Dorico Pro 5 Crossgrade from Sibelius and Finale Education Edition Overview
Dorico 5 enhances playback capabilities, allowing for more expressive performances with a dynamic stereo soundstage. It simplifies the production process, particularly in creating lifelike drum patterns through the integrated Groove Agent SE plug-in.
The software offers extensive customization options with a comprehensive instrument editor and introduces eight new music font families. It also enhances workflow with features like scrub playback, mouse note editing, multiple item creation, double-tap note input, and numerous other improvements across the application.
Stage and Space Templates
Dorico 5 introduces Stage and Space templates that facilitate experimenting with different instrument configurations. Users can visually manipulate instrument positions on a virtual stage, which automatically translates into pan and reverb settings. The ability to try out different rooms and recall previous states using mixer snapshots is also included. Users can reorder and rename outputs, create send buses, and more.
The update emphasizes pitch contour in playback, enabling the software to interpret notations in scores similar to a human musician. Utilizing sophisticated algorithms, Dorico 5 breathes life into phrases, replicating the expressiveness of human musicians. This functionality eliminates the need for advanced keyboard skills to bring notated music to life.
Groove Agent SE
The inclusion of Groove Agent SE, Steinberg’s drum software, in Dorico 5 enhances the playback of drum kits. It offers an acoustic drum kit recorded at Berlin’s Teldex Studios, complete with a classic reverb chamber and a choice of two microphone positions. Groove Agent SE functions as a high-quality drum kit playback device and provides over 400 MIDI drum patterns performed by top studio drummers and mixed by Steinberg’s expert engineers. These patterns can be triggered within Dorico using the new MIDI trigger region or by dragging and dropping them onto the track overview in Play mode.
Dorico’s new MIDI trigger regions allow users to play notes or chords that are not notated in the score for a specified period. This feature proves especially useful for triggering MIDI patterns in plugins like Groove Agent SE or other pattern-based instruments. For scenarios where musicians are performing live, only the structure of the piece, a few rhythmic cues, and chord symbols need to be written. Pattern-based plugins save time by providing realistic playback without extensive music notation.
Upgraded Interface
The introduction of scrub playback in Dorico 5 allows users to audition the entire ensemble or individual instruments at any point in the music. It enables precise examination of harmonies, identification of incorrect notes, and focus on specific moments.
Dorico 5 revamps item creation by allowing users to create multiple items simultaneously. This can be done across multiple instruments and at different positions within each instrument, streamlining the composition process.
The instrument editor in Dorico Pro 5 enables modification or creation of instrument definitions, catering to individual needs. These custom instrument definitions can be easily reused in future projects.
Live editing features in Dorico 5 provide quick and intuitive mouse-based music editing capabilities. Users can alter the pitch or rhythmic position of selected notes by dragging them, with a live overlay showing the resulting changes. This direct interaction with the mouse accelerates the music sculpting process, whether in the notation or Key Editor.
Dorico 5 enriches MusicXML import and export functionality. Importing harmonics, playing techniques, ornaments, holds, pauses, and other musical elements is now supported with greater precision. MusicXML export includes page layout information and offers basic support for encoding information about the music and text fonts used in the project.
The software includes eight new music font families, providing users with a wider range of visual styles for their projects. These fonts cover four handwritten-style options and four engraved fonts, accessible with a single click.