So far, the tutorials I have seen on Dorico are equivalent only to "simple entry," which I never use.   There apparently is not even an equivalent to "speedy entry," which is the next best alternative to HyperScribe.

Hi Craig,

This is Chad from MakeMusic Customer Support. I've opened a support ticket with you so I can email you directly. Please be on the lookout for an email from me shortly.

Please look at this and judge for yourself.

https://www.steinberg.help/r/dorico-pro/5.1/en/dorico/topics/write_mode/write_mode_midi_recording/write_mode_midi_recording_c.html 

Dorico has a very good real-time recording from a MIDI keyboard -- much more accurate than Hyperscribe to a click was. It doesn't have Tempo Tap yet; but they know it's wanted.

Note Entry also has both "Simple" and "Speedy" pitch/duration flavours, and there were some recent updates to make things a bit more Finale-like; though I'd avoid trying to pretend that everything is the same -- note entry is different. Many of the benefits of using Speedy in Finale are also available in the Duration-then-Pitch mode of Dorico. 

It also has some nice touches, like note entry onto multiple staves at once -- e.g. play triads onto 3 trumpet staves in one go.

Can you cite exactly who said what? I'd certainly argue that Dorico is better in many ways. Finale's main advantage is its total freedom and flexibility, which comes at a cost.

Dorico is still a young app, and there's certainly more to be done. A new version is expect this year, and if the number and nature of features in previous releases is anything to go by, it will bring a lot of new capabilities to the table.

I'd hold off on your refund, because you'll never get it that cheap again. 

Just speaking for myself: Dorico fails me in so many ways, I'm staying with Finale as long as I can. Yes, Dorico can be set to accommodate the most avant-garde, complex, microtonal, splayed beam, music that anyone can conceive of, even if it can never be played by a human musician.

But it doesn't have a Swing indication, with the parenthesized notes following. And it doesn't let you add your own articulations or expressions. Or delete the ones you will never use. Or have a simple push button for a pickup measure. Or easy ways to keep track of your lyrics, or have smart word extensions.

As Wiggy suggests, I won't write it completely off, until I see the new version. But unless it comes down to earth with features I need, y'all can have it.

Dear Chad, Adrian, Ben, and Mike,

Thank you so very much for your responses.  Adrian, you have been a gift from heaven on so many occasions over the years, and your link to that 10-minute video is worth its weight in gold.  I am so, so sorry for prematurely jumping to erroneous conclusions based solely on the introductory opening screen provided to brand new Dorico users.   The only thing it described was "simple entry," so I assumed that's all they offered.  In addition, there was a discussion board thread online which stated, "Dorico cannot add HyperScribe, because Finale has a patent on that.\ technology."  Perhaps that thread was out-of-date.  Ben, I have not used "tempo tap" to date (only metronome), so I won't miss that feature.   For multi-staff trumpet soli sections, I use the "explode" feature in Finale.  Mike, I hope there is some way to indicate "swing," as I often write jazz charts.  If not, an expedient alternative is to write the chart in 12/8.   Of course, there will be a learning curve for Dorico, as there was with Finale, but it will be worth it.

I'm feeling guilty now, because it's possible all the whining complaints over the years from malcontents like me were what caused the Finale folks to throw in the towel.  Guys like me should have said, "Thank you," more often, rather than constantly griping!   Bach's 10 children would have kissed the ground to have Finale (and a Xerox machine)!

You don't miss your water, till your well runs dry.  I appreciate you folks.

I know you've had a decent crack at it, Mike, and asked plenty of questions on the Dorico forum. 

However: You can add anything, symbol or text, as a Playing Technique, which I'd argue replace both articulations and expressions in Finale. 

Swing ratios as notes aren't impossible -- you can add music symbols to a text object fairly easily.

There is a Pick-up bar checkbox in the tempo panel: click it on and set the duration; though once you get used to the popover syntax, (e.g. 4/4,1 being a 1-beat pickup in 4/4), then that's very easy. 

It has a Lyric Editor windows that are very similar to Finale's (without all the jumbling!), where you can edit a whole line, or a single syllable. One the whole, Dorico's word extensions are much smarter than Finale's. It's a bit of a faff to create an extension where there isn't one, admittedly. You can Copy an entire text of hyphenated lyrics and paste each syllable; though there's nothing like the mass-assignment in F. You can move syllables, just like any other object, though no 'rotation', yet.

I don't think it's necessarily geared towards the avant garde -- any more than Finale was. I do mostly choral music from 16th-19th century, and I don't have to struggle to avoid Schoenbergian idioms!

As ever, the Dorico forums are very friendly for any problems.

Interesting; in 33+ years of using Finale, I never ever used Hyperscribe because I never could get it to work well for me. Back in the day, I used the Transcription Tool, but didn’t miss it at all when Finale removed it. I agree with BB-W; Dorico does pretty well with notating inputted music in real time, although I still typically default to improvising into a DAW like Reason and then importing the MIDI file into Dorico (as I had done with Finale).

Problem with continuing to use Finale (besides the bugs and old UX elements that will never be addressed), is that eventually it will no longer work properly or be authorizable on a new CPU. So new scores created this year and perhaps next year will merely add to the challenge of accessing them down the road.

Everyone’s use cases are different, but it was not hard for me to move to Dorico, only occasionally using Finale to manage some minor tweaks to old .mus/.musx scores as needed. Bottom line is that no software is ever going to be a perfect substitute feature-for-feature for an older one, but they have really done a very good job at Steinberg with working to accommodate us Finale expats, and while there are some annoyances from time to time, I’ve made my peace with Dorico and am glad I moved on. It’s no different, really, than switching email programs; some things are identical, some things are slightly different, and some things are missing.

Dear Ben and David,

Thanks to both of you for the encouragement.   David, it never occurred to me to "improvise into a DAW [mine is MixCraft] and import the resulting MIDI file into Dorico."   Great idea!   I'll try that.  You know, it's kind of like my father having to migrate to the U.S. to escape the insanity of Hitler.  One can only imagine the culture shock and learning curve of arriving on a new continent and having to reboot.  Compared to that traumatic experience,  transitioning from Finale to Dorico ought to turn out to be a "cakewalk" (no pun intended). 

By the way, who named it "Dorico"?    Middle school must have been a nightmare for him, with all the kids calling him "Dork"!  Anyone know the correct pronunciation?

Thanks Craig. Definitely easier than leaving Europe under fascism. 

I can't say for certain which person on the Dorico team coined that name, but suspect it was Daniel Spreadbury. Apparently it was named after athe16th-century Italian music engraver Valerio Dorico, whom I had never heard of until I became aware of the notation software. 

Valerio Dorico was an Italian printer in the late 16th century, working in Rome. 

He brought innovative technologies to the city after the Sack of Rome; which might be symbolic for the sacked Sibelius development team who created the app.