Dorico 3.5 suspend audio checkbox removed?

[drinkpen]

Hi everyone (first post here so hoping this is ok!),

I’ve had a look to see if this had been posted about since 3.5 released, but can’t find anything - I’ve just upgraded from 3 to 3.5, and have noticed that the tickbox under preferences for ‘Suspend audio device in background’ (I’ve attached a pic) is no longer present, only the button for ‘Audio Device Setup…’, which is meaning Dorico always has exclusive control of my audio. I’ve seen in other posts about using the tickbox on the generic low latency asio for this, however I run everything through a Tascam US-16x08 interface so am not using that specific asio.

Everything worked great in the previous version while this feature was present (as well as in Cubase where the functionality is the same, still has this, and works great because of it) - I could notate and listen in Dorico and flick to something else and listen to that, for example transcribing from Youtube or Spotify etc, but can no longer do this without that tickbox. I’ve checked my Windows sound settings and those of the interface to confirm it isn’t set to allow exclusivity of certain programs, but as it stands I can’t hear anything outside of Dorico unless I shut it down, without that tickbox being there.

Has anyone else noticed this? I’m kind of hoping it’s just moved somewhere or something and I can’t find it, as I’m kind of at a loss with what to do without this option…!

Thanks and hope everyone is safe and well,
Joe

[dspreadbury]

Welcome to the forum, Joe. Yes, the ‘Suspend audio engine when application is in the background’ checkbox has indeed been removed in Dorico 3.5, and the underlying option has been disabled. This feature was responsible for a great many crashes on both Windows and Mac, and we decided to remove it until such time as we can figure out how to achieve a stable result when it’s active. I don’t believe we fully understand the reasons for the instability when this option is active, but as I understand it there’s something about the fact that Dorico and its audio engine are running as separate processes and the manner of their communication that leads to the problem. This fundamental architecture isn’t likely to change, but perhaps we will figure out a way of bringing it back in future.

I’m sorry it’s inconvenient to you not to have that option any longer. I would hope you would be able to achieve some kind of settings in Edit > Device Setup that would still allow you to hear both Dorico and other applications on your computer, but I’m afraid as a Mac user I can’t personally provide the magic incantation you might need.

[JesterMusician]

I don’t have your interface, but the Tascam website has some recently updated drivers that suggest it now works better with multiple clients (they merged their “Basic” driver with their “Mixing” driver). Perhaps you can give that a shot? https://tascam.com/us/product/us-16x08/download

[drinkpen]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the responses on this - I’m loving the software aside from this. I’m on the latest driver for the interface so it looks like there’s not a lot I can do at the moment, fingers crossed it can come back in the future!

Thanks,
Joe

[bullquartz]

Joe could try using VB voicemeeter https://www.vb-audio.com/Voicemeeter/

This works for me. You feed your Dorico output into Voicemeeter main virtual input and then your windows audio (eg spotify/youtube) into your Voicemeeter virtual Aux input. I can make a short video on this on Youtube if you or anyone is interested.

[GalbE]

I hope you guys find a solution, as the omission is a real problem for me using YouTube and other sources to make transcriptions for my students. It worked OK in Dorico 3.0 for many months. Windows 10, mediocre computer with ASIO for all on Behringer USB mixer . No crashes, so I’m surprised it disappeared. I’m back to Dorico 3.0 for now. But I’m going to try Voicemeeter.

[dspreadbury]

Although I don’t use Windows myself, I believe it’s pretty simple to set up. See e.g. this earlier post by FredGUnn.