After years buying Dorico upgrades but hardly composing, I’m back to it. And I’m lost!
I have the Spitfire Audio BBC Symphony Orchestra Professional and have imported the map and template from the Dorico Blog and after a few crashes, got that working.
I’ve just sat down to write a piece that would have piano and orchestra, and unfortunately there’s no piano sound in this VST so I need to use something else, but I cannot for the life of me see how to add this because the playback template I’m using is for Symphony Orchestra and doesn’t have piano.
I’ve had a Google around and seen a solution but it hasn’t sunk in, sadly, despite me being fairly techy.
Can anyone explain what I need to be doing, please, preferably in generic terms as I’m going to have to mix and match as I like mixing orchestra, drum kit and piano, and might add pipe organ, so I need to crack this. I’m on a Mac with the latest version of Mac OS, and Dorico 5.
Thank you. I got onto that and was trying to add through ‘Add Manual’ and it only listed what I already had. Now, though, I’ve tried ‘Add Automatic’ and can get what you get, so hopefully that’s a step further to getting piano.
The Automatic ones are just the Dorico Factory templates (plus NotePerformer if you have it). The Manual ones are endpoints that you have created for yourself.
It is always worthwhile adding one of the autos at the end of your template, in case you add something not in the BBC template (singers spring to mind in addition to your piano, but also some of the more obscure percussion)
Unfortunately I’m still sat here like I’ve just been presented with a computer for the first time. Even though I’ve read forum posts and other articles, I just can’t seem to quite cotton on to this one.
In the Edit Playback Template window, do I click Add Manual? When I do, it just has what is already there in the Entries list, which is a bit confusing.
I have purchased and installed two Spitfire piano samples: BBC Symphony Orchestra Piano Professional, which installs as part of the BBC Symphony Orchestra Library, and Originals Felt Piano, which should appear as a separate option. I’ve manually checked the SSD to check they’ve installed, and I’ve also used the Spitfire app to repair them, just in case. In Dorico I’ve cleared the VST cache and put back to factory settings, and restarted Dorico, more than once, then loaded up an old score, and loaded the BBC Symphony Orchestra Pro template from the Dorico blog which is what I am trying to add piano and drums to.
For Dorico to load and play a VST it needs to know how that VST is configured and what expression map will send the right messages to trigger various effects (eg how to control volume).
You must set this up (once) and save it in (what Dorico calls) an Endpoint. So…
Create a new solo piano score.
In Play mode go to the VST&Midi tab and replace the Halion VST with the Spitfire VST and load your BBC Piano. You should be OK using the Default Expression Map.
At this point its worthwhile writing some notes and checking the Piano plays as you would expect. When you are happy, go back to Play and save the Endpoint (here I’m saving one for Pianoteq)…
Now, when you go to create your Custom Playback Template you will have a (manual) Endpoint that will load your BBC Piano. You then add one of the Automatic Endpoints as well so that Dorico will know how to load other instruments you might want in your score.
Hi Janus. Many thanks for the well-explained instructions there. I’ve followed them and have been able to add the manual endpoint.
I’ve loaded up an existing piece of music that I wrote, which is piano and orchestra, and switched to the Dorico Spitfire Audio BBCSO Pro Template, which is the one I’m editing. I’ve also cleared the VST cache and restarted Dorico.
When I look at the parts in Play, everything but the piano has been correctly assigned to the BBCSO Pro VST, so I go into the track routing and there’s a big dropdown of BBCSO instruments - but no piano. I must be missing something obvious so will investigate further and report back for anyone using this forum thread to help themselves get this done.
