I’ve been wondering at what point I should step into this thread to try and tamp down the excitement a bit, and perhaps that time was actually a while ago!
I think it’s important to separate what Dorico is today from what it will become in the future. I think several people in this thread are tuned in to this, but quite a few may not be. The last thing I want to do is dampen anybody’s excitement for Dorico’s release, but while we 100% agree with the destination that you all have in mind, the first release of Dorico will only be the first step on the journey.
I wrote about this at some length in my most recent blog post, which I posted a couple of days ago, and which I recommend that you read, in particular for the description of what the capabilities of Play mode will be in this first release:
The tl:dr version of this is that Dorico 1.0 does not have any real-time integration with Cubase; its support for expression maps is currently very limited; it has no automation control as yet; it will be possible to use third-party VST 3 instruments (and some VST 2 instruments) but because there is very limited expression map support at the moment, you cannot easily trigger keyswitches etc. from markings in the score; there is no ReWire or other transport synchronisation with another host, and so on.
On the plus side, it has a pretty functional Mixer (with some slightly ropey UI at this stage, but we can fix that up), including inserts, sends, global effects channels, an integrated EQ, and a suite of useful effects plug-ins; it has the foundations of a useful event display/editor that will allow the adjustment of note onsets/offsets without affecting the notation; and it does basic interpretation of tempo and dynamics in the project.
It is definitely the case that we had hoped the initial release of Dorico would be further developed in this area than it is. Separating the audio engine from Cubase/Nuendo in order to allow it to be integrated into Dorico, and then successfully integrating it into Dorico, were both more difficult and time-consuming than we expected, and as a direct consequence of that we have been unable to develop as many features for playback as we originally planned.
I hope that none of this comes as too much of a surprise, as I have been pretty open about the state of playback in each of my blog posts, including saying, at the end of June this year in my last update, that Play mode was not yet sufficiently well-developed to write about it in detail. On the positive side, the rate at which we have been able to extend the functionality of playback over the past several months is very encouraging for being able to make further rapid improvements following the initial release, and we have committed publicly to a number of free updates following the initial release of Dorico 1.0 to continue extending its functionality.
We are trying to be completely transparent with everybody about Dorico. We have achieved an incredible amount in the nearly four years we have been working on the program. But we are a small team building an enormously complex application that is expected to meet the needs of a very divergent set of customers and requirements. It is inevitable that some people will be disappointed with our first offering. The last thing we want is for somebody to buy Dorico and feel that they did not have enough information up-front to help them to make an educated purchasing decision.
I hope that despite the basic level of playback/MIDI editing functionality present in the first version, you will be able to see where we’re going, and I hope that you will be patient with and supportive of us as we work to shape Dorico into the tool that we all want it to be.