Assignment of VST Instruments

This is good news. Nothing is more annoying than pre-defined automatic loading. Do everything manually and then save it as a user-defined preset, - instrumentwise or as a score-preset.

I already have created an Excel-Sheet that exports a full Xmap. Once Dorico is on the market I will start creating those maps and share them.

May I ask if you could open an Xmap page in the Steinberg Download area where users can upload and share Xmaps, sorted by libraries?

That’s great - we’ll look into the options for sharing community content.

So would you say that the workflow with regards to VST loading and setting up instruments for playback will end up more closely resembling Finale than Sibelius? One of the handiest features in Sibelius was the auto-loading features in SoundWorld. Having to manually load instruments like in Finale certainly isn’t deal breaker—especially for people who want more precise control over instrument loading—but a mild incumbrance to the “it just works” sort of crowd.

This will necessarily be different to Sibelius. Older versions of Sibelius (v4-v6 I think) used the Kontakt Player and was able to load sounds via a proprietary API. Version 7 was able to load sounds in Structure (the Avid sampler plugin) via a proprietary API. Dorico will load sounds in Halion via a (you guessed it…) proprietary API. We don’t have access to the APIs used by other products, and at present I don’t believe there’s any standard means in the VST spec of loading different presets into each channel.

Historically we know that advanced plugin users have been frustrated by some of the limitations they experienced in Sibelius which did try very hard to do the ‘it just works’ thing at the expense of letting you do what you want. We’ve made a conscious decision in Dorico to make the default user experience with the bundled Halion content be ‘just works’, but if you want to make your own decisions then we aim to give you that power and flexibility, at the expense of requiring manual setup to have things just how you want them.

I would say there is a differing of opinions here. In fact, I would say there is nothing more annoying than not having pre0defined automatic loading.

Daniel’s previous product does an excellent job of finding and loading correct patches from,for instance, various Garritan libraries based on instrument names in the score. This can be overridden, of course, but the defaults are often correct (or at least adequate).

The support for this automatic loading must exist in the sound library, of course, and some have this (such as the various Garritan libraries) and others don’t. (If the capability exists in EWQL libraries I haven’t found it.) But the fact that it works fairly flawlessly in Sibelius for Garritan libraries demonstrates that the task is not impossible.

Matching instruments with library patches may be part of electronic music production, but it is not part of composing. It would be nice if it were not an extra task needed to use Dorico. (Of course I may find that Halion libraries are good enough to eliminate this concern.)

As Paul has already said, it works with Garritan libraries in Sibelius because the developers of the ARIA Engine, Plogue Art et Technologie, provided details of ARIA’s private API to allow Sibelius to load sounds. There is no standard way for a plug-in host to load patches in a plug-in automatically.

Where such private APIs exist, provided the developer of the plug-in is willing to share the details of the API with us, and given sufficient time to implement support for that API, then there is no reason in principle why we should not be able to load sounds in certain third-party VST instruments.

However, you should not expect such functionality to exist in the very first version of Dorico: we will support HALion-based libraries automatically, but you will need to load sounds manually for libraries in other sample players.

Well, as long as this automatic stuff can be fully disabled I am fine with it.

I am not composing with a PC, - pen and paper is my favorite workflow. But when doing the digitalization I need both engraving and audio in one shot.
I have more than 50Tb of sounds installed on several computers connected via VSL Ensemble Pro. Every instrument is tweaked in a tremendous way.

I, and most users I know, prefer a manual setup which can be saved as a template. Actually you are the first one who prefers the auto-load feature :slight_smile:

Again, as long as those features can be fully disabled I am fine :wink:

This is a very, very cool thread …

At the risk of repeating myself:

(1) Default playback should be easy – just use whatever Steinberg already has in house.
(2) For the more adventurous souls among us, using third party VSTs should be fairly easy – even if you have create custom made templates, or set it up from scratch with no auto load every time you start up your computer.
(3) Somewhere between 1 and 2, you guys might want to engage the services of Wallander – the NotePerformer playback for Sibelius is very impressive. It somehow does something more intelligent than the average VST plugin - as far as I understand it.

I know I am preaching to the choir — you guys (Daniel and Paul) probably understand perfectly where I am coming from. :smiley:

Make that TWO who prefer the auto load feature :slight_smile:

Thanks Bob

Wow, they number grows by the minute :smiley:

Well, maybe - but personally I prefer to play score my way, not somebody else’s way (and certainly not all the same way, unless Wallander has a range of options to interpret 16th century and 21st century music notation differently!)

@Rob Tuley: about NotePerformer, I just mentioned that because somehow Arne Wallander has figured a really clever system to play back scores, using a minimum of computer resources. I don’t know how on earth he does it, but it works well.

That said, for me personally – and apologize for repeating myself – is this:

(a) The default playback should be easy, using the Steinberg proprietary virtual instruments, and probably automatic loading.
(b) For those of use who are more adventurous and want to use third party VSTs, please make it easy to use them. I don’t care whether loading is manual or automatic – though I’d want the sounds, once set up, to be loaded automatically.

Does that make any sense?

I realize that playback is not the #1 priority for Daniel and his team, so apologize for taking up bandwidth.

Of course, and that’s what most of us use sequencers for. However, NotePerformer is really useful for automatically creating backing stems for orchestral sessions with pretty much no effort. Previously I had to do all of that in Nuendo, and whilst the result was better, it was a waste of time, as everything was being replaced. The only caveat (and it is a doozy) is that playback is not in real time, so syncing up to Nuendo doesn’t work. No problem when only doing orchestral music, but when doing electronic hybrids is was a bit of a pain.

So for me a NotePerformer-esque option would be great, particularly if it is a real-time option.

DG

Hopefully this should be achieved by our Playback Template mechanism. Once you’ve done the hard work of setting up all your favourite plugins, patches and expression maps up for your regular types of ensemble, then you will be able to import it into your projects.

Will this follow the Cubase architecture? So one can either save an instrument or a whole template?
This would make things easier when setting up new templates.

That’s something we can look at, but probably not initially.

Patrick,

Sibelius did this with Garritan back in the day when they where releasing Sibelius. In this case, Dorico will be using and comes with (IMO a better Library) Halion. And like Sibelius, they have already as stated mapped this out for Halion. I am sure, if they wanted to they could do it again for the Garritan Libraries…but at this point (unless you prefer Garritan sounds) why would you want to? First they are all VST 2 and with Halion, you get all VST3. If you are not familiar with the additional power that this brings to your performance and quality of sound, you should look it up for Cubase where they demonstrate this.

This is one of the leading reasons a lot of users are angry with Kontakt and the fact they have not updated their player which would drive the market to start sampling and using the technology at hand. Also, if you are not familiar with how great Halion actually sounds, check out the demos. I personally use private libraries for Film scoring, but I will be using Halion when I am writing and not in my studio.

I purchased EWQLSO Platinum Sound Library 3 years ago and can still not use it properly in Sibelius…and I do believe (judging by my computer specs listed in my signature), my computer is good enough. I’ve tried MANY things but I just cannot seem to make it work. I really don’t like the idea of Soundsets. Sibelius really makes it complicated to use VST’s.

Notion 5 makes it so easy. Just select the VST and create your staves and Voila!

I truly hope that Dorico will be able me to finally use my EWQL libraries (Orchestra & Choir). Remember…MANY users are not Audio Techs and just want to plug-'n-play and adjust as needed.

Thanks guys. I cannot wait for Dorico anymore!

I agree wholeheartedly! Easy set-up and playback…with the ability to tweak properties.

Another option may be to document the interface that Dorico uses to talk to HALion and make it public. Then sound library providers could write a shim to their library to enable Dorico users to use it with as much simplicity as they use HALion. Maybe even then there could become a standard for this sort of thing.

The amount of work involved (and opportunity for error) in setting up expression maps is really a big hurdle. I have the KHSO Diamond Orchestra library and still cannot use it. And having to get into Kontakt to load up instruments is the kind of problem that should be solved for us as well. It needs to be selectable and controllable from the DAW / Dorico so you don’t have to jump around different apps, and manually make sure midi channels match etc etc. There’s a lot of routing that has to be done manually, and it’s prone to errors, and doesn’t play well with legacy scores (e.g. have to change all midi assignments in your existing scores).