Great Replacement for Finale
With the recent new that Finale is being discontinued, I made the recommended jump to Dorico with reservations, as I was intimately familiar with using Finale and getting exactly what I needed out of it in terms of musical notation.
What I’ve discovered is that Dorico can do everything I was able to do with Finale, with far more flexibility and automatic adjustments (e.g. spacing, graphic sizing, etc.) than I ever could have anticipated. Additionally, with the inclusion of a fully-featured iPad version of Dorico that syncs seamlessly with my Mac, I’ve never been happier with a music notation application.
This is an incredible application for a very specific purpose, and it generates beautiful scores with ease.
What I’ve discovered is that Dorico can do everything I was able to do with Finale, with far more flexibility and automatic adjustments (e.g. spacing, graphic sizing, etc.) than I ever could have anticipated. Additionally, with the inclusion of a fully-featured iPad version of Dorico that syncs seamlessly with my Mac, I’ve never been happier with a music notation application.
This is an incredible application for a very specific purpose, and it generates beautiful scores with ease.
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Not useful
I found it very difficult to learn how to use it, but when I did, I got a bit done. Eventually, after building around 10 bars of music, it gets incredibly glitchy and very difficult to use as I could only listen to the music all the way from the start, instead of the part that I clicked to listen to. I definitely recommend other music websites.
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Response from developer
Thanks for your feedback. You can start playback from a selected note: select the note, then tap the Play button on the toolbar. You can also tap in the ruler in Play mode or in the Key Editor in the lower zone to move the playhead, then tap the Play button. Double-tap in the ruler should also start playback immediately from that position.
Doesnt recognise previous subscription
I have a lifetime subscription for Dorico for computer, and the app isnt recognising it.
Response from developer
Thanks for your feedback. Provided you are signed in with the same Apple ID account you used for your original purchase, you should be able to tap Restore Purchase in Preferences to restore your existing in-app purchase.
Musescore does better
Unless you have some over standard work to edit, you will have to use so many workarounds that MuseScore will get the job done in a third of the time. Dorico’s support team will be impressively fast to reply to any question about how to do something. You’ll be told that what you are doing is a stupid idea and that a function to put that in a music score shouldn’t be implemented… even when it’s a standard notation for Mendelssohn and Schubert or even when it’s advised in Elaine Gould’s reference. They know better, but I’ll get back to Musescore.
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Response from developer
Thanks for your feedback, Jean-Sébastien. I don’t believe our user community would have replied to tell you that what you want to do is stupid. I encourage you to give us another chance!
Powerful, exactly what I needed
As I age, my eyes are getting weak. I needed to re-score some music, and pencil on manuscript paper wasn’t cutting it. I went searching, and found this software.
I was able to input my score, bass clef and treble, with fingerings and lyrics, everything I needed. I could set playback, to see if I’d entered it correctly. I would need to pay, to add chord letter-markings, but I can input the chords themselves with the free version. (I may upgrade to the paid version at some point, but right now, the free version is powerful enough to meet my needs.)
I was able to input my score, bass clef and treble, with fingerings and lyrics, everything I needed. I could set playback, to see if I’d entered it correctly. I would need to pay, to add chord letter-markings, but I can input the chords themselves with the free version. (I may upgrade to the paid version at some point, but right now, the free version is powerful enough to meet my needs.)
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Good but there are some problems
This is in most ways, the best music-composing app I've tried, but there is an annoying problem, so I write some music, but when I listen to it, the dynamics I wrote are not played, the volume of notes is the same no matter what dynamic I put, please fix this. And also, when I try to create an account, when I enter the code that was emailed to me, it said invalid code even though I entered the exact code that I was emailed.
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Great App. Some Problems.
Dorico is a great app if you want to write down some sheet music or if you want to make a simple tune, but it has glitches where sometimes on the digital keyboard on the bottom one of the key will glitch to where it stays down and you can’t press it again. Also sometimes when you close out one of your pieces it will delete it automatically. I most say though it doesn’t really do that anymore so maybe they fixed it. Overall a really good app except for those two apps.
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Full-power Composing on iPad
I use Dorico Pro on both desktop (Mac and PC) and the iPad, and I’ve found that the iPad version has nearly all of the same functionality. I have found it very easy to use touch and pen input, and the subtle interface differences still make sense to me. On top of it all, I discovered that my MIDI keyboard plugs in by USB (via the special Apple adapter that adds a full USB-A port), and works just as well as the desktop version. This allows all my different modes of interaction with the software to be available to me, along with touchscreen input. I think I will still be finishing scores on the version, but the iPad version is no slouch. I could probably complete full projects on here.
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Great when it doesn’t crash, which is not often
I’ve been using Dorico on iPad since right after it was released, and it makes beautiful scores. The interface is customized for iPad and not hard to figure out.
However, it crashes (either freezes with the app still open or hard-crashes to the desktop) in about a quarter of the scores I write. Over the years, the rate of crashing has remained the same. When I reopen the app after a crash, the score is completely missing — Dorico never thought to save my work. For years I have just put up with this, losing many hours of work to these crashes. I’ve posted on the forum and tried to attach the apps crash reports to no avail.
These crashes have happened when I’m showing the app to my piano students, trying to get them interested in using it. They (rightly) have no patience for this kind of thing.
Depending on my mood and tolerance for frustration, I still use it when I’m away from my PC and only have my iPad with me. I thought I should leave this review as a warning for anyone thinking of buying Dorico for iPad. There is a free version, so you might try it out and see if you want to throw your iPad through the window as often as I do when you lose all your work.
However, it crashes (either freezes with the app still open or hard-crashes to the desktop) in about a quarter of the scores I write. Over the years, the rate of crashing has remained the same. When I reopen the app after a crash, the score is completely missing — Dorico never thought to save my work. For years I have just put up with this, losing many hours of work to these crashes. I’ve posted on the forum and tried to attach the apps crash reports to no avail.
These crashes have happened when I’m showing the app to my piano students, trying to get them interested in using it. They (rightly) have no patience for this kind of thing.
Depending on my mood and tolerance for frustration, I still use it when I’m away from my PC and only have my iPad with me. I thought I should leave this review as a warning for anyone thinking of buying Dorico for iPad. There is a free version, so you might try it out and see if you want to throw your iPad through the window as often as I do when you lose all your work.
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Freezes! Don’t buy
Great idea. Serves wonderfully musicians needs. However the app crashes from time to time.. And not in predictable pattern. Requires to exit to file page to force a manual save to keep your work. Never happened in Cubasis 3. Ps running on iPad Pro 12.9 5th generation with 1 Tb
