Dorico 4 is out! I've been testing it for the past few months, and I'm not even sure I am scratching the surface of what it can do. It is, in my opinion, the most important and exciting update to Dorico since its release in 2016.
This past summer, Dorico released an iPad app, which has many of the design updates and features seen in Dorico 4. You can read my first impressions about the iPad version of Dorico, and hear my conversation with Product Marketing Manager Daniel Spreadbury, here.
Fortunately, the Scoring Notes blog posted a review, which you can read here.
Here are some quick things that I am excited about in Dorico 4
Licensing
Dorico 4 uses Steinberg's brand new Steinberg Licensing, replacing the Steinberg e-Licenser. The e-Licensor was one of the two or three most frustrating licensing processes on my Mac. The new Steinberg Licensing is one of the least frustrating processes for licensing software on my Mac.
Once Dorico 4 launched, I was presented with the option to move my existing Dorico 3.5 license over and log into my Steinberg account. Once completed, Dorico can run on up to three machines without connecting to the web. This is a super easy and generous way to handle licensing.
Key Editor
I covered this in my iPad First Impressions post, so I won't go into too much detail here. The bottom area, which previously only contained project properties, now includes new note input methods like a piano, fretboard, and drum pads. It also integrates a piano roll and mixer right into Write Mode.
I really enjoy writing with notation and a piano roll visible on the screen at once. Perhaps this is because I am comfortable with DAWs. But I think it also speaks to how easily I conceptualize and edit rhythmic duration on a piano roll. Ethan Hein summarizes this well:
This is so cool, the piano roll and the score are great complements and they balance each others' weaknesses, all I want is the ability to jump back and forth between them in a single view https://t.co/dcYTipvsNB
You can also view a mixer in the bottom area while in Write Mode. Cool.
Jump Bar
"Command pallet," "command search," "quick open"... whatever it's called, this feature is becoming very popular in pro-software. If you have used Sibelius, you might be familiar with their Command Search feature. The feature is also quite popular in productivity software. I love using Command+O in OmniFocus to open projects and perspectives quickly. In my note app Obsidian, Command+O smartly searches my notes, and Command+P acts upon them.
The idea is that you have a keyboard shortcut that brings up a search, you start typing, and then the software smartly displays some options on the screen for places it thinks you want to go or things you want to do.
Dorico has added this feature with their new Jump Bar, and I couldn't be happier. Just press the letter J, and you can type "m30" to bounce to measure 30 or "dynamics" to bring up the dynamics popover.
Popovers are my favorite part of the Dorico workflow, but I sometimes forget which keyboard shortcuts belong to which menus. In my opinion, having one command that allows for natural-language searching is a workflow win. Even if it is technically more keystrokes to find things, there is way less mental overhead in just typing what you want plainly.
Improvements to Play Mode and the Interface
Play Mode moves a handful of track options to the left, making it more familiar to users who work inside DAWs. Working with inserts and effects feels less esoteric in this design. I like it.
Project Templates
You can now turn any project into a template. Templates appear in the File menu, under the New from Project Template selection.
Previously, I used a Siri Shortcut to manage project templates in Dorico. I wrote about that for Scoring Notes here. My shortcuts method handles some of the file management for you and is worth a look if you want to learn more about macOS and iOS automation.
Generally, I think it is a benefit to store templates inside of Dorico, and I will be taking some of my most frequently used templates in the Shortcuts app and moving them inside of Dorico.
Library
Dorico moves most options relating to customizing the app's behavior into a menu called Library. It drives me nuts when professional creative software stores its settings across numerous custom preference panes throughout the application. This adjustment makes customizing Dorico's various options more discoverable, regardless of the mode or context they relate to.
The new library features also include many new options for font styles, which I am sure will make David MacDonald very happy.
M1
Dorico 4 works with Apple Silicon. From Scoring Notes:
Dorico 4 is the first Dorico version, and the first of any of the major desktop applications, to support Apple silicon Macs, such as the M1 MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac mini. If you have an Apple silicon Mac, Dorico will run as a native application by default. However, if you use VST plug-ins, Dorico can only load VST plug-ins that can run natively on Apple silicon as well, and these must be VST 3 (there is no support for VST 2 plug-ins on Apple silicon). It is possible to force Dorico 4 to run under Rosetta 2 on Apple Silicon, which will allow VST 2 and Intel-native plug-ins to be loaded, though at the expense of slower overall performance.
Overall, Dorico 4 is a huge step forward. I imagine a lot of the work on this update was done in preparation for the iPad release. Now that both versions exist, I expect that the shared development platform between desktop and mobile will mean that future updates are released in side-step and continue to be feature-rich.
Theresa Hoover returns to talk about career changing, COVID practices worth bringing into this school year, productivity apps, and empowering student creativity!
Tech Tip of the Week: Robby - Safari Tab Groups, Sync Safari and Chrome bookmarks with a Windows PC
Theresa - Chrome Reading List / Favicons Favorite Bar
Dorico for iPad is out today! You can read their announcement here. It's a desktop-class adaptation, which includes most of the features I need for my everyday work as a music teacher. I am beyond excited that a major professional scoring app has come to the iPad for two reasons:
I depend on iOS for getting much of my work done. There are still apps and workflows that require me to take out my Mac, and I am delighted whenever the release of a professional iPad app lessons these occurrences.
Our niche professional corner of the world is receiving legitimate, pro-featured, software for iPadOS, a market that is still light on “pro” software, even from Apple themselves (like, for real... where is Logic Pro on iPad?). While many "pro" iPad apps are companion experiences to bigger desktop versions, Dorico brings a whole lot of the power from its desktop app to its mobile version, proving that the iPad can be every bit as "pro" as its name suggests.
Dorico for iPad's free tier is similar to their free desktop offering Dorico SE, and an in-app subscription adds features comparable to their Dorico Elements version. The iPad app has new features, many of which are optimizations for touch, including several new input methods (piano, fretboard, drum pads, and a new Key Editor). Dorico for iPad doesn't do everything. Serious composers and power users might need the desktop for some things. For me, a middle school band director, it will fill most of my iOS composing needs.
There are some quirks due to Dorico not supporting features that make iPad apps feel like iPad apps: full Apple Pencil support, responsive touch gestures, file system integration, Magic Keyboard/trackpad support, and multitasking are examples of this. While there is room for improvement, it's bold for the Dorico team to pack a desktop-class experience into the first version. I am thankful for their hard work and wish the Dorico team future success on this project.
Video
Watch Dorico for iPad in action.
Some Musings on Professional iPad Apps
When my long-time favorite iPad app (forScore) came to the Mac earlier this year, I wrote about it.
While forScore was one of the few remaining iPad apps I wanted on Mac, there are, similarly, plenty of Mac apps I would still love to see on iPad.
One could argue that with the latest iPad hardware (featuring M1 chips), there is no excuse for professional apps not to run on the platform. I agree! The iPad has more than enough processing power, all of the necessary input devices (if you have a keyboard and mouse), and even some things that the Mac doesn't have (like touch support and the Apple Pencil).
The issue of why the iPad lacks pro apps is too broad to cover here, but it has much to do with how Apple has positioned iPadOS and the App Store model over the past 10 years. It is becoming easier than ever to make a cross-platform app, but this doesn't change the fact that there are still some fundamentally dissimilar aspects of developing for iOS and macOS. The arguably bigger problem is that the App Store (even with fewer sandboxing limitations in recent years) is hostile towards the exact kind of developers who cater to niche professionals like composers and music teachers.
For example, companies who make digital audio workstations and notation editors have traditionally charged prices in the multiple hundreds of dollars, costs which the mobile market has decided is not acceptable. Such developers also offer things like crossgrade/upgrade/educational pricing, group licenses, and more. These are not feasible in the current-day App Store, and I think Apple is oblivious to keep calling the iPad Pro the iPad Pro while not providing more flexible App Store rules. This is not to mention that Apple hasn’t even brought their professional apps (Logic Pro, Final Cut Pro, and Xcode), to the iPad.
I am dependent on my iPad and prefer to work on it whenever possible. Its light form factor and simple operating system make me feel more nimble moving in and out of apps. Dorico has always been one of the reasons I have to take my Mac out of my bag when I am sitting on the couch wrapping up some school work late at night. Even though there are good score apps on iPad, the convenience of leaning back on the couch to get work done has been counterbalanced by needing to import and export XML files back and forth, just to get these apps to talk to Dorico on desktop.
It is within that context that I am pleased to say Dorico is available for iPad today. It's the first of the major professional desktop scoring apps to be released on a mobile platform, and after just a few weeks of use, I can tell that it will become my primary notation editor on iOS.
I'm a Music Teacher
Because I am a music teacher, my opinions about scoring software are viewed through the lens of someone who does not depend on the entire feature set of Dorico, particularly engraving and playback. This means I usually need to get in and out of the program fast and that I am often performing tasks like writing scale exercises, reconstructing missing bass clarinet parts from my library, or adding percussion instruments to the score of a piece on our next concert. That said, I admire tools that empower me to work efficiently, and for notation, Dorico is that tool.
If you are looking for a professional composing perspective, and a more comprehensive feature overview, I recommend the Scoring Notes review of Dorico for iPad.
Dorico for iPad and Its Features
Dorico for iPad is an ambitious and stellar 1.0 that should make every developer of pro software take note and get to work.
The Dorico team has brought many of the core functions that make Dorico so powerful on Mac and Windows to the iPad version. All of the features I depend on are all there. It has keyboard input, powerful pop-overs, MIDI controller input, and all of the custom Notation and Layout Options that are available on desktop. It even has the same custom keyboard shortcut editor.
Dorico is available for free with a set of features very similar to their desktop offering Dorico SE. If you subscribe to the app through In-App Purchase, features are added which bring in line with the experience of using Dorico Elements.
Dorico for iPad has all of the modes you would expect: Setup, Write, Engrave, and Play. There is no Print mode and I don't miss it. All of the export options I use regularly are conveniently accessed through a share button in the upper right corner of the application. Play mode supports third-party iOS plugins. This is certainly more limiting than desktop, because iOS doesn’t support traditional VSTs, but this is also not a feature I take advantage of anyway.
Dorico for iPad is so much Dorico that it is hard to write about it without reviewing the existing desktop versions, which is not something I have set out to do here. That said, it is worth noting some of the things that are added for touch, and some of the quirks that result from a desktop app being so faithfully reproduced on a touch-based tablet.
One of the things that makes Dorico on iPad feel so faithful to the desktop version is that computer keyboard input is nearly identical with a Magic Keyboard attached. Once I got acclimated to the small differences in the user interface, I comfortably began recalling all the same shortcuts and workflows I am used to.
Because this version is designed to be used without the keyboard attached, there are some added on-screen buttons for touch control. Extra toolbar buttons for things like delete, repeat, undo, redo, and moving the arrow keys, are all included.
A floating toolbar, which can be moved around on the screen, allows common note adjustments to be made by finger. This toolbar includes things like moving a selected note up/down, shifting a selection of notes right or left by a 16th note, etc...
Holding on the score with one finger and then dragging displays a rectangle on-screen that can select multiple elements of the score at once. And there are also some new methods of touch input:
An on-screen piano, which you can pan across and resize by dragging and pinching.
A fretboard for instruments like guitar.
Drum pads for percussion instruments (much more intuitive for writing drum set parts in my opinion.)
An integrated mixer which you can see right inside of Write mode.
A new Key Editor. I can best describe the Key Editor as a piano roll editing tool for the notes of your score. Users who are familiar with MIDI note editing in a digital audio workstation will love visualizing the notes of the staff as colorful rectangles. They can be dragged vertically to change pitch, horizontally to change the rhythm, and can be resized to adjust the duration. It is an intuitive way to work, particularly for touch.
Native Software
There will always be room for growth. What I want most from future iterations of Dorico on iPad can be best explained in the context of the forScore article I linked at the top of this post. forScore is a beloved app amongst musicians that is iPad-first but has recently been ported to the Mac through Apple's Catalyst technology. My TL;DR in my forScore Mac review was basically to say that it's amazing to have such an indispensable music app on Mac, even though it has some quirks relating to the fact that some iPad paradigms don't translate to the Mac.
My Dorico first impressions are more or less the inverse of that statement. Dorico for iPad is desktop-class. What I'd like to see from it down the road is to become more iPad-native through taking advantage of common features on the platform. Dorico is written using Qt, a development platform that makes it easy to write one code base for Windows and Mac. This same development platform is what made it easier to bring Dorico to the iPad now, but for this same reason, I can understand that the team had their hands full prioritizing the features for the first version.
Now that the iPad Pro has excellent trackpad, keyboard, and mouse support, I don't feel that different using it than I do my Mac in many instances. While Dorico's "desktop-ness" is its greatest strength, its fluency makes the missing iPad-isms more apparent. Here are a few:
Dorico doesn't have Apple Pencil support (with the exception of it imitating a touch in some circumstances).
Dorico does not work with the native File picker, which is to say that you can't open a Dorico project from your Dropbox or iCloud Drive within the Files app, edit it, and then save it back to the original location. You must instead import it from within the Dorico app, which then makes a copy inside of the app. You can export it back to the original location you pulled it from, but don't forget to delete the old copy! See an image below of OmniOutliner, a popular outlining app for iPad. When launched, it shows the same interface as the Files app. A document can be selected, edited, and saved back to the same location. I would love to see Dorico add this feature down the road.
Trackpad support isn't native. Magic Keyboard users will note that two-finger swiping (which moves around the score in the Mac version) does nothing on iPad. Because the Magic Trackpad can simulate a finger, clicking and dragging with one finger will simulate the gesture of dragging the score around.
Dorico does not support multitasking features like Split View. This means that another app cannot share the screen at the same time unless it is in Slide Over mode which means it is a tiny, iPhone-sized, app that floats above Dorico and covers part of the information on the screen. One of my favorite workflows with notation software is to open it on half of the screen while referencing another score in forScore on the other half. The image below depicts forScore on screen at the same time as Dorico in Slide Over.
Elephants, Pencils, and Software Instruments
The obvious elephant in the room is StaffPad. StaffPad is not always included in conversations about major pro notation software (Sibelius, Finale, Dorico), but relative to the power of most iPad software in the App Store, it deserves to be a part of the conversation. I covered StaffPad here.
StaffPad feels very iPad-native and supports a premium design experience and numerous pro-features, like, for example, a store of top-of-the-line audio plugins within the app.
While the comparison to Dorico is fair, I also feel like StaffPad is aiming for a different experience. Sure, they will compete to some extent, but StaffPad is aiming at new innovative methods of input, and high-end audio output that is all intuitively integrated into the same package. For example, StaffPad features Apple Pencil gestures for note input, exclusively, and a forthcoming feature will listen to you play an instrument in the microphone and transcribe you in real-time. StaffPad's third-party software instruments sound great and require little fuss to set up. It’s all a very iPad-first experience. But it's an iPad-only experience (unless you are also using it on Windows).
The strength of Dorico on iPad is that you are getting much of the power of the desktop version, on iOS. This means that there are some quirks, but that you are ultimately less inhibited by what you can produce. Dorico’s Engrave mode allows you to get more customizable, better looking, scores and note input in the Write mode is just as easy to do with a computer keyboard or MIDI controller as it is on a desktop.
I do appreciate the novelty of writing scores with the Apple Pencil. It feels nice. In fairness to Dorico, I wanted to see if I am more efficient using this method. I took about 10 excerpts from my music teaching resource library (music I would use a notation editor for in real life) and timed myself recreating these excerpts into both StaffPad and Dorico.
Much like using the self-checkout lane of a grocery store, I “felt” faster in StaffPad, but I was about twice as fast at note entry using Dorico in every instance. I was also 100 percent sure that the note I input would be the note that appeared on the screen.
I appreciate that there is competition in this space, and I think that stylus input has a place in the future of mobile score software. But I have shifted most of my score work on iOS to Dorico, and will probably continue to do so in the future. It sure is great having another professional Mac app on iPad. Here’s to hoping that my other tools like Logic, Final Cut, and Descript are next in line.
Thanks Dorico team for an ambitious and excellent release. I am looking forward to years of updates.
I have had a few music teachers reach out to me in the past week who are reconsidering their next Mac because they want to edit virtual ensemble videos this coming concert season. From these conversations I am learning that most music teachers have no idea these new Macs are even out.
I strongly recommed you read the reviews I have linked below. The message is clear. If you are about to buy a Mac, you must buy one of the three new M1 Macs. However much money you think you are saving by getting last year's model for a few hundred dollars cheaper does not make up for the performance you will loose out on by even buying the entry level MacBook Air for $999 (which is even cheaper on Apple's education store).
From everything I have read, it sounds like even the new Air smokes my maxed-out 16 inch MacBook Pro from 2016. I can't wait to see what Apple does with the pro laptop models in the coming years.
I finally got the new MacBook Pro’s fan to kick on, with a temperature of 98 degrees, when playing “Rise of Tomb Raider” while simultaneously exporting a 4K video in Adobe Premiere and running some Chrome tabs in the background.
Apple’s M1 chip, however, is far more power efficient. Less power = less heat = no fan. The new MacBook Air has a completely fanless design, while the MacBook Pro still has a fan to allow for sustained high speeds.
So of course I deemed it my mission to get these laptops to slow down, heat up or—in the case of the MacBook Pro—fire up the fan.
As you’ll see in the video, I tried it all, beginning with Google Chrome, the most resource-intensive browser of them all. Fifty browsing tabs? Not at a peep or a degree above 80 Fahrenheit on either M1-powered system. The Intel-powered Air? Thirty-five tabs got its fans revving, and it hit 93 degrees.
How about 65 tabs? The M1-powered Air was still cool and quiet, though it began showing signs of sluggish scrolling and tab switching. The Intel-powered 13-inch MacBook Pro powered up its fan at around 75 tabs. At a whopping 100 tabs—which no sane human could ever navigate—the M1-powered Pro was quiet as a mouse and scrolling pages smoothly. Even when I threw in a Zoom call, it kept silent. I finally got the new MacBook Pro’s fan to kick on, with a temperature of 98 degrees, when playing “Rise of Tomb Raider” while simultaneously exporting a 4K video in Adobe Premiere and running some Chrome tabs in the background.
Apple has built a new system for every iOS app that is available in the Mac menu called “Touch Alternatives.” It is a series of buttons, gestures, and other eldritch incantations to make apps that need a touchscreen work on a Mac.
It’s frankly ridiculous and the clearest sign yet that Apple is bending itself into knots to avoid doing what obviously needs to be done: put a touchscreen on the Mac.
Luckily, you can ignore all of these iOS apps until developers optimize them or Apple figures out a better way to clean up the weird stuff.
But there are a bunch of limitations. App developers can opt their iOS apps out of being visible on the Mac, and many have done just that. Want to watch videos in the Netflix app rather than a browser tab? Too bad—Netflix isn’t available, nor are most other video streaming services. Many productivity apps are missing, too. In fact, over the days that I was working on this review, I found more iOS apps disappearing from the store.
I’m not entirely sure for the reason for developers opting out of letting their iOS apps run on the Mac, but I’d wager they’re some combination of quality control, wanting their users to use an existing Mac app or web interface, and (for video providers) fears over security or piracy.
Having used a bunch of these apps, I can understand some of these concerns. The real question is, will they be addressed in due time or will the Mac version of the iOS App Store remain a bit scattershot?
Will Kuhn joins the show to talk about Apple's new Macs, teaching electronic music, home automation, and his forthcoming book, Electronic Music School.
Show Notes:
We recorded this episode right after last weeks Apple event! People have now used and reviewed these machines! I recommend this one, this one, and this one.
