I just tried out Dorico Pro for Windows. There is a VERY serious bug, but what is REALLY disturbing is that people have been complaining to Steinberg about this for MONTHS, and the Dorico team (Daniel Spreadbury, spokesman) have not even acknowledged it.

The bug: Anyone who has gotten very used to Finale, Sibelius, or Musecore, on Windows or Mac, knows that the ESC (Escape) key is absolutely critical for certain things. In the Dorico manual, it says quite clearly that the function of the ESC key is to "Stop Note Input," just like in all the other software, and if it doesn't work as expected, it drives you INSANE.

Many Dorico users have found that it DOES NOT WORK! Response from Steinberg: Total silence, or wordy evasion of issue.

Sound familiar? Of course. It happens all the time with large-scale software. The point is this: Dorico is just another bug-filled monster like all the other shit we are forced to use and struggle with if we want to get ANYTHING done. IT IS NOT SPECIAL. IT DOES NOT HAVE A HALO OVER ITS HEAD.

That was the first bug I discovered, about 10 minutes after trying Dorico for the first time, and I'm done with it for at least a year. I've been through this young-software nightmare before and I will never repeat the experience if I can possibly avoid it. I advise you all to avoid Dorico unless you like being a software tester. I don't.

 

I just like the look of it. Sometimes I open and look at it, then forthwith remember its functional deficiencies, then I close it. Haven't changed this routine since long ago.

 

Lol, how does finding one bug mean "Dorico is just another bug-filled monster.."?

 

So... complicated software, no matter how good, has bugs, some of which a user may or may not hit depending on their use cases, and some of which may or may not be serious, others just a bit annoying but often with workarounds for the time being.

And customers - well, not just customers, people just running the demo - do not have a direct immediate feedback line into the developers and product managers, who are probably busy with trying to fix bugs that have been reported, and implement the various things users are requesting/demanding/complaining about, rather than trying to placate the people complaining about their one bug that's particularly important to them.

So we've learnt... nothing new at all...

 

Notation tools are not like Piano rolls. Mastering and working with them requires specialized knowledge of music. At the moment, this knowledge is not available to everyone.

Piano rolls are good only for implementation and better control, otherwise, no one can learn music comprehensively and extensively by using piano roll.

 

This was just something I had to get off my chest, and I know plenty of people agree with both the specific complaint as well as the general sentiments. But I'm not a complete negative Nancy! Listen: I think it is WONDERFUL that audioz.download exists so that people may seriously TRY BEFORE THEY BUY, so that this sort of discussion can take place. Also I greatly appreciate the crackers. True, their efforts are not always successful, but when I get angry about that, it's my own problem, not theirs!

 

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Last edited: May 13, 2021

Steinberg is going into a weird direction which might not end well. Check out the cubase 11.0.20 thread on their forum. People are seriously pissed. You just can not afford to run software with so much bloat of bugs.