Dorico and Halion volume

Dorico
1

Hi all,

I could not find it in the forum, thus here is my question:

I have Dorico 3 and HALion6.

In Dorico i have a few notes playing a Violin from HALion. When I adjust the volum of the Violin in HALion (in the mix tab) and I subsequently hit ‘Play’ in Dorico, then the volume in HALion is changed back to its original level.

Why does this happen?
How to prevent this?
What is the proper way to set HALion volume (from Dorico)?

Thanks
Antoine

2

Most likely HALion is taking its volume cues from Dorico (Expression Mapping?) and resetting its CC1 or CC11 or the like.

A similar situation exists with Finale/Garritan: if one tries to set baseline volume in the ARIA mixer, Human Playback messages form Finale reset the ARIA volume sliders, so one must use the Finale Mixer to set baseline levels that will not change.

See if setting your baseline levels with the Dorico Mixer gives you the results you want.

3

Yes, I can use the Dorico mixer, but this controls the overall Halion volume and not the balance between the individual sounds that I have loaded within one HALion instance.

I indeed suspect that midi information (from the expression map settings; velocity?) is being send to HALion but I don’t want to mess with the expression map settings just for sake of volume. Or should I?

4

You do not have individual sliders for each instrument in the Dorico mixer? That’s what I imagined you would be able to use.

5

The faders in the Dorico mixer control each output channel of HALion. So you can control all the sounds separately. If you find that this isn’t happening and its just controlling the overall output level than that suggests that you don’t have all the HALion channels sent to separate outputs. Usually the washing thing to do is reset the playback template in Play > Playback Templates (to Hsse/HSO) and this will load the correct configuration

6

I think Antoine is using full HALion 6 rather than HSSE, so loading the default playback configuration won’t help. However, assigning an appropriate expression map to each channel that defines the appropriate approach to controlling volume/dynamics for each sound you have loaded into HALion 6 is going to be a crucial step. Dorico sends “all notes off” and resets all controllers every time you start playback, so if you want another controller value, you should preferably set the desired dynamic in Write mode and make sure it’s going to an appropriate controller in the expression map, or you could add controller data manually in the automation lane.

7

Thanks, will have a look at this later.

8

Hello,
create a new key editor in Dorico 5 and select the standardised midi command CC-7 for Level (volume of the slot). You can now use the pen tool to enter a different level or automations of the level. When the play button is used again, the new level is both displayed and played back in Halion. Both the pen input and the desired reaction of the level only worked the second time, don’t give up!

best, Michael