Dorico 4 announcement on Wednesday?

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benwiggy
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Dorico 4 announcement on Wednesday?

Post by benwiggy »

Dorico's YouTube channel has a Live Event of "Big News" scheduled for Wednesday at 1400 GMT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2_ij8vYk-s

Daniel has previously said that Dorico 4 would be released 'early' in 2022, slipped from December, so that's where the smart money is.

Other comments have let slip or acknowledged a variety of features and fixes, and described this as 'the biggest release' to date.
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Re: Dorico 4 announcement on Wednesday?

Post by Danilorusso »

Hi,
Daniel wrote on Dorico forum that the team fix over 200 bugs (around 15 pages of the new version manual) and the other pages will be of new function.
benwiggy
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Re: Dorico 4 announcement on Wednesday?

Post by benwiggy »

And here we go! There's a bunch of videos on the Dorico YouTube channel already.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... Ghkst92MOs

Most visibly obvious are the changes to Piano Roll, MIDI editor, Mixer and Play mode; The new piano keyboard (or fretboard, or drum kit) makes note entry on a laptop very easy, without recourse to an actual MIDI instrument.

There’s some ‘smart’ MIDI import, both for files and for real-time recording, making polyphonic keyboard input a possibility. There are enhancements to how Insert mode works for Note Entry.

There are LOTS of productivity improvements: Instrument Filters (e.g. like Staff Sets in Finale), the ability to create and save project templates and ensemble groups. The Library Manager is also very useful for maintaining house styles across documents. Greater functionality for system breaks and locks. You can now Paste Articulations.

The Rhythmic and Melodic Transformations have been a long-standing request and seem pretty comprehensive. Dorico can now generate chord symbols from notation!

In terms of Notation (for this forum’s focus): Capos for fretted instruments, Numbered bar regions (e.g. counting over the top - previously only possible in slash notation, I think), improved control over enharmonic spellings, improvements to bar numbers, chord symbols, dynamic spacing, brackets for figured bass, more options for lyric hyphens (e.g. hyphen at the start of system or not), multi-bar rests.

Some goodies for John Ruggero - all types of centred beam are now possible; and there are properties for beam thickness and separation for individual beams. Other Property improvements include the ability to scale the size of accidentals. There are more engraving options for defining beam direction, spacing between notes and dots, accidentals and ledger lines, etc, etc.

There are vertical labels for groups of staves, e.g. “Choir 1”, which is a really nice feature.

Another thing I like is the new key commands for handling ‘voices’. Previously, when entering notes, you could create a new voice for note input with Shift V, and switch to a created voice with V. You can now do the same for selected notes! So pressing shift V will move the selection to a new voice, or pressing V will cycle the selection through the existing voices.

Something for font users and creators: any missing glyphs in the current music font will be 'filled in' by Bravura. (You can choose which font to fall back on.)

There are some 200 bug fixes. Another feature: when you already have a document open, you can choose whether subsequent documents will load playback samples, or not. This makes working between documents easy, as the samples don’t keep re-loading when you switch windows.

In short, almost every functional area has received some kind of improvement or enhancement. Lots of previous limitations to functionality have been removed or reduced. A great many things are fulfilment of explicit user requests.

All this, on top of a new licensing framework and native code for Apple’s M1 CPU.

This is what a ‘consolidation’ release looks like for Dorico. There may not be any new ‘killer’ features on the scale of Condensing, etc; though there’s something for everyone. Bear in mind that things like Flow Headings and Lines came in point updates to a major version, not the initial release, so who knows what we may see in the coming year.

Daniel has written two blog articles: one highlighting the new version:
https://blog.dorico.com/2022/01/dorico- ... -workflow/

and the other which describes 'the journey' since D3.5.
https://blog.dorico.com/2022/01/the-sto ... velopment/
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John Ruggero
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Re: Dorico 4 announcement on Wednesday?

Post by John Ruggero »

benwiggy wrote: 12 Jan 2022, 09:40 Some goodies for John Ruggero - all types of centered beam are now possible; and there are properties for beam thickness and separation for individual beams. Other Property improvements include the ability to scale the size of accidentals. There are more engraving options for defining beam direction, spacing between notes and dots, accidentals and ledger lines, etc, etc.
This sounds very good, Ben, and I look forward to buying and trying Dorico 4 (after I update my OS). Daniel mentioned that my fingering request did not make it into this version. That is still a major impediment to using it for my work.
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benwiggy
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Re: Dorico 4 announcement on Wednesday?

Post by benwiggy »

It's fair to say that Dorico can effectively deal with only a subset of all Common Notation, and if your needs are outside that set, then things are going to require 'workarounds' (dread word!) or even be impossible. But that subset is increasing in size with each new version.

Several discussions in this very forum have lead to the inclusion of new Engraving Options, Properties or other features. All this may be cold comfort to people whose needs are not met right now: but luckily we are blessed with different tools for different jobs.

I'm certainly fortunate that the music I produce is entirely within Dorico's capabilities. (Scaling accidental sizes is the one really crucial feature for me.) Staff Group labels could have been 'faked' before with custom Lines, but that's another thing that makes life easier. (I currently have several large concertante mass settings with 3 choirs and 2 orchestras...!)
MichelRE
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Re: Dorico 4 announcement on Wednesday?

Post by MichelRE »

there are still a few issues that were inherited from older versions of Dorico, unfortunately.
for example, when a divisi string passage ends a system, and there are ties to the next system, the 2nd staff's tie gets cut off short.
there's also some bizarre behaviour with whole-note rests when condensing staves if a measure uses free time (ie: no time signature).
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Dan Kreider
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Re: Dorico 4 announcement on Wednesday?

Post by Dan Kreider »

If previous versions are any indication, I expect the incremental releases in the upcoming weeks and months will successfully tackle a lot of these unresolved issues.
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OCTO
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Re: Dorico 4 announcement on Wednesday?

Post by OCTO »

If I may ask, how does Dorico "work" with large scores that include multiple divisis, and a lot of glissandos, legatos, various technique symbols? Let us say "Ferneyhough" for full orchestra in 150 pages.
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Dan Kreider
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Re: Dorico 4 announcement on Wednesday?

Post by Dan Kreider »

It works fine. The larger the score, the more you will notice some lag. The team has worked to eliminate some of these “triggers,” though a large score like this would certainly experience some.

Multiple divisis are no problem! And custom playing technique glyphs are easy as well.
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OCTO
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Re: Dorico 4 announcement on Wednesday?

Post by OCTO »

Dan Kreider wrote: 24 Jan 2022, 23:47 It works fine. The larger the score, the more you will notice some lag. The team has worked to eliminate some of these “triggers,” though a large score like this would certainly experience some.

Multiple divisis are no problem! And custom playing technique glyphs are easy as well.
Do you have any exceptional page to share? I am just curious.
How does it handle things like "lutoslawski aleatoric" boxes, or "penderecki" type of arbitrary pitch and rhythm (like handling of manual positioned notes)?
Freelance Composer. Self-Publisher.
Finale 27.3 • Sibelius 2023.5• MuseScore 4+ • Logic Pro X+ • Ableton Live 11+ • Digital Performer 10+ /// MacOS Monterey (secondary in use systems: Fedora 35, Windows 10)
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