Dorico 4.1.10 + VE Pro Routing Issue

[Thurisaz]

Hello Dorico team and especially @Ulf, as your are the right man for this particular issue.
I’m not sure where the problem is, but worth to check.

Here is the Playback Template I created yesterday for the Berlin Harpsichords. Today I added
variant with VE Pro Template:

Expression Maps and Playback Templates for Orchestral Tools - Berlin Harpsichords

Hello Dorico team and dear colleagues, Here are my sets for the two great Harpsichords sampled by Orchestral Tools: UPDATE (16.07.2022): Updated French Harpsichord Expression Maps and Playback Template A new Playing Technique was added - “lute” for stopped / muted articulations Berlin Harpsichords.zip (3.5 MB) UPDATE (16.07.2022): VE Pro Server Template and Dorico Playback Templates: Updated French Harpsichord Expression Maps and Playback Template A new Playing Technique was added - “l…

For the test download the Berlin Harpsichords VE Pro.zip.
Then:

1. Load both Playback Templates into Dorico
2. In case you don’t own the library, use different Kontakt Piano libraries to replace both Harpsichords in the VE Pro Template.
3. Set Dorico’s default Playback Template to Silent, or Library that doesn’t own a Harpsichord
4. Load a Harpsichord project in Dorico
5. Go to Play > Playback Tempates and choose OT Italian Harpsichord VE Pro
6. In Write Mode click on the staff and start pressing keys on the MIDI keyboard
   Result: Behaves as expected.
7. Go to Play > Playback Tempates and choose OT French Harpsichord VE Pro in order
   to change the instrument.
8. In Write Mode click on the staff and start pressing keys on the MIDI keyboard
   Result: Cannot produce any sound!

• If you change the Channel/Port in the Inspector, forth and back, then there is
  a sound again. This is the only way to fix this behavior.

N.B: I haven’t tried to reproduce this issue by hosting VIs internally.

Best wishes,
Thurisaz

[gdball]

FWIW (Since ULF doesn’t have VEP Pro) I would like to add a couple of comments:

1. There is “Dancing light” evidence that MIDI is being received by VEP, but not by the VST within VEP until the procedure mentioned is followed.

2. The same behavior happens with at least four other VST of different types.

3. Any combination of Connecting, Disconnecting, or Reconnecting VEP Pro seems to make no difference whatsoever.

4. Loading or swapping different VST into the port/channel in VEP has no effect.

Might be a fault of VEP and Dorico is doing everything right, I just find it interesting that changing the port/channel to something else in Dorico fixes it for me too.

[Thurisaz]

Hi @gdball,
Yes, VE Pro receives some MIDI data, but since there is no sound… something wrong happens in the communication.
The previous Dorico version has had a serious problem with the routing, so I’m wondering if this could be a leftover that haven’t been noticed?!
It looks more like VE Pro issue, but it’s also possible Dorico to send data to a “deaf” port / channel, no matter what the settings are. The fact that changing the port / channel fixes the problem, is another thing that makes me think about possible bug in Dorico.

Ulf could conduct test with internally hosted VIs.

Best wishes,
Thurisaz

[Ulf]

Hi, I don’t really know, but to me it looks rather something is wrong with the templates.
I don’t have VE Pro and can’t reproduce that what you are describing.

I see a different behaviour though, if I do like this:

1. Set Dorico to Silence template
2. Start a new Harpsichord project
3. Go to Play Mode and choose Thurisaz’ Italian template
4. Go to VST Rack and into the Italian Harpsichord slot load some other VSTinstrument, e.g. Pianoteq
   Then no sound will come when playing my keyboard or inputting notes, because when looking at Track Inspector > Routing, then the MIDI-Port is set to Port 2. If I change that to 1, then sound does come out.

If I repeat the above steps and choose the French template instead, then it is fine immediately, I don’t need to change the MIDI Port, sound comes immediately.

I found a second problem, but that seems to be a general issue and happens with any template. Like above, start with Silence template, then choose any other template, fine, but choosing another template after that and all MIDI gets routed again to DoricoBeep. So this looks like the other known MIDI routing bug.

The London team needs to have a look at both issues and see what goes wrong.

[Thurisaz]

Hi Ulf,

Well, here if I open the harpsichords separately (as two separate projects) everything works as expected. The problem occurs only when I’m trying two switch from one harpsichord (e.g the Italian) to another (e.g. the French) within the very same project just by using the Playback Templates function. This bug happens in the opposite direction, too.
I hope the team in London will have time to deeply investigate the problem.

Best wishes,
Thurisaz