Dorico Pro 2 released

[hautbois baryton]

I took the plunge and downloaded the trial. I like the whole 'ethos' of the application, but there are design decisions I don't like and cannot see past to work with. And I just can't work with an application where the default output is - in my eyes - wrong.

I'd be interested in doing further work in D once more control is given to the user regarding setting personal defaults on many more design aspects. But I simply can't use the application for any publishing right now in its current state.

[tisimst]

Care to elaborate more specifically what things are so inflexible and/or not to your taste? I’m not saying you have to like it at all. Just trying to understand.

[hautbois baryton]

Two things off the top of my head:

• Accents appearing within the staff

• stem directions from the middle staff line

Accents within the staff are certainly "allowed," but in practice, I would only do so in the most dire of circumstances; it's ugly, is visually confusing, and looks amateurish. If I'm placing an accent within a staff, it would have to be a massive score with little to no wiggle room, and even then, I would only do so in the score. But as a default? In a simple score? In a part? Unthinkable. Mind-boggling, even.

I actually appreciate that D will flip stems for items placed on the middle line, BUT I only approve of that for beamed notes. Watching quarter and half notes flip is frustrating, pointless, and visually distracting. It just looks... silly.

The reason I won't use D for engraving is the amount of time that I would have to spend reviewing and correcting these default flaws.

[harpsi]

If I understand you correctly about middle line stem directions, they can actually be set in the preferences to always point down.

I agree that the accent thing is bad. I solved that for one project by creating a custom playing technique with an accent always placed outside staff.

[benwiggy]

• Accents appearing within the staff

I've noted that the accents stay outside the staff when using other SMuFL fonts, such as MTF-Cadence. So it may be possible to over-ride this setting -- admittedly in a fiddly XML file somewhere, or in the font itself.

The reason I won't use D for engraving is the amount of time that I would have to spend reviewing and correcting these default flaws.

If you think that you would spend more time adjusting things by hand and checking things by eye in Dorico than in other apps, then you should look again.
The beauty of Dorico is that once you have configured it as you want it, it will consistently follow your instructions. The few things that do need fiddling with are orders of magnitude fewer than ... other apps, and the team's output of updates and customer support is legendary.

Apologies if I am over-zealous. I've spend years with Finale: fixing note collisions, manually adjusting staves and lyric baselines (and then doing it all over again when F decides to respace the notes or the layout reflows), and even manually adjusting loads of articulations that never quite stay in the right place. I've lived in Finale forums, discussing Finale's shortcomings - long-standing bugs, notational errors, clunky interface, problems with stability and speed -- all the while trying to convince myself and others that it wasn't as bad as was made out; that it's power made up for its shortcomings; that the sacrifice of removing video syncing for film scores was worth paying to get other improvements; that relying on third-party plug-ins for essential functions was an advantage -- and that having a plug-in which adds text boxes with the system divider symbol between wherever the systems happen to be right now, was an entirely appropriate method, instead of a checkbox that simply turns on or off dividers that move with the systems.

There are some obstacles to some types of work in Dorico: I'm still waiting for them to implement "tacet' markings in parts for instruments excluded from a Flow. However, I have confidence that the team will address these things, rather than the hopeless purgatory of waiting for a particular fix from MM.

[harpsi]

But I simply can't use the application for any publishing right now in its current state.

Out of curiosity, what program do you work with and what style of music?

[hautbois baryton]

But I simply can't use the application for any publishing right now in its current state.

Out of curiosity, what program do you work with and what style of music?

I'm currently using both Finale 2014.5 and 25 (finishing old projects in 2014.5). My music is probably best described as modern extended harmony/tonal, and generally orchestral.

I use acoustic instruments exclusively and never use vocals... so a lot of the "buggy" items really don't apply to me; lyrics, chords, video, slash notation, etc. I deal in mostly standard notation and use very few plug-ins (easy harmonics, easy tremolos, JW's space empty rests and yada yada tremolo, Patterson beams - but I could get by fine using only easy tremolos). The most "out there" notation I've used recently was a few bars of aleatoric notation (created repeat signs in the shape designer and used them as articulations to surround the required notes).

The only real "time-consuming" thing in my workflow that currently bugs me is spacing systems.

[OCTO]

Apologies if I am over-zealous. I've spend years with Finale...

Well said! And since I have followed you for years on another forums, I fully understand your position. I will definitely start using Dorico in years to come. Right now I need Finale for some extended notation, so I keep this project under Finale. I tried Sibelius for one project lately and, despite it is good in some aspects, the full control still belongs to Finale.

Not having enough savings to obtain Dorico just for testing purposes, I will do it later when I seriously decide to switch. Anyway it is good to follow your opinions on Dorico's development, it indeed helps.

[harpsi]

FWIW, the “optical” center for the dynamic letters is a human-decided horizontal position that is “embedded” into the corresponding metadata file of the chosen SMuFL font. Personally, I always thought that the optical centers in Bravura were a little off, as you’ve suggested, John. Because it’s part of the metadata file and not the font file itself, it’s actually something you could tweak. Either way, it’s not quite right as it is.

That's interesting. I would really like to try and edit that, is there any resource on the web where I can learn how to?

And, would that also be possible to use for dealing with the misplaced "tr" symbol?

[tisimst]

Let me do some tests and I’ll report back.