Dorico -> Sibelius?

[mducharme]

You don't even have to do that! Just select the note in write mode!

And how do you do that with just *one* of those ties without untying the whole lot? I would assume that's why the question is being asked.

(This is not a complaint about the design of Dorico but is just an observation.)

I never tell people to just select the note with their mouse and hit "U" because then they (ex. Tantacrul in his infamous video) start to think that if you have a long tie chain that it is only possible to use the "nuclear option" and delete all ties simultaneously, and that there is no other way of untying without deleting all ties simultaneously and then re-tying the ties that you didn't want to delete (to the point where I almost wish this wasn't even an option). In practice it is of limited use to select the note and just hit U because of the large number of cases where it isn't just a single tie but a series of ties, and then you start having to think about changing your approach each time you see a tie. So I prefer simply getting into the habit of ENTER, arrow keys, U for all ties, and that way I don't have to think about how many ties are in the chain to decide on an approach. That way I can stay in the zone while I am composing and just do things automatically.

But I don't see why ENTER, arrow keys a couple times, and then U is that much slower than if you could select the tie with the mouse and delete it like in Sibelius. I'm pretty fast at it, honestly.

 

[sinkd]

And how do you do that with just *one* of those ties without untying the whole lot? I would assume that's why the question is being asked.

(This is not a complaint about the design of Dorico but is just an observation.)

I never tell people to just select the note with their mouse and hit "U" because then they (ex. Tantacrul in his infamous video) start to think that if you have a long tie chain that it is only possible to use the "nuclear option" and delete all ties simultaneously, and that there is no other way of untying without deleting all ties simultaneously and then re-tying the ties that you didn't want to delete (to the point where I almost wish this wasn't even an option). In practice it is of limited use to select the note and just hit U because of the large number of cases where it isn't just a single tie but a series of ties, and then you start having to think about changing your approach each time you see a tie. So I prefer simply getting into the habit of ENTER, arrow keys, U for all ties, and that way I don't have to think about how many ties are in the chain to decide on an approach. That way I can stay in the zone while I am composing and just do things automatically.

But I don't see why ENTER, arrow keys a couple times, and then U is that much slower than if you could select the tie with the mouse and delete it like in Sibelius. I'm pretty fast at it, honestly.

Got it! I learned something. If you need to break one tie in the chain. Thanks!

 

[Bollen]

I honestly don't understand what you guys are talking about... You can separate any tied note or even a regular note at any point within a demisemiquaver of resolution (although you can do even more with another trick) by just placing the caret where you want the split and pressing U or the scissors...

Or am I misunderstanding the issue?

 

[Beyond4A]

I honestly don't understand what you guys are talking about... You can separate any tied note or even a regular note at any point within a demisemiquaver of resolution (although you can do even more with another trick) by just placing the caret where you want the split and pressing U or the scissors...

Or am I misunderstanding the issue?

You lost me at "demisemiquaver."

 

[sinkd]

I honestly don't understand what you guys are talking about... You can separate any tied note or even a regular note at any point within a demisemiquaver of resolution (although you can do even more with another trick) by just placing the caret where you want the split and pressing U or the scissors...

Or am I misunderstanding the issue?

I did not know about the precision of breaking a tie with the carat. But invoking the carat to do so seems to be the thing that makes it unacceptably convoluted in Dorico compared to Sibelius...

 

[ALittleNightMusic]

I thought I'd share an example I faced - maybe there are easier ways of doing things and I'm always open to learn them!

1) From the MusicXML Logic generates, I get the following. This is not unusual given you may need to start notes in the DAW earlier than the beat for sample library delay purposes or other reasons. I need to clean this up to ensure the note only starts on the second measure and then is tied to the third measure.



2) I need to get rid of that initial eighth note. If I select ANY of the notes and hit U, it would remove both ties. Which means then I need to select the remaining notes and tie them again. Not the end of the world, but is an extra step. If I select the notes and activate the caret, I get the following:



3) Great - but hitting U here, doesn't do anything. So I have to arrow over to the next bar, then hit U, which removes only the initial tie. Now I am able to delete the initial eighth note.

So, in total, there are approximately four steps for each occurrence of this clean up issue (click note, input mode, arrow over, U). If somebody knows how to do this faster, please let me know!

 

[adtino]

I thought I'd share an example I faced - maybe there are easier ways of doing things and I'm always open to learn them!

1) From the MusicXML Logic generates, I get the following. This is not unusual given you may need to start notes in the DAW earlier than the beat for sample library delay purposes or other reasons. I need to clean this up to ensure the note only starts on the second measure and then is tied to the third measure.



2) I need to get rid of that initial eighth note. If I select ANY of the notes and hit U, it would remove both ties. Which means then I need to select the remaining notes and tie them again. Not the end of the world, but is an extra step. If I select the notes and activate the caret, I get the following:



3) Great - but hitting U here, doesn't do anything. So I have to arrow over to the next bar, then hit U, which removes only the initial tie. Now I am able to delete the initial eighth note.

So, in total, there are approximately four steps for each occurrence of this clean up issue (click note, input mode, arrow over, U). If somebody knows how to do this faster, please let me know!

Assuming grid is set to 8th note – select tie chain, Shift+Opt/Alt+left arrow, Cmd/Ctl+Opt/Alt+right arrow

Admittedly slower than simply click and delete in Sibelius, but no mouse required after initial selection. Makes a big difference over long projects.

 

[mducharme]

1) From the MusicXML Logic generates, I get the following. This is not unusual given you may need to start notes in the DAW earlier than the beat for sample library delay purposes or other reasons. I need to clean this up to ensure the note only starts on the second measure and then is tied to the third measure.

The norm is to clean that up in the DAW. When film composers send a completed track to an orchestrator to prepare the orchestral score and parts, the composer quantizes everything in the DAW first and make sure that everything is dead on the beat before exporting the MIDI to send to the orchestrator. This may necessitate making a duplicate copy of the DAW project as the quantized version, in the case where this hard quantization messes everything up.

Failing this, these sorts of edits I find are much easier by opening a piano roll pane underneath the score in Dorico and moving the beginning of the note forward.

So I start with a note like the one in your example (here I've put it in bass trombone) with the piano roll pane open below the score:



I just move my mouse over the left side of the note rectangle in the bottom pane and drag it to the right.



And voila, with a single click and drag that was even faster than using the Untie option, or faster even than clicking on the tie in Sibelius and hitting delete, I've fixed the note. In Sibelius you would still have to clean up the rests in this situation as the rests probably would not combine correctly (the empty bar should just have a bar rest).

Some edits like this are easier to do in the piano roll, and so I will often open it up for these sort of things.

If I only had one or two such edits to make and I didn't have the piano roll open, I would use the hotkeys that @adtino mentioned, which I use very very frequently.

 

[TheHansen01]

Just in case it's helpful for anyone new to Dorico... this PDF reference with all the keyboard shortcuts has been a life-saver for me.

 

[mducharme]

Another type of edit that I frequently use the piano roll for in Dorico is to fix this sort of situation that can end up happening:



It's just one chord, but the cut-off is sloppy, so you end up with it looking really ridiculous. Trying to fix this with the scissors (untie) option and the ctrl-alt-arrow and shift-alt-arrow hotkeys can be a little frustrating and finicky, and Sibelius isn't any better at this. But in the piano roll, with a couple mouse clicks and drags on the ends of the notes I can equalize them in length so that they end at the same time and that the result doesn't look stupid.



Too many people who use Dorico don't really think about the piano roll as a viable editing tool. I use it all the time for these sorts of edits, which I find are much harder to do any other way.

 

[ALittleNightMusic]

The norm is to clean that up in the DAW. When film composers send a completed track to an orchestrator to prepare the orchestral score and parts, the composer quantizes everything in the DAW first and make sure that everything is dead on the beat before exporting the MIDI to send to the orchestrator. This may necessitate making a duplicate copy of the DAW project as the quantized version, in the case where this hard quantization messes everything up.

Failing this, these sorts of edits I find are much easier by opening a piano roll pane underneath the score in Dorico and moving the beginning of the note forward.

So I start with a note like the one in your example (here I've put it in bass trombone) with the piano roll pane open below the score:



I just move my mouse over the left side of the note rectangle in the bottom pane and drag it to the right.



And voila, with a single click and drag that was even faster than using the Untie option, or faster even than clicking on the tie in Sibelius and hitting delete, I've fixed the note. In Sibelius you would still have to clean up the rests in this situation as the rests probably would not combine correctly (the empty bar should just have a bar rest).

Some edits like this are easier to do in the piano roll, and so I will often open it up for these sort of things.

If I only had one or two such edits to make and I didn't have the piano roll open, I would use the hotkeys that @adtino mentioned, which I use very very frequently.

That is a handy way of doing it as well. Dorico's piano roll is definitely much easier to utilize than even Graphical Midi Tools in Sibelius.

Since we're here on better workflows in Dorico, another common scenario I envision when importing MusicXML from Logic is notating a piano part. Upon import, Dorico puts everything on either the treble or bass clef it seems.



But I'd like to end up with something more like this:



Selecting the appropriate notes and using the move down a stave shortcut works - but if I have many measures of harmonic arpeggios or something, this can take a while. Sibelius has a quick plugin to do this for me based on a split point I define. Is there a faster approach in Dorico?

 

[mducharme]

Is there a faster approach in Dorico?

Yup there is - again, with the piano roll. I can do a rectangle select with my mouse to select all notes below my split point:


Pressing "M" then moves them down to the bass clef staff:



There's probably also a way of doing it with the popovers because you can do filters in the popovers, there are some wizards on the Dorico forums who might know how to do that if it is possible.

 

[Beyond4A]

That is a handy way of doing it as well. Dorico's piano roll is definitely much easier to utilize than even Graphical Midi Tools in Sibelius.

Since we're here on better workflows in Dorico, another common scenario I envision when importing MusicXML from Logic is notating a piano part. Upon import, Dorico puts everything on either the treble or bass clef it seems.



But I'd like to end up with something more like this:



Selecting the appropriate notes and using the move down a stave shortcut works - but if I have many measures of harmonic arpeggios or something, this can take a while. Sibelius has a quick plugin to do this for me based on a split point I define. Is there a faster approach in Dorico?

When you import a MIDI file, Dorico offers plenty of split point options. I don't work with MusicXML files though, so I can't confirm or deny.

MIDI Import Options dialog

The MIDI Import Options dialog allows you to customize the settings Dorico Pro uses to translate MIDI data into a Dorico project when importing and opening MIDI files.

steinberg.help

 

[ALittleNightMusic]

Another type of edit that I frequently use the piano roll for in Dorico is to fix this sort of situation that can end up happening:



It's just one chord, but the cut-off is sloppy, so you end up with it looking really ridiculous. Trying to fix this with the scissors (untie) option and the ctrl-alt-arrow and shift-alt-arrow hotkeys can be a little frustrating and finicky, and Sibelius isn't any better at this. But in the piano roll, with a couple mouse clicks and drags on the ends of the notes I can equalize them in length so that they end at the same time and that the result doesn't look stupid.



Too many people who use Dorico don't really think about the piano roll as a viable editing tool. I use it all the time for these sorts of edits, which I find are much harder to do any other way.

To be fair, I just tried this scenario in Sibelius, and it only took a couple of mouse clicks - or a couple of keyboard presses. Both options were pretty painless.

 

[ALittleNightMusic]

When you input a MIDI file, Dorico offers plenty of split point options. I don't work with MusicXML files though, so I can't confirm or deny.

MIDI Import Options dialog

The MIDI Import Options dialog allows you to customize the settings Dorico Pro uses to translate MIDI data into a Dorico project when importing and opening MIDI files.

steinberg.help

Doesn't seem to be an option for MusicXML.

 

[mducharme]

Doesn't seem to be an option for MusicXML.

It wouldn't be an option for MusicXML. It's generally assumed if you're using MusicXML that you're importing a correctly notated score from another notation program, and obviously in this case, it isn't correctly notated in the other program.

Most people importing from DAWs to notation use MIDI and not MusicXML. MusicXML would only be better in the case of additional information like articulations that shows up in the score, like if it already has staccato dots and accents and trills and things like that in the DAW's score editor and saves you from having to enter them yourself. I don't use Logic so I'm not sure what it does in that respect.

 

[Bollen]

I thought I'd share an example I faced - maybe there are easier ways of doing things and I'm always open to learn them!

1) From the MusicXML Logic generates, I get the following. This is not unusual given you may need to start notes in the DAW earlier than the beat for sample library delay purposes or other reasons. I need to clean this up to ensure the note only starts on the second measure and then is tied to the third measure.



2) I need to get rid of that initial eighth note. If I select ANY of the notes and hit U, it would remove both ties. Which means then I need to select the remaining notes and tie them again. Not the end of the world, but is an extra step. If I select the notes and activate the caret, I get the following:



3) Great - but hitting U here, doesn't do anything. So I have to arrow over to the next bar, then hit U, which removes only the initial tie. Now I am able to delete the initial eighth note.

So, in total, there are approximately four steps for each occurrence of this clean up issue (click note, input mode, arrow over, U). If somebody knows how to do this faster, please let me know!

You do it like this:
View attachment Dorico Cut.mp4
As I said earlier, you put the caret where you want the cut.

I did not know about the precision of breaking a tie with the carat. But invoking the carat to do so seems to be the thing that makes it unacceptably convoluted in Dorico compared to Sibelius...

I don't see why, you just double-click wherever you want it...

 

[benwiggy]

Doesn’t Dorico have this already? At least I've been dragging midi from Cubase to Dorico.

Yes, Dorico supports dragging MIDI from Cubase (or any other app that initiates dragging); but not copy/paste: and it seems there is more that people want in terms of 'integration' between notation and DAW.

 

[Daryl]

You do it like this:
View attachment Dorico Cut.mp4
As I said earlier, you put the caret where you want the cut.

I don't see why, you just double-click wherever you want it...

In this case, it would be just as quick to shorten the note and nudge it an 8th further on, if indeed the actual note is the wrong length.

So in Sibelius it would be:
Select tie
Delete
Select 8th note
Delete

In Dorico it would be:
Select note
Shorten by 8th
Nudge by 8th

So it seems that it's slower in Sibelius after all.

 

[Wensleydale]

It's just one chord, but the cut-off is sloppy, so you end up with it looking really ridiculous. Trying to fix this with the scissors (untie) option and the ctrl-alt-arrow and shift-alt-arrow hotkeys can be a little frustrating and finicky, and Sibelius isn't any better at this. But in the piano roll, with a couple mouse clicks and drags on the ends of the notes I can equalize them in length so that they end at the same time and that the result doesn't look stupid.

I don't understand why thiis is easier than selecting the whole chord and pressing 7 twice so as to get a dotted half note. Not disagreeing, just asking. To me it would seem odd if the key editor were the best way to do this sort of thing.