I am collaborating with a colleague, and we are both using Dorico. I’ve run in to a problem where the string playback sounds different between the two files using Cinematic Strings in Halion SE. Mine seems to obey dynamics, and the timbre of the instrument changes with note Velocity. When I open his file, the volume seems to change in response to dynamics, but the timbre does not - it always sounds like a forceful, loud attack even at piano dynamic. We have different versions of Dorico (he has 3.5, I have 4) but I’m loading both of these files on my own machine with my version of Halion SE and Dorico 4. I attached both files, minimized to the problem area, and two mp3s to hear the difference. I can’t find any settings within Halion SE (or out) that would be contributing to this issue, but perhaps I’ve overlooked something?
Any help would be appreciated.
dorico attack.zip (3.9 MB)
Ok I’ve done some more digging, and I realize now that this has nothing to do with Halion SE. Somehow, this staff is routing to NotePerformer and playing through that, even though I have it set to Halion in Play Mode? See image below - but when I press Play, the Violin sound from one of the NotePerformer instances is being used…? I attached the file. What would cause this incorrect routing?
dorico attack - wrong routing.dorico (1.6 MB)
Update: I was never able to find a cause for this. I ended up just creating a new Voice for this staff and assigning the appropriate VST and channel to it, leaving the bugged one without any music in it.
Similar problem happening again, but this time there’s simply no sound coming from the track. It was working this morning, now it doesn’t even appear to be sending MIDI to the Halion VST.
Interestingly, if I just click the notes of the staff, the correct sound comes out. But during actual playback it either sends to the wrong VST (my first example above) or simply doesn’t playback anything (the present case). In both situations, clicking the notes individually in Write Mode produces the right sound.
Does anyone have any ideas here? Attached the file containing the problem.
no sound.dorico (1.3 MB)
(Note, both instances are from different Dorico projects, so this has happened in two separate projects, two separate files)
Updating this thread in case anyone else runs into this issue:
In talking to Daniel Spreadbury, it seems that this is a known issue that has to do with Playback Templates getting the file into some sort of a buggy or “unsynced” state. I am not sure if it has to do with the conversion process that takes place when sharing files between Dorico 3.5 and 4, or something else. This is a very specific edge case, where my colleagues and I use Voices to manage different sounds/instruments being played by a performer with a MIDI keyboard. If you run into a similar situation where this track no longer plays anything, or routes to the wrong VST (even though you’ve set the one you want in Play mode), here is what you can do to fix it:
- Setup mode: right click bugged Keyboard player, Duplicate Player
- Play mode: on the new Keyboard player, enable IRV (or in 3.5, click the toggle to “enable independent playback of voices”)
- Go through each voice in the new Keyboard player and set it to the same VST/channel as the original player
- Delete the old bugged player
Hope this helps someone. My colleague who has Dorico 3.5 is planning on upgrading soon, so I will update this thread if the problem goes away when Dorico stops having to do the “conversion” from 3.5 to 4 and vice versa.
