Steinberg Dorico 3.5 (Boxed) Music Notation Software

Pitch before duration

When you want to experiment and try out ideas during note input, Dorico Pro 3.5’s new pitch before duration note input method is invaluable: you can play freely on your MIDI keyboard without inputting any notes, and only commit to a particular note or chord once you specify its duration. Users coming to Dorico from other music notation software, particularly Finale, will feel right at home – and even those who are happy with Dorico’s existing entry methods will find it a useful addition to the toolbox.

Figured bass

Figured bass is a system of numerals representing intervals above a written bass note, as a shorthand way of notating harmony in music of the Baroque and Classical periods. Dorico Pro 3.5 introduces the most comprehensive and intelligent figured bass feature of any music notation software. Using a dedicated popover, quickly add figures to any bass part, and choose how they should appear with a complete set of engraving options. The figures even adapt automatically when you change the bass note.

VST Expression Maps

Today’s professional sample libraries and virtual instruments are increasingly sophisticated and require musicians to manipulate several MIDI controllers, key switches and other parameters simultaneously to get the best out of them. Enter Dorico Pro 3.5’s expanded VST Expression Maps editor, with conditional switches – for example, to use a particular sound when a note is shorter or longer than a certain duration – and improved handling for techniques that can be combined with other sounds, without needing to define every possible combination in the expression map.

Guitar notation

Dorico Pro 3.5 introduces further new features for composers and arrangers writing for guitar: support for tapping, hammer-on and pull-off, and a variety of techniques for the vibrato arm, or whammy bar, make it easy to notate even elaborate solos for electric guitar. And adding a grid of chord diagrams showing the shapes used in your piece is now as simple as checking a single box, with sophisticated control over the size, spacing and number of rows of chord diagrams to be shown.

Condensing for divisi

One of Dorico’s most unique, ground-breaking and time-saving features, the ability to automatically create a condensed conductor’s score with a single click, is further extended in Dorico Pro 3.5 with support for condensed divisi for string section players. It’s now simple to have beautiful multi-staff divided parts and for the conductor’s score to show a single, correctly labelled staff.

Line editors

You can now add to the 40 preset horizontal and vertical lines available to your project with a suite of advanced editors that allow you to customise every aspect of the line’s appearance: specify the thickness and length of the line and its end caps; add text to the start, end, or along the length of the line; design your own patterns of dots and dashes; and combine tessellating symbols to create lines that change in intensity or design over their length.

Hollywood-style parts

When preparing parts for film, TV and game recording sessions, many Hollywood copyists always leave additional empty staves at the end of each cue, so that there is plenty of room for any handwritten insertions that need to be made on the stand. Dorico Pro 3.5 reduces this work to a single click, saving time on each and every part. This new functionality also makes it quick and easy to create music frames containing blank, empty staves, ideal for printing manuscript paper or leaving room for students to complete exercises in teaching materials.

Transposed parts

For wind and concert bands or other flexible ensembles, you may need to prepare parts for the same instrument in different transpositions. It’s now quick and easy to create parts using different transpositions and clefs, always linked to the original music so changes made in one layout will automatically be reflected in every other.

Highlights

• Automatic engraving
• Automatic layout of parts
• Condensed scores
• DTP page layout
• Drum notation
• Easy note input
• Flexible chord symbols
• Efficient window management
• Five modes
• Great-sounding content
• High-performance architecture
• Import and export
• Next-generation audio engine
• Bar numbers
• Bar repeats
• Beaming
• Brackets and braces
• Bracketed noteheads
• Cautionary accidentals
• Chord symbols (advanced)
• Chord track
• Dynamics lane
• Import video
• Interpretation of notations
• MIDI controller editor
• Mixer
• Playback templates
• Automatic engraving
• Automatic rhythmic spacing
• Automatic vertical spacing
• Edit rhythmic spacing
• Edit vertical spacing
• Engrave mode
• Arranger tools
• Custom key commands
• Easy note input
• Filters (basic)
• Filters
• Flexible meter
• Insert mode
• Export audio
• Export graphics
• MIDI
• MusicXML
• Batch printing or export
• Booklet printing
• Duplex support
• Press-quality PDF
• Print preview