I’m on a Mac running OS 10.9.5, which I realize isn’t officially supported, but nonetheless I wonder if anyone else is having this –
I’m using the default “Built-in Output” audio. Each time I switch back to the Dorico window I find that my output volume is at 100%. Immediately, playback is insanely loud. I turn it down (using the OS volume slider at top right), and continue working – but if I switch out of Dorico to another window then come back, volume returns to 100% until I manually turn it down again.
Super annoying – is this just an OS issue? Is this a feature or a bug?
Go to Edit > Device Setup, click the Device Control Panel button, and switch off the option ‘Set Device Attenuation to 0dB’, and that should take care of it.
I absolutely agree. A week or two ago ago I thought I had permanently damaged my hearing when this happened. My ears rang for days afterwards. It took a while to figure out that Dorico was the culprit (as I had Logic and other things running at the time and I kept muting my outputs before I felt able to put anything through my system) and then some Googling to find someone with Daniel’s answer/solution above who had this problem using Cubase in 2012.
This option should definitely be unticked by default. If there are users who want this feature on then they can easily go and tick the option. This is a really dangerous feature and someone is going to have damaged eardrums at some point if it isn’t fixed.
This may be an issue specific to class-compliant audio interfaces when using any of Steinberg ASIO applications for macOS.
There is a reason why ‘Set Device Attenuation to 0dB’ is ticked on by default, but I agree that this should be ticked off.
Since Dorico 4, as Ulf says, the default for this option has been to be disabled, i.e. that your system volume level will not be set to 0dB by default.
I am now having this same issue in Dorico 6.1.10 and my “Set Device Attenuation to 0db” is clicked off. Any other things I can check besides, the mixer, which also doesn’t appear to be the problem. Running Dorico on a MacBook Pro.
In that case it is definitely not our app any more that sets the output to 0dB.
Do you have other audio apps as well or maybe turned up the volume by hand yourself?
Or try to reset the Audio engine Data; a corresponding knob you find in the Dorico preferences on the VST Plug-ins tab and there scroll all the way down.
If you did push that button, turn down the volume by hand, restart your computer and start Dorico again. How’s the volume setting then?
Thank you, Ulf. But the problem appears to be with the setup of my External Headphones in my Audio Devices on my Mac. For some reason, the Channel Volume was turned up extremely high. Now my concern is why this might have happened. I have adjusted it to a lower setting and plan to restart my computer to see if this fixes it. Fingers crossed!