I think that statement is a little harsh.  Dorico was built from the ground up, therefore it is to be expected that there would be a steep learning curve.  In my own experience migrating from Finale to Dorico, after several months of use, I'm beginning to see how much more intuitive and user-friendly Dorico can be.  Of course, to compare the familiarity with existing software that you may have used for a decade or more to something completely new, is about as fair as comparing a new symphony heard for the first time to Beethoven's Fifth.  Give it a chance to grow on you.  Expect to be frustrated as you must learn new shortcuts, commands, and myriad other things that are second nature to you in your previous software.

However, stating "Dorico is a piece of crap" is disrespectful to the countless individuals that are working daily to improve and develop this program in to something that can finally compete with the established programs that quite frankly, have often left users feeling ignored in terms of feature requests.  

I'm glad that others have more patience for a new program, because it is these people that will give the Dorico team the financial resources and support to continue its development.  

Hi Anand,

My personal opinion:

I have also switched from Sibelius to Dorico and at first it was a hard time for me, but now I really like it compared to Sibelius.
To make it easier to learn and because I don't work with notation software every day anymore, I created a cheat-sheet that you can download here: https://github.com/bbelius/notation/tree/master/Dorico2_2

Maybe this helps a little bit 😊

Best, Ben

I did a trial of it as well. I did it in order to get nested tuplets. Which is quite broken, easily *the* worst experience I've ever had with music or audio-related software, I never got one measure done. To be fair, it was in a polyphonic framework but inside a single part it could not be accomplished in that setup. It was kind of shocking, as I was able to do this in Finale years and years ago.

I didn't have a problem understanding anything, it's just bug-ridden for this. Caveat emptor.

Thanks Ben for the cheat sheet. I think I found your sheet on the spitfire forum and did try it. While you did an amazing job with the layout, Doico still wont comply. Many of the shortcuts just didnt work for me.

Also the non intuitive mapping of the note lengths just pisses me off...makes me feel that the developers (formerly from Sibelius, I believe) are just plain idiots, or want to deliberately make our life harder. I suspect it is the former.

Besides, I couldnt get the expression maps to work most of the time. For instance if I write "flutter-tongue" for flute, it wouldnt pull up the right CC and keyswitch, obiviously because it didnt recognize that articulation from the score although it was a valid playing technique within the expression map editor. Also tried f.t. etc., ....

So for now I am not inclinded to go back and try this again. I am relishing Sibelius even more now.

Best

Anand

Dave, agreed. I toned it down a bit and changed the post title too.

little less angry now as I am distracted by other stuff.

I swtched from Sibelius to Dorico over 2 years ago It took me about a month to adjust my workflow, but since then I haven't looked back. I find Dorico to be much more intuitive and bug free than Sibelius. On the few occasions where things have not worked the way I expected them to, I have gotten answers on the Dorico User Forum.

If you want an amusing review of SIbelius, check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKx1wnXClcI&t=3s

I appreciate your input, and glad Dorico worked for you, but I stand by my original post.

Here is another example of the struggle. I gave Dorico another try. First off it is absurd why I need to do shift+N to do note entering. In Sibelius its s simple "D". 

And to transpose in Sibelius its contr+up/down arrow  while in Dorico it is Alt+Ctrl+up/down arrow. Why that extra Alt if I may ask? Seems very dumb to me. I can imagine that when writing big scores this will be a tremendous waste ot time. I do not fancy pressing complex key patterns. Simplicity is the key. But Dorico makes writing on paper seem worthwhile.

btw for some reason when I did try Alt+Ctrl+up arrow the entire score becomes upside down! no transpose or anything. A very fancy software indeed! Does everything except help me write music faster.

agitato - I cannot account for your experience, and if you are happy with Sibelius then by all means stick to it.  But I have to correct some mis-information for the benefit of anyone else viewing this thread.

In Dorico, Ctrl+up/down arrow transposes up/down diatonically in your current key signature.   If you do Ctrl+Shift it transposes chromatically, and Ctrl+Cmd shifts an octave.

Hi Eric,

okay aside from this, if I can ask, how are you managing the expression mapping from Dorico to VSL...did you make your own maps? That is another big question for me as to how to use VSL from Dorico without a sequencer. Otherwise I dont see a point in switching other than getting pretty scores which I dont care about.

if you have a way of solving the expression map (until when VSL can release a Dorico specific soundsets) that would be very helpful.

Thanks 

Anand

Hi Anand - 

I am primarily using Dorico for composing/scoring.  I'm using the built in Halion sounds for solo instruments, Noteperformer for orchestral sounds, and PianoTeq for piano.  The solo Halion sounds are not perfect, but are adequate for my purposes.   I'm hoping that with Dorico 3, VSL (or someone) will come up with expression maps so I can use the VSL solo violins - which are much superior to Halion.

Eric

I believe Steinberg and VSL are in a dialog about expression maps for Dorico 3.

**Leigh

@leigh said:

I believe Steinberg and VSL are in a dialog about expression maps for Dorico 3.

**Leigh

Oh is that true? I thought VSL were too busy at the moment and it wont be a while before we see soundsets (or expression maps is hte better term?) for Dorico.

I know nothing about the pace of that dialog, though.

**Leigh

As I understand it, Leigh is correct in saying that a set of xp maps is in the works. I waited for a version of Dorico that had decent playback, and so far I'm finding that v.3 works better than Finale in that regard, especially in terms of flexibility when using a mixture of libraries, and, as far as VSL is concerned, in implementing velocity crossfade.

Sure I'm hoarse from yelling in frustration about various things right now -- slow response being the main thing -- but overall I'm happy to have switched.