I have spent two to three hours this morning trying to install the Cantai playback template downloaded from dorico.com/resources > Playback Templates > Cantai. I have chatted up my AI assistant, who says the file is not a valid playback template file. I am seeking the actual Cantai playback template .dorico_pt file, not the internal ZIP contents. What’s the answer to this?
Inside the zip file is the playback template. Drag it to the Hub and it should install. (This assumes the download wasn’t corrupted). That’s what I did. But be careful. I’ve got one project that I can’t change the playback template once I assigned the Cantai playback to it.
The zip file contents is the .dorico_pt file and a readme.txt file with instructions. I always do this in my Downloads folder. The zip file will create a directory with the same name as the zip file. In that directory, you will find the .dorico_pt file to drag to, and drop on any part of, the hub to install.
If the folder from the zip file does not have those two files, download it again because it probably was corrupted during download.
Nope. Doesn’t work. After struggling with it, I deleted the folder with the downloaded files and tried downloading and installing again. Same files, same results. PC with Windows 11, latest version of Dorico and full version of Cantai.
I followed the same procedure as you. The dorico_pt file will not install.
did you try going to Playback Templates and Import, selecting the file? I must admit just trying to drag to the Hub didn’t do anything for me.
When I try this, it doesn’t find the file (Cantai.dorico_pt). It only shows the _MACOSX file.
On my Windows 11 machine.
- I downloaded the zip file
- I extracted the zip file
- I dragged the pt file onto the hub from the extracted folder
- I received a confirmation popup that the template had been installed.
I just re-downloaded it, and this time it worked. (I think!)
Ditto for me.
Dragging it onto the Hub did not work for me. I eventually got it to work by opening a project, and in Play > Playback Template, I imported the file that I downloaded and extracted. Here’s what my AI assistant said after I acknowledged that I got it to work:
The Cantai download from the Turing Opera Workshop wasn’t a playback template file at all — it was the internal structure of a template. And Dorico’s Import button is designed specifically to assemble those pieces into a real template.
When you clicked Import, Dorico:
-
Read the
PlaybackTemplateSpecs/Cantaifolder -
Read the
EndpointConfigs/Cantaifolder -
Built a new playback template definition
-
Assigned it an internal name
-
Added it to your user template list
-
Saved it as a proper
.dorico_ptfile in %APPDATA%\Steinberg\Dorico 6\PlaybackTemplatePresets\
There’s nothing wrong with the AI assistant’s logic and answer. You asked if I’m on a Mac. No, I stated it was Windows. Dorico’s Hub works differently since Dorico 6.2.20, and I cannot drag anything onto it. This is, apparently, because Steinberg disabled the New Hub on many Windows systems because it caused startup crashes, it failed to load web content, it broke drag‑and‑drop for some users, and it conflicted with certain GPU drivers. When Dorico detects one of these conditions, it automatically hides the “use New Hub” option in Edit > Preferences, and it defaults to the Classic Hub, which does not enable drag-and-drop.
The Cantai VST I downloaded came from Dorico dot com/resources > Templates /Playback Templates, where it is labeled Cantai from “Turing Opera Workshop.” There was no .txt file in the downloaded folder — instead, a PDF with instructions to do what I eventually did: “open any Dorico project and use Play > Playback Template… and then the Import… button.” The custom playback template I created, which adds the Cantai template to my NotePerformer template, works fine. No need to delete and re-install anything.
The answer was to import the _pt file. The problem is solved.
If anyone from Steinberg > Dorico is following and wants to correct me on any of this, their comments are welcome.
Just to be clear, the Cantai playback template on the Dorico/Steinberg Resource page is only the template; it does not include the Cantai VST, which must be purchased from Cantai’s web site and installed separately.
Huh? I’m not sure what you’re talking about here, and I don’t see anything about this in the version history. And I don’t see a “use new Hub” option in Preferences.