Dorico - Compose Music 4+

When Dorico 1.0 first came out for the desktop, its first year showed amazing growth which continued in subsequent years. Considering where Dorico for the iPad has begun, it is clear amazing things are in store. The free app reflects the Dorico SE capabilities, and for c. $4 a month or $40 a year, the app expands to resemble Dorico Elements, but in both cases the iPad version shows hints of capabilities like the on-screen keyboard, fretboard, and drum pads still to appear on the desktop versions. I can only imagine where this app will go in the coming year(s).

I am not a fan of subscription payment models, but Dorico could hardly offer a one-time app purchase for anything like the $4/month or $40/year subscription rate to account for the Apple Store’s lack of an upgrade path. If one wants to rely on the app while away from one’s desktop, the cost hardly seems prohibitive.

Given digital music’s sometime disagreement whether middle C is C3 if C4, I’d like to see a different color key for middle C on the on-screen keyboard so I could easily spot it when sliding the keyboard around to reach various notes, and tool-tips on the various buttons would help those new to the app; but this is an app worth owning and one worth supporting for the kind of further development the Dorico Team has shown with their desktop program.

Thanks for your positive feedback, javProjects. We'll definitely think about potentially differentiating middle C in the on-screen Keyboard window.

Because it’s the most closest to the desktop version. Photoshop, Lightroom, Numbers and many other apps for doing work are either stripped down, or have greatly different interfaces that frankly are too hard to work with for any serious business. The Steinberg team did an amazing thing here in that the app is just like the desktop version, minus features which were pulled for the first release (mainly Engrave mode).

I’m completely impressed with how much they managed to do on an iPad, it’s finally (with Dorico) fulfilling it’s promise that you can do work on the device. In my experience, other than word processing, the iPad is only good for content consumption.

Since there’s a subscription model, I wouldn’t be surprised if it more or less gets parity with Dorico pro, minus the sample library handling of course being we’re on iOS. But meanwhile it’s allowing me to ditch the paper and pencil finally for initial sketching out. So pull out a MIDI keyboard and computer keyboard paired with your iPad and you’ll forget you’re not using Dorico on the desktop.

Thanks for your review. We are working hard to continually improve Dorico, and your feedback that the app is working well for you is really helpful for us to read.

I’ve been using Dorico for about four years now and it just keeps getting better. I’ve written scores for over two dozen songs and I’ve been able to generate audio demos for musicians to listen to and decide whether or not they want to work on the project. Then as part of the project I’ve been able to use templates that format the scores professionally for copyrighting and archiving.

In addition to the software the support staff, training staff and community support have all made my life easier by helping me better understand how and why things work and how to build a better workflow for composing and scoring music.

I’ve used multiple apps for writing music but now only use Dorico because I believe my time is better spent learning and contributing to a great product with unlimited potential.

Thanks so much for taking the time to leave a positive review, Rod. It's great to know that Dorico is a useful partner in your music-making.