DORICO PRO 4 / Own VSTs / Play Button Activating Time

Hello, using my own VSTs (in option when creating a project it is set as SILENT) I would like to know why it takes “forever” (a good 10 to 15 minutes) for the PLAY BUTTON to become activated when I reopen my project the very next day or later.

I am assuming it is loading my VSTs ? (In Cubase Pro or Ableton Suite it is immediate).

Why why why ?

Would checking “Open Vst plug-in windows when opening projects” help ? Meaning the program would let me know when it is ready to go (activating the play /rewind etc buttons)?

But honestly if I have to wait that long (right now I only have 4 instance of VST in my project) isn’t this not optimized at all and a big flaw compared to Cubase and Ableton ? Just asking.

As always thank you very much.

Lys K

Hi, this is certainly not normal and shall not be. For a start, please do Help > Create Diagnostics Report and post the zip file here, please. I doubt that it will yield something useful, but it is a starting point. After that we need to deploy some developer tool to go into deep analysis. But one step after the other.

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Ulf tank you. PS: I tried loading a template first (without VSTs - silent mode - Piano solo template for instance) and the Play button showed up almost right away. THEN (pay attention :slight_smile: ) I loaded my own template with my own VSTs and it loads in exactly 1 minute. If I do NOT load a template first then loading my own template takes 15 to 20 minutes for the play buttons etc to appear (just discovered that about loading a template first I wanted to troubleshoot the issue). If I try to access any play function during this time I will get the “wheel of death” → program has to be closed using ALT DEL / Task Manager (Windows 10).
Here is the file you requested. Thank you again.
Dorico Diagnostics.zip (3.0 MB)

Thanks for the data. As expected, the log files don’t give me very much information so we need to deploy some special tool called Windows Performance Recorder (WPR).
WPR is part of the Windows Performance Toolkit, that you can download from here: Download and install the Windows ADK | Microsoft Docs
You don’t need to install everything, the installer allows you to just install the WPR and nothing else.
The usage is pretty simple. First you start up Dorico and get prepared to load that project which will take such long time. Then you start WPR and press the start button (of WPR). After that immediately turn to Dorico and initiate the loading.
Now, as the data that gets recorded become plenty over time, you don’t need to wait until the project is finally loaded, already after let’s say 3 minutes push the Stop button in WPR. Follow the on-screen instructions and save the data. At first the recorded data is very big but if you zip it up it will become much smaller, though still not small enough for a mail attachment. So instead please use a sharing service like Drop Box, We Transfer or similar and post the according link here.
And also very important, please tell me the exact Dorico version that you are using.
Thanks for your effort.

Ulf as always thank you very much for your prompt answer,

I am very busy finishing up a project for the time being so I will do the WPR later.

I am still stubborn :slight_smile: so I still tried to find out what is going on and I think I have made some progress.

FIRST: loading a template before loading my template is useless. I was wrong. That was just a coincidence.

SECOND: The play buttons activation (its time to be available) is indeed related to DORICO wanting to load the LATEST VST instrument you used before saving/closing the project.

As soon as for instance my Bohemian Violin VST was loaded (that was the one I was working with last night before saving/closing) and its window APPEARED ON SCREEN (despite the fact that I do NOT have in PREFERENCES “Open Vst plug-in windows when opening projects”) then the PLAY button was available. It took about 15 minutes.

THIRD: So I experimented several times. I have a couple of instruments without VSTs yet. I clicked on one of them… selected “…” (the dots) in ROUTING [PLAY WINDOW] in order to make sure they match with “NO VST”. I SAVED everything that way, CLOSED Project. CLOSED Dorico Pro (by the way I am using the LATEST version 4.0.31 ) and then reopened Dorico and reopened my project: PLAY button were available in less than a minute.

So I can live with that. I just have to remember to save my project using LAST an empty VST.

FOURTH: That is a question for you :slight_smile: In the PLAY window and when you click on the different instruments attached to a VST they render the sound of the VST in question - perfect of course - BUT if you switch (click) to an instrument which doesn’t have a VST attached to it yet (it has the dots “…” in Routing) why does it take the sound of the last VST used ? For instance I was playing my Bohemian VST ( even using my midi keyboard), I switched / clicked to/on the “Oboe” which has NO VST attached to it (yet) and I am getting the sound of the Bohemian Violin. You could not have this in Cubase Pro for instance (or Ableton or Pro tools)

I LOVE Dorico and Steinberg in general so I will only say (very humble thoughts) that Dorico with your own VSTs is still a work in progress for the engineers / programmers who have created this program. Notation software + DAW behavior that is no easy task.

Thank you so much if you managed to read this until the end without a headache :slight_smile: It is always so nice to see you here helping people.

Hi, actually I did have a headache after reading this :wink:
but just because I’m so busy with other stuff at the moment.
So I will come back later when I have more time to read and understand.
I’ll be back…promised :slight_smile:

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I’m back… :wink:

So for you question about the sound for unassigned players, well, to be honest I don’t know. Cubase has it own logic and Dorico has yet anther one, and other programs might even have yet another. So there is no spec of what needs to be done under such circumstances.
I was not involved in the design and implementation of this kind of logic in Dorico so I can’t really tell the intention behind it. On the other hand, it doesn’t look completely illogically to me either.
And I really appreciate when you do a WPR once you are less busy. Thanks