for in a notation program since the late 80’s, so I think I might simply not know how to use it. Background: I’ve been a professional musician most of my adult life, I regularly write and arrange music for both small and large ensembles, and both my wife and I use Finale.
What I am missing is a baseline function which can take any quantized MIDI file and turn it into a viable, correctly formatted score.
Most of the music I work on is for theater and video, and it is constantly being revised as the project evolves. I work in Logic, and create a MIDI score during rehearsals. When it comes time to rehearse with other musicians, I need to quickly create a score, and also be able to change it on a moment’s notice. All of the notation programs I have worked with make this very time consuming, and not only does the whole score need to be re-examined after changes have been made, but each individual part needs work as well.
I need the equivalent of a button I can click on which can convert all MIDI tracks into parts which are correctly written for each instrument, without enharmonic mis-spellings, overlapping notes, strangely short notes, notes in the wrong staffs, overlapping stems, stems in the wrong direction, or any other mistakes which a copyist with a pencil would never commit.
Does Dorico have any new functions to address these needs?
That is already a step in the right direction. I sometimes compare this to Photoshop’s batch editing, where a number of actions can be saved in sequence and applied with a single click. I wonder if Dorico has such capabilities?
You can export MusicXML from Logic, which conveys more notational information than MIDI data does. Dorico certainly does a better job of importing MIDI than Finale, but MIDI doesn’t distinguish between enharmonics, so there’s no way of telling what you want. (In F major, you may want D flat as an augmented fifth, or a C# if you modulate to A major.)
That having been said, Dorico is much the fastest software at getting a finished score out with the minimum of intervention, if you’ve configured the Notation Options and Layout to your preference.
Ah, scripting! Now we are getting somewhere. I just did a search about scripting in Dorico but need more information. I also need to find a friend here who has the program installed.
Thank you for the suggestions, and I’ll keep reading!