And I'm assuming I just type it. Ooooh...
All right, I like that. Oh yeah that's really nice.
I've been using Sibelius for over 10 years and although I'm very fluid and comfortable with it
there are some things about it that are still a nightmare.
The UI is a mess, basic functions like adding a tempo change are surprisingly complicated,
it's just really not fun to use.
So for a long time people have been telling me to try out Dorico.
So in this video I'm going to give Dorico a try.
I want to see how easy is it to use, how intuitive is it to find all the
different functions that I need, and can it really work for me as a composition tool.
Then I'm going to evaluate Dorico on five different functions.
First is note input.
How easy is it for me to just start writing, to get my ideas into the notation?
Second will be basic functions.
Can I find tempo changes, dynamics, all these things that I want to use every day?
How easy are they to find and how easy are they to use?
Next I'll look at some of the more advanced features that I don't really use
all the time but when I need to use them can I find them?
That might be something like harp pedaling or an accidental on a trill.
Stuff again I'm not using all the time but when I want to use it I want to be able to use it.
Number four I want to look at audio.
How well does it handle working with different outputs, different plugins,
virtual instruments, all those different audio related things.
And then the last thing I want to look at is the scoring to video features.
They talk a lot about that on their website so I want to say "OK, is this actually usable?"
And then by the end of the video I'll let you know what I think.
Is it worth paying for expensive new software,
having to learn something from scratch, or should I stick with what I already own and already know?
Actually I don't really own Sibelius anymore I subscribe to it.
All right so here I am on the open screen, uh, wants me to open a pre-made project.
I'm going to start my own.
Let's see if we can go solo piano, new from template.
Alright so let's see, is it even detecting my keyboard right away?
It is not, no input. Maybe.. so why is that not just playing..
OK I had to double click there.
I don't hear anything.
Is there no bar number?
That's strange, why do I not have a time signature?
Just click it.
Yep okay now I got a time signature.
Not hearing any sound.
There's my audio, audio device set.
I hit p to play, yes, still no sound.
It keeps giving me tour information as I go.
What I'm trying to figure out is just how do I get some sound?
What is it to put ..okay that's different.
There we go, finally some sound.
So this is interesting, what happens if I edit in here and I look at engrave.
That didn't change, kind of expected that to turn into an eighth note.
Did I just not go quite far enough?
No. All right, that's changing the way it's kind
of being performed but not actually how it's written.
I would do a slur.
In Sibelius I would click on that measure it would select the whole measure.
S for slur?
No. OK is that because I'm not in right mode?
S for slur works there.
OK so write mode and engrave mode are different things apparently.
All right now if I go to look at play does it look any different?
It doesn't.
Oh what is this?
Play durations, notated durations.
OK now is that how I change it?
Ah, OK. So that made it an eighth note. Interesting.
If I wanted to change you to an eighth note are the key commands...
oh they're different from Sibelius.
They're off by like two.
The num-pad is what I use in Sibelius and it seems to be working here, but the keys are different.
So that would take some effort.
All right so I changed that there and we can play and it should be different.
Yeah okay that's cool.
In Sibelius you click a measure, you start playing, it immediately goes in.
I don't know if that's a preference that I can change in here because I prefer it that way.
I want to be able to just click and enter notes and it doesn't seem to be working that way.
I have to double click and you have to double click in the right spot, apparently,
because.. what is this?
That's not what I wanted.
I wanted, like, so if I double click under beat 2 is it going to put it here?
It is.
I mean, maybe that will take some getting used to and you just kind of get a feel for it.
But again my instinct is just like "Oh I want something in the left hand of measure three,
click on measure three and start playing it," and I'm not getting that.
That's a little bit of a point for Sibelius, I think honestly.
All right let's try something different now.
You still have to double click there, that's annoying.
How quickly can I just put something in.
I want a dot why, I want to just give it a dot.
I want to... no that's staccato.
I want a dotted eighth note.
I'm a little surprised here, I thought this was going to go a lot better at this point already.
I'm kind of surprised at how different it is I guess from Sibelius, that I'm not able to just go.
Why won't that change the duration of the note?
Come on.
All right so I've been evaluating on note input and note entry and
so far I've been finding it kind of difficult.
I I feel like I would probably have to look up a tutorial.
Probably if I just saw somebody else do it, like, okay that's how it's supposed to be done.
But coming from Sibelius I'm finding that Sibelius is actually
a lot better at note input and being able to just kind of "oh I have this idea in my head,
I want to get it out. Boom it's in the notation."
I select where I want it I play it in here.
You have to be pretty precise about where you're clicking.
I really don't want to be using the mouse all that much.
I want to be able to just be playing in.
Maybe somebody's watching this right now and kind of screaming at their screen because they know,
oh you know, you just didn't change this setting.
But that's kind of the point is I wanted to see if
I could figure this out without having to know about that one little setting.
Is it just intuitive?
So so far for note input and ease of entry I'm going to give a point to Sibelius.
All right, so now let's see.
I want to do some things, like I want to change the tempo, I want to add dynamics.
How quickly can I do that?
So I see some things over here on the right, tap tempo absolutely.
Oh I like the written tempos that's pretty cool.
Allegretto.
What if I just click it?
It just goes in, that's nice.
What if I'm selecting there and I change it to con brio? Goes there.
If I'm selecting here and I change it to.. it goes there. Nice.
That is nice.
Perfect all right so that was easy.
How about dynamics?
So if I just click there and I click it that changes, easy enough.
So it's so different from Sibelius as far as the key commands and how you put
things in that it just wasn't coming to me so I decided to download this quick reference card
and now I can actually look at the key command.
This is probably a smarter approach.
So now it looks like if I select that and hit the greater than, ah okay all right pretty cool.
What is all this? Oh.
Say I want to add an instrument, I want to add violin.
Just search for violin. Oh well that's really nice.
And now in Sibelius if I wanted this to be like pizzicato or something I would hit apple+T,
type pizz.
So let's just try that.
That was not it.
Okay that brought up a new tab. interesting. Okay.
Oh and I can see just the part.
OK I want to change the performance technique, I want to make this pizzicato.
What do I do, how do I change playing techniques?
Shift p and I'm assuming I just type it.
Ooh!
All right I like that, oh yeah that's really nice.
So we change that to pizz.
Now let's go with the playback, I'm assuming it starts out arco still.
That's pretty awesome, that's pretty awesome.
So now that I know the key commands putting in dynamics is pretty easy.
Putting in the tempo, very easy.
I really like that.
Canging the key, crazy easy.
Changing the time, shift m three four.
Ooh nice.
All right so as far as inputting the basic everyday functions, Dorico is way ahead.
Inputting the dynamics, changing playing techniques,
changing keys, changing meter, all these things.
This is, I'm impressed this is pretty good.
Then I was wondering what about some of the lesser used stuff.
So in one of my recent videos I was doing an orchestration of Breath of the Wild
for the orchestration techniques of George Frederick McKay video and I wanted a trill,
but to go up a half step instead of the whole step that was part of the key.
And I couldn't do it in Sibelius, to get it to actually play back.
I could kind of fudge a way where it would look like the accidental I wanted
but Sibelius wouldn't actually play it back.
It was really frustrating and I just gave up.
So Sibelius really failed me on that, and that was one of the things that got me thinking,
like you know, maybe I should try the Dorico thing.
OK took a little bit of a learning curve to figure out how to do it but I was able to,
and it actually plays back which is huge.
Sibelius could not do that.
Lyrics I use sometimes but not a lot.
Figured bass, who needs figured bass? Teachers I guess.
Text. So my instinct is to hit apple+t but now I'm thinking shift+t.
No that's tempo.
Apple+t brought me to a different tab.
Shift x and that's on x. All right you get all these different things, make this part cool.
Easy enough.
I actually use text a lot in my scores.
I'll put notes to myself about what instruments
I might want if I'm doing a sketch, so being able to use text is useful.
How is the grace note system?
Let's say I want a grace note on this.
I see a little grace note symbol, if I just click it?
Didn't do anything.
Let's look it up.
Press the slash. So I have to be in note input then the slash, interesting.
I'm still not used to this note input thing where you have to kind of switch to an input mode.
All right that works, what does this look like in the play section?
I want to add a point.
Interesting so I can write in different dynamics but it doesn't actually show up
in the score, that would be really cool if it did, if I was able to draw a decrescendo here
and then go over into write or engrave and actually see it written.
That would have been cool.
So what happens if I override this, if I put in...
And I go over here, did it change it?
No. So now the dynamics are being overridden, I guess, by what I put by hand.
Yeah it's being loud.
I don't like that. I kind of like messed it up.
I don't like that it over rid, that I wasn't able to override that in the writing.
It would have been nice.
So some of the techniques that I don't use every day but sometimes need to use
I'm gonna give Dorico the upper hand here.
I'm going to give the point to Dorico, even though
there was still a bit of a learning curve there are certain things that I
can't do in Sibelius that I can do here so I think the obvious point goes to Dorico.
So now let's look at audio.
Look at the mixer. The mixer in Sibelius is a little useless to be honest so that's nice.
Adding plugins is definitely easier here.
So if I want to add a virtual instrument how easy is that?
So I went over here, let's say, let's try Kontakt.
Kontakt opens up, I open the Spitfire flute solo.
That's open.
Let's, in setup let's add a flute which is so easy to do.
All right I'm getting the hang of this.
That's all well and good but then the question was can I change the output of this instrument
right now we're on note performer which is nice.
Distorting a little bit which is a little odd.
Play menu, I've got my flute and I'm going to change your output to Kontakt.
You just work.
So audio, it was way easier to open Kontakt, just get the instrument going.
Being able to use whatever instruments I want, I mean if
I assume I could even use just like a synth if I wanted to.
So I guess VST instruments.
This is giving me my choices so we add this over here as a choice.
I want Zebra, all right that's that's pretty awesome.
S the fact that I can use a synth within the notation very easily means I'm way more
likely to actually use this stuff, because I use synth instruments in most of my work.
At least even just as a pad or, you know that actually gives me a thought.
That's pretty great, I'm pretty happy with that.
So that's pretty cool, being able to use synths and Kontakt.
All these different sounds directly in here is really nice.
I really like that.
So for the audio portion I'm going to go with Dorico, definitely.
Sibelius crashes a lot.
I have a lot of problems with rewire running when it's not supposed to and
having to clean the database and restart, and then just the output doesn't always load
and using external instruments is really not intuitive and does not feel super friendly.
Whereas here not only is it very easy for me to just kind of grab stuff,
use different instruments, play instruments that are not even notated like a synth and
actually be able to use modulation, all those things is pretty awesome.
Being able to hear those different instruments and mix those instruments together.
I mean one of the main reasons I do most of my work in Logic
is to be able to use those virtual instruments that I can't get out of Sibelius.
But i'd be much happier to be using notation with those things if I could, so that's pretty awesome.
So point to Dorico.
So the last thing I want to look at is scoring to video.
It's something on their website they're like "hey you could score a video and it's awesome."
In Sibelius I tried it, it was just annoying.
It wasn't something I would ever really practically do.
So here I want to see, is this legitimate?
Would I actually use this?
Guessing if I click on this little thing show video.
I was hoping that would actually ask me what video I wanted but it didn't.
In the flows panel right click the flow you want to attribute it.
What's a flow? What is..
I guess I don't know what a flow is.
All right so I got this stock footage that I was using in another video.
It's very zoomed in, that's a little weird, and now it's just gone0
Interesting that it just stops because the piece keeps going.
How do I find a place to add a marker, like how would I go frame by frame?
So I want to be able to move frame by frame so I can find specific moments.
So is that an option? Can I move frame by frame?
"Great thing happens here."
OK that's all well and good but what if I want to move it?
It's not 52:11 anymore, why is it still showing 52:11?
Can I jump to a certain time?
That click is terrible.
Alright so coming out of the gate, not as friendly as I was hoping.
I thought that maybe, you know, I'm so used to working in Logic.
I was thinking maybe I could just load up the video
and it would be very easy for me to move around in the timeline,
choose a frame, put a marker exactly on that frame, move it here or there if I wanted to
Not... I'm not really getting what I wanted out of it.
The other odd thing is the video is zoomed in.
So here's the video in Dorico, you can see barely a little bit of hair and this woman's hand.
Here's the video in Sibelius.
The whole woman's torso is there.
Like this is clearly a very different image.
Why is Dorico showing me such a zoomed in view?
Something seems wrong with that.
Is this in the setup?
Is this in the flow?
What is the flow?
As we've established, we don't really know what a flow is.
That's not a good sign, that it seems like it's not something
I could actually use or work with if the video is going to look like that.
It's... that's a shame.
I was kind of really looking forward to this part.
I was like "this is gonna solve so many things," and I was pretty excited
to be able to work in notation scoring to video.
I do everything in Logic when I'm working to video because Sibelius does not do this well and so I
was really excited that Dorico was going to solve this for me and make this really fun and useful.
Alas does not seem to be the case so far.
I'm going to spend a little more time poking around seeing if I can figure it out.
All right so I spent over an hour playing with Dorico.
I looked at inputting notes, trying out everyday features,
some of the lesser used but still useful features.
Playing with the video, playing with the audio.
What's my final verdict?
Well if I was starting completely fresh,
if I didn't already have a notation software that I used, definitely I would go with Dorico.
There's no doubt that just as far as a digital audio workstation
type notation software goes, Dorico is way better than Sibelius.
However as far as just inputting notes in more of a notation fashion,
maybe it's just because I'm more used to it,
Sibelius just feels a lot more intuitive and useful to just go from my head into the software.
Now "intuitive" is kind of funny because I've been using it for so long.
Maybe it wouldn't be intuitive to somebody who's brand new.
So again, you're brand new,
you're trying to decide "Sibelius. Finale. Dorico. Which one do I go with?"
I think Dorico looks really, good really strong.
So I have the trial, I have like a month I think to play around with it.
I'm going to keep going.
I'm going to stick with it and try.
I'm going to look at some tutorials about working with the video to see if maybe
even though I couldn't quite get what I wanted right away, maybe it's useful.
I just don't know where the buttons are and maybe I just don't know the key commands yet.
So maybe the input will get more fluid.
There are definitely a lot of things that I really like.
It's worth for me exploring and for the next month doing my work
in Dorico as much as I can to see how it goes.
Maybe I will do a follow-up video after that 30-day trial ends if anyone's interested to see
"What have I decided? What am I going to stick with?"
So for now I'm going to keep trying but I'm not fully convinced.
I'm not a convert yet.
Also my opinion might be a little different if I was a Cubase user.
So they're both made by Steinberg, I imagine they work together well
but being a logic user I don't really get those benefits.
So you know there would also be the whole thing of "Do I want to switch from Logic to Cubase?" which
right now I really don't have a compelling reason to do.
So some of the things I really liked about Dorico:
It was very easy to add tempo changes, meter changes, articulations.
The interface and the searching for all those different things was really nice.
Inputting notes, not so good.
I like Sibelius better there.
Working with the video, not as good as I hoped off the bat.
You know they're really selling that as something that you can do, "you
can score to video and it's so great" and I was like "yeah..."
I think Logic is better for this and I'll probably continue to use Logic for that.
But I'm going to give it a try.
So I guess the final verdict is "maybe."
We'll keep trying.
I'll give it the 30 days to play around, maybe by the end of a couple
weeks I'll be more used to it, things will be flowing better and I'll really like it.
Who knows?
Or by the end of it I might say "you know what I think I'm just going to stay with
the evils that I already know and I'm kind of already used to."
So thank you so much for watching.
If you found this video interesting or useful please hit like and for more videos about the
craft of film scoring and orchestration and writing music please remember to subscribe.
I'll see you in the next one!