Composer Switching to Dorico after Using Finale since 2005!

[@CreativeMindsAudio]

I am really miss going to miss finale. especially the fast switching between note durations. Sadly it's been super buggy for me lately so i haven't used it as much. with it being discontinued i'm worried about my old songs getting lost. I've been using it since around 2002.

[@robinthomsoncomposer]

Completely agree that being able to drag text boxes around would be fantastic

[@TimCorpus]

Interacting with the page templates drives me nuts 🤣🥴

[@shubus]

Welcome to the Dorico club,Tim. I abandoned Finale & Sibelius for Dorico and it's no looking back....I hope.

[@TimCorpus]

It's been a mostly good experience. I haven't yet moved up to version 5, have you?

[@shubus]

@@TimCorpus Yes, I'm on Ver 5 and no new glitches. Haven't used any of the new features yet but probably will.

[@TheBinaryWolf]

Would saving a score created in Finale as an XML file be possible to open in Dorico, so that one could transfer score from one program to the other?

[@TimCorpus]

@@TheBinaryWolf yes that works. 👍

[@TheBinaryWolf]

@@TimCorpus So you have been able to convert .musx files to the format Dorico used, via xml. Great! But does the notation, articulations and expressions get wildy scattered? I spent months editing my scores when upgrading from Finale 2012c to v26.3, and would not want to undertake such a laborious rask again. Did you have to do a lot of clean up?

[@guyshard]

Switched to Dorico as soon as the first version was out. The best notation program ever. My main issue with the other ones was always technical: they would open sound and midi ports only half of the time whatever computer I was using. From the very first version of Dorico up to Dorico 5 Pro I've never had one issue.

[@TimCorpus]

Ya the MIDI connection stuff is a dream. It's hard when I go back to Finale to work.

[@LeeBlaske]

I started with version 1.0 of Finale, but switched to Dorico early on in its development. I'm not looking back. For me, everything about Dorico is WAY better. Dorico has a different way of doing things, and I found I just had to drop all of my preconceptions and go with the way Dorico wants to do things. Some things bothered me, initially, but now I know where to find everything and it seems to make sense to me. FWIW, after a couple of years of Dorico use, I did have to go back and work on some large scale orchestrations I did in Finale. That was a REAL PITA. I kind of had to re-learn Finale. For me, straddling between Finale and Dorico would be really inconvenient. If I never have to open Finale ever again, that's fine with me. Dorico does a huge amount of work for you, so you don't have to spend endless amounts of time tweaking. FWIW, no real point on sending a message to Finale "if they're listening." I don't think they are. Finale was sold to a fitness software company that seems to have little interest in music software. From this point on, I think Finale users can mostly hope for updates that keep the software running, with maybe a little something added in from time to time. At this point, Finale's supporting code is antique. I think they'd have to really start from the beginning and rebuild from the ground up to be anything like Dorico, which was built for modern processors and operating systems. It really seems to me that Yamaha/Steinberg has made the decision that they're going to be king of the hill when it comes to notations software, and they are making sure their development team is well funded. Being owned by Avid, Sibelius is also in a questionable situation.

[@TimCorpus]

It's crazy to me how far Finale fell after really having some innovative stuff for a while. Right now my irritations with Dorico are that it runs a little slow on my system, but also dealing with text frames is so difficult. They have to fix that.

[@TheBinaryWolf]

Is Dorico stable? I started with Finale 2011, and upgraded several times. The crashes are less frequent but still too many. If I edit a score more than a couple of times, it is like opening Pandora's box: a myriad of issues surface.

[@LeeBlaske]

@@TheBinaryWolf Dorico is extremely stable. It's well-written, modern code, and the Dorico team is really on top of things.

[@adriendecroy7254]

Would love to know what you think about Dorico now after another year, and maybe updated to 5.

[@lnkd70]

Doing the same thing, had been using Finale since 2003…

[@TimCorpus]

It was a big shift, but in pretty happy now!

[@anotherstarwarsvictim]

the problem with Dorico is that Steinberg will ask you to install 3 or 4 more apps in order to install Dorico...

[@robinthomsoncomposer]

That is not true There are only a couple and they relate to installation and authorization and you are missing out big time if you let that put you off

[@LuiDeca]

and good luck if you want to add hairpins in the middle of a long note. although admittedly, it's a minor invonvenience compared to what it does right. and at least they finally added the ability to drag notes around with the mouse... but every time i want to do something in the middle of a long note: uhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[@TheBinaryWolf]

I think the quickest way to determine which program is superior is to visit the support forums. Who would seek help if the software were stable and user-friendly? I have written a 500 page step guide to workarounds for Finale, for reference to avoid relearning when confronted with a issue in the future. I can honestly say that I spend more time contending with Finale's instability, consistent in all versions since 2011, than writing music. Finale is the flakiest program I have ever used: it loathes editing. But I persist because the idea of learning another program is overwhelming, especially since people post similar bugs at the forums of other notation programs. Is Dorico stable, or at least less bug-ridden than Finale?

[@TimCorpus]

😢 I feel like 2014.5 was the best version of Finale I had. After that it was a steep downhill for me. I totally get the feeling of being overwhelmed. Dorico has taken a little time, but their forums have been pretty helpful. I'm excited that they've been updating it very consistently and their team is involved in the forums. It's not perfect. There are some things that I think are completely stupid, but my day-to-day experience composing is better.

[@renealeman4566]

Awesome! Two very unrelated questions: 1) is that the tiger Megazord on the shelf?! 2)what is that screen thing behind you? LOL

[@TimCorpus]

😝 Sure is a Mighty Morphin Power Ranger Zord! And on the white desk is one of the sound absorption panels I built for this room. 6 in total around the room to help keep the acoustics in check.

[@alfonsogama7427]

What is your oppinion about Musescore? Is a free software.

[@TimCorpus]

Free is awesome! I've been really impressed by their audio samples and the community seems to have fervent support. I haven't used it too vigorously, but it seems like there's a lot you can do with it for standard notation. However, from what I understand, there isn't as much ability to do MIDI learn for shortcuts. So with TouchOSC you may only be able to send MIDI Note_On messages.

[@jitsukerr]

Argh. As a singer, please stop beaming to lyrics! It makes reading rhythms in music that is really black (ie. lots of flags on eighth/sixteenth/thirtysecond notes) so much harder, especially contemporary works that have lots of busy lyric underlays and nested tuplets to contend with! I think it's a UK/US difference (and UK/Continent), but in the UK we're moving to the usual beam grouping for vocal lines as standard. Completely in sync with you re Dorico vs. Finale, though. Every pain point you mentioned produced a grimace of recognition 🙂

[@TimCorpus]

😂 I feel bad bashing Finale. Twas my first love...🥰 I haven't messed with lyrics yet in Dorico, but I'm hopeful that it will be a better experience than in Finale.