New features

You can now split notes into multiple, shorter notes. See Splitting notes by duration.

When you add start repeat barlines to a range of selected items, Dorico SE now automatically adds end repeat barlines at the end of the selection. See Inputting barlines with the popover and Inputting barlines with the panel.

When you add clefs to a range of selected items, Dorico SE now automatically adds restorative clefs at the end of the selection. See Inputting clefs with the popover and Inputting clefs with the panel.

A new token that displays whether layouts are concert or transposed pitch is available. It uses your instrument language setting by default, but you can override the text in each layout independently. See Tokens and Editing layout transposition text.

You can now show multiple instruments in the Key Editor simultaneously, allowing you to input data, such as MIDI CC points, for all selected instruments simultaneously. See Showing instruments in the Key Editor.

You can now copy MIDI CC and dynamic points from the primary instrument in the Key Editor to all secondary instruments, making it easy to sync data across tracks. See Copying dynamic points to other instruments and Copying MIDI points to other instruments.

The Histogram and Transform tools are now available in the MIDI CC editor, in addition to the Velocity editor. See Histogram tool and Transform tool.

You can now save configurations of editors in the Key Editor, allowing you to open those editors again quickly. See Key Editor configurations.

When editing chord diagram fingerings, you can now enter 0 to show no fingering and T for thumb fingerings on the lowest string. See Edit Chord Diagram dialog.

It is now possible to export all lyrics in the project as plain text. See Exporting lyrics.

You can now select different border styles for text items. See Changing the style of text item borders.

You can now specify that single-note tremolos should not appear on the first or last note in tie chains when inputting tremolos. See Tremolos in tie chains, Inputting tremolos with the popover, and Inputting tremolos with the panel.

MIDI CC, MIDI pitch bend, and dynamic points are now copied automatically when you copy the notes to which they apply. However, you can disable this behavior if required. See Disabling automatic copying of MIDI data when pasting.

The percussion editor has been returned to the Key Editor. You can also now use the Drumstick tool to input notes with a different rhythmic duration for each unpitched percussion instrument independently. See Inputting notes using the Drumstick tool.

A new Colors page has been added to Preferences. It includes new options that allow you to control colors used for various purposes in the music area, including the first eight voices on each staff, and to invert music/page colors, which by default shows white music on a black background. See Changing music area colors and Inverting colors.

You can now specify the flows that you want to print or export. Dorico SE then prints/exports all pages on which the selected flows appear. See Print Flows dialog.

You can now activate properties in the Properties panel by clicking their name in addition to their activation switch. See Properties panel.

You can now edit the formatting of individual lyrics, such as making single characters underlined. See Edit Lyric dialog.

You can override the paragraph style used for individual lyrics. For example, if you want to use a paragraph style with less stretch for lyrics on tightly spaced systems. See Changing the paragraph style used for lyrics.

The new jump bar allows you to perform commands and go to locations using only your computer keyboard. See Jump bar.

You can assign jump bar aliases to specific commands; for example, so you can use shorter entries for your favorite commands. See Assigning jump bar aliases.

By default, players are now automatically sorted in orchestral order, regardless of the order in which you add them to the project. You can change the player sorting setting in the Players panel in Setup mode. See Players panel.

You can now designate players as soloists, such as in a concerto for solo violin and orchestra. Soloists are treated differently, such as their instruments not being numbered with other instruments of the same type and being automatically positioned in the conventional score position; that is, above the strings. See Designating players as soloists.

You can now define capos for individual fretted instruments. You can then control how capos affect notated pitches and chord symbols/diagrams independently of each other to suit a range of requirements. See Capos.

The lower zone, formerly known as the “bottom panel”, now contains multiple different panels, including Keyboard, Fretboard, and Drum Pads panels that you can use to input notes and the Mixer and Key Editor panels that you can use to adjust playback. See Lower zone (Write mode).

During MIDI recording, Dorico SE now automatically transcribes multiple simultaneous parts into separate voices, such as in contrapuntal piano music. Depending on your settings for MIDI recording and quantization, Dorico SE can also detect slurs, tremolos, trills, pedal lines, tuplets, and grace notes. See MIDI recording.

Insert mode has been given additional functionality, allowing you to change the scope of its impact. For example, you can now set Insert mode to affect all players in flows and also change the duration of the current bar. See Insert mode scopes.

You can also now set a stop position in each flow, which prevents any material beyond the stop point being affected by inserted notes. See Setting Insert mode stop positions.

Play mode has had a complete refresh in both appearance and functionality. Tracks now appear in a track overview, with editing options available in the Track Inspector and Key Editor. See Project window in Play mode.

The piano roll now appears in the Key Editor, rather than in the track overview (previously known as the “event display”). See Key Editor.

Powerful histogram controls have been introduced as part of the new Key Editor, allowing you to perform various editing operations, including for non-consecutive notes. See Histogram tool.

The Mixer has also been completely refreshed in appearance and functionality. In addition to the Mixer window, it can also appear as a panel in the lower zone in Write mode and Play mode. See Mixer.

Dialogs for visual items and options in the library are now accessible on a new Library menu. This also allows you to access these dialogs from all modes. See Library.

Numbered bar regions allow you to show bar counts in specific regions without additional notations. This can help performers keep track of how many bars have passed when playing repetitive music. See Numbered bar regions.

Changing the application language now takes effect immediately, without the need to restart Dorico SE. See Changing the application language.

The Hub has been redesigned, and now includes a Create New page where you can set up basic project information, including adding the project title, selecting a time signature, and specifying a starting number of bars. See Hub.

When adding ensembles, you can now build custom ensembles and save them for future projects. The ensemble picker has also been given a default key command. See Ensemble picker and Building and saving custom ensembles.

Some functions in the Notes toolbox now have additional options available when you click and hold their button, including allowing you to open the tuplets popover. See Notes toolbox.

You can now switch between accessing panels and popovers from the Notations toolbox in Write mode. See Notations toolbox.

The new Insert Music Text dialog makes it easier to add music symbols, such as note glyphs and accidentals, to text items and in text frames. See Insert Music Text dialog.

You can now input tasto solo indications and bracketed figures, including only showing a single bracket on each figure. See Figured bass popover and Showing single brackets on figured bass.

A new automatic note respelling dialog has been added, allowing you to specify the notes you want to respell and apply general preferences to the selection. See Respell Notes Automatically dialog.

You can now copy note spellings to other layouts, for example, if you originally respelled notes in a part layout but want those spellings to appear in the full score layout as well. See Copying note spellings to other layouts.

Additionally, you can reset changes to note spellings in either the current layout only or in all layouts. See Resetting note spellings.

Additionally, there is now a preference for whether system/frame breaks are allowed within bars. Disallowing breaks within bars lets you select anything in the bar at the start of which you want a system/frame break. See Allowing/Disallowing breaks within bars.

You can change the arrangement of polychord and altered bass note chord symbols. See Changing the arrangement of compound chord symbols.

You can now show parentheses around chord symbols, including showing only a single left or right bracket on individual parenthesized chord symbols. See Parenthesized chord symbols.

For players set to show chord diagrams, you can now show only the chord symbol or chord diagram for individual chord symbols. See Showing only chord symbols or chord diagrams.

You can now show fingerings in chord diagrams, either inside dots or at the ends of strings. You can change individual fingerings when editing chord diagram shapes. See Hiding/Showing fingerings in chord diagrams and Edit Chord Diagram dialog.

You can now interact with rests belonging to unpitched percussion instruments, including moving rests vertically and deleting rests. See Moving rests vertically and Deleting rests.

You can now show player names instead of instrument names for each player in each layout independently, and set both full and short player names for each player. For example, in works with multiple percussionists, showing “Percussion 1” in staff labels regardless of their current instrument is sometimes preferred. See Showing instrument/player names in staff labels and Renaming players.

Additional options have been added for the appearance and position of instrument transpositions in staff labels, including parenthesizing instrument transpositions and showing them after the instrument number. See Changing the appearance/position of instrument transpositions in staff labels.

You can now show vertical labels for player groups to the left of staff labels, as is sometimes used in large-scale works. See Player group labels.

A Reset to Factory option has been added to the Preferences dialog, allowing you to restore the factory defaults for application preferences if necessary. See Preferences dialog.

All four ways of saving, resetting, and removing defaults in options dialogs are now always shown. Previously, it was necessary to hold a modifier key to access other options if you had existing saved defaults. See Layout Options dialog.

When you save projects, Dorico now generates preview images of the layout open in the music area. PNG files are used on the Open Recent page in the Hub. See Project Info dialog.

You can now add retakes and pedal level changes to, and remove them from, multiple rhythmic positions simultaneously. See Adding retakes with the popover, Adding retakes with the panel, and Removing retakes and pedal level changes.

You can now change the voice of existing notes using the same methods as creating and switching between voices during note input. See Changing the voice of existing notes.

The templates for achieving consistent page formatting that used to be known as “master pages” have been renamed, and are now known as “page templates” throughout Dorico. See Page templates.

You can now hide numbers in subordinate bar number sequences and only show alphabetical letters, such as “a”, “b”, and “c”. See Adding subordinate bar numbers.

You can now force centered beams for beams that include notes only on one side of the middle staff line using the new Custom Centered Beam dialog. See Creating centered beams.

You can now turn existing notes into grace notes and vice versa. See Turning existing notes into grace notes and Turning grace notes into normal notes.