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Steinberg Dorico 3.5: More Powerful, More Refined

Steinberg introduces new iterations of its music notation software family with new features that expand its notational capabilities, make the workflow more customizable and streamlined, and build on its unique strengths.

Steinberg today announced the highly anticipated release of the latest version of its professional scoring software, Dorico 3.5. With updates to the whole family of products - Dorico Pro, Dorico Elements, and the free Dorico SE — there are improvements across every area of the application, building on the ground-breaking features introduced in Dorico 3.0.

Dorico has been designed from the ground up to be a comfortable environment forcomposing and arranging, and the new input method introduced in Dorico 3.5 provides convenient new tools for trying out ideas during the composition process. Dorico’s step input method has always required you to specify the duration of the note before its pitch, which is very convenient when copying out existing music, but not always convenient when composing. Now you can specify the pitch before duration, allowing you to try out melodies and chords without inputting them, only committing them to the score when you then specify the duration to be used. This new input method will be of particular interest to users of other notation software who want to experience all of Dorico’s powerful and time-saving features, but strongly prefer pitch before duration input: now it’s available in Dorico, too.

Steinberg Dorico pitch before duration

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. Dorico 3.5 introduces powerful new tools for handling sample libraries through its expanded VST Expression Maps editor, with conditional switches — for example, to use a particular sound when a note is shorter than a certain duration in real time — and improved handling for techniques that can be combined with other sounds, without needing to define every possible combination in the expression map.

Steinberg Dorico vst expression maps small

Dorico 3.5 expands its support for early music with comprehensive support for figured bass, complete with its own trademark musical intelligence. Figured bass is a shorthand notation for describing harmony that was in wide usage in European music in the 17th and 18th centuries, written using a system of numerals for intervals above the written bass note. 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 to changing the bass note.

One of the most unique, ground-breaking and time-saving features of Dorico Pro 3, 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.

Steinberg dorico condensing for divisi

Other new features and capabilities in Dorico 3.5 include:

There are dozens of further improvements across the application, spanning playback, engraving, note input, workflow, and many refinements to the user interface.

Product Marketing Manager for Dorico, Daniel Spreadbury, said: “We are excited to bring Dorico 3.5 to musicians around the world today. Everything we do is directed towards making it faster and easier to produce music notation that communicates exactly what you want, in exactly the way you want it. The improvements in Dorico 3.5 both allow you to shape your working environment more than ever before, and to achieve better results more quickly than ever.”

Dorico is available from local resellers and through the Steinberg Online Shop. The suggested retail price for the boxed version of Dorico Pro 3.5 is 579 euros; download only is available for 559 euros. Students and teachers can purchase Dorico Pro 3.5 at the discounted suggested retail price of 359 euros. Users of Finale and Sibelius can buy a Dorico Pro 3.5 crossgrade at the special suggested retail price of 299 euros (box) or 279 euros (download), and a further educational discount is available for students and teachers, allowing them to buy Dorico Pro 3.5 for just 179 euros (box) or 159 euros (download).

The suggested retail price for Dorico Elements 3.5 is 99 euros, and qualifying students and teachers can buy Dorico Elements 3.5 for just 66.99 euros.

Dorico SE 3.5 is available for free and can be downloaded from the Steinberg website starting from today.

Various downloadable updates and upgrades, crossgrades, and education versions are exclusively available through the Steinberg Online Shop and the Steinberg website.

Customers who have activated Dorico 3 editions and earlier versions on or after April 22, 2020, are eligible for a free, downloadable Grace Period update to the latest respective version.

www.steinberg.net