Ulf, thank you. I believe the fact that DORICO Pro 4 loads automatically an instance of HSE with SEVERAL instruments inside Dorico is the (MY!) issue (like it can be done in Kontakt as well if you want to save on RAM).
I do not like that at all and it messes up everything. Why can’t we have the option to load (in Preferences for instance) a template without HSE ? I t is my humble opinion that you are making things too complicated (I cannot imagine a beginner willing to start with Dorico - he may give up entirely and go to the competition).
Please give us the choice to load HSE when we WANT it. Do not impose it. I tried again disabling anything HSE and it works just fine.
And if I want to use HSE I only want the instance WITHOUT several instruments. (like I am used to doing in Cubase Pro or Ableton Suite).
With One instance of Kontakt (or any other VST) per instrument I had no problem with Mute and Solo!
So in short “if you want to add your own VSTs, make sure you do not select a HSE instance which has multiple instruments in it”.
PS: I understand why you offered that (it is quite handy for people starting out) but even if some HSE libraries are great I much prefer using my Kontakt libraries, VSL, Spitfire audio etc. You wanted to make it very easy (and indeed for starters it is) but made it extremely complicated for people who want to use their own VSTs.
It isn’t at all complicated once you understand what’s going on, but it’s true that because Dorico tries to hide away some of the more manual aspects of routing audio, if you’re not careful you can end up in a confusing situation and be unsure how to solve it.
I have spent some time drafting some information today that explains the assumptions that Dorico is making, and we’ll publish that soon, once I’ve had other members of the team give it a quick check. I think once you understand how Dorico approaches the relationship between the MIDI channel you choose in the Routing section of the inspector and the output channels displayed in the Mixer, you can then easily adjust the settings of your VST instruments to match those assumptions, correctly connecting the input MIDI channel to the audio output that Dorico expects to return the signal.
Oh FredGUnn I can’t believe I missed that !! Oh thank you thank you thank you Now all my issues are solved. No more HSE things to deal with !! Fantastic!!
Daniel, I look forward to your article explaining this further. What confuses me (as a Kontakt novice, perhaps) is that I thought I had set up Kontakt to output on separate channels, which presumably would give me control of them individually through the Dorico mixer. I welcome the opportunity to learn where I went wrong. Thanks for taking the extra time to write your explanatory article. I look forward to it.
I think I understand how this all works, but just wanted to point out a few of the issues that are certainly not intuitive for someone using an external VST host, in case you want to address them in that documentation or make changes.
Here’s an example with 4 trumpets and 4 trombones that are sharing a single instance in VEPro. As there’s only one return signal, the mixer looks like this on playback:
None of the mixer sliders other than Trumpet 1 and Output do anything. The Solo buttons on the other channels of course solo silence as there’s no signal there, and the Mute buttons don’t do anything. I suppose if Dorico knew there was no signal and greyed out the channels then people would be asking why they are greyed out, but as it is this does seem pretty unclear to have all these non-functional sliders. (Side issue that has also been mentioned is that I never want reverb or compression added by default here either.)
The endpoint setup only has a checkbox for audio outputs. Even if I select 1, it still shows all 8 in the Mixer as there are 8 outputs going out to VEP. This seems unclear too as this setting is only useful for removing unused outputs, so the setting number here doesn’t match reality.
If we had the ability to customize the names and specify which to show/hide, I would relabel the Trumpet 1 slider to be Brass, and remove all the non-functioning sliders. I suppose any time you add the ability to hide or relabel something people will complain about that too, but as it is now the Trumpet 1 slider isn’t really Trumpet 1, the number of audio outputs setting doesn’t reflect reality, the sliders for everything other than Trumpet 1 don’t do anything, the Solo buttons on those other sliders effectively are Mute buttons, and the Mute buttons don’t do anything. That’s a lot of conflicting information to balance for someone new to figuring all this out.
…so, sounds like there is no way to get a separate slider for separate instruments coming from Kontakt? Or did I miss your explanation on how to do that?
Peter, the additional outputs are there and adjustable in Dorico - If they are not assigned to a player you have to press the toggle to see “unused”. If they are assigned to a player, the midi channel and the output have to match up as Ulf is explaining.
I “think” I understand it, but I still have to verify what I am doing sometimes to get the expected result. I have to say, in VEP where there is explicit control of what goes where, I also still have to verify what I am doing sometimes.
Everything config I have seen so far in software is placed on the channel/instrument. What I mean is, if I am trying to figure out why I am weirdly getting tuba, I have to go through and check all the channel and VST settings individually.
What I would prefer is something like a normal’ed patch bay; a view where you could see what is going where all at once. So I guess a patch bay with good labeling.
Hi @Mina_Botros , have you carefully read the whole thread here?
And can you post a stripped down version of your project file where you delete all the notes but leave the instruments routing and settings as they are? Thank you
It might help if there were a link in this thread to the additional information which Daniel said he was preparing. Or has it been incorporated into the manual? It’s sometimes difficult to know whether the best explanation is in the manual, the version history or the forum!
Hi everyone,
Has this issue been clarified somewhere ? I am confronted to the same problem when using Kontakt Player in Dorico Elements 5. Even though the Endpoint setup assigns all instruments to port 1, but different channels - the same port and channels selected in Kontakt Player for the very same instruments - in the mixer, everything is apparently routed at playback to the first instrument, no matter what (only this first instrument’s volume lights up in the mixer at playback). So soloing and muting the various tracks has either strictly no effect or mutes everything, accordingly to the routing of everything to channel 1.
Up to now, the workaround I am using is muting or soloing directly in Kontakt. Not very convenient, but effective, at least when there is only one voice per staff.
If one want s Kontact to send its output to separate Dorico mixer channels, then one must set up Kontact to do so. There are videos on YouTube that describe how to do this.
Thanks for the feedback but can you be a little more specific here ? Which YouTube video ? I could not find any where I could spot what I might have done wrong concerning channel assignment in Kontakt.
Also I have used Kontakt in other music notation software, and never encountered this problem.
Just for the record, here are three image captures showing the channel assignments in Kontakt Player, the first two instruments in the Track Editor, and the Endpoint Setup.
It’s the output from Kontakt that you need to change. By default everything comes out of 1/2. But each instrument in your Kontakt instance needs to output on its own pair of channels 1/2, 3/4, 5/6 etc.
(Sorry, I can’t remember where the setting in Kontakt is to do this)
An alternative approach is to load each Dorico instrument into a different Kontakt instance. Then route the track to the appropriate Kontakt instance.
@ Janus & others
Using one Kontakt instance per instrument was precisely what I routinely used to do in my previous notation software, but I chose not to for quick tests in Dorico. This is probably why I never encountered the problem before.
Now all my issues are solved. No more HSE things to deal with !! Fantastic!!
