This seems to be a relatively common thread on the forums but the answers are always a little different and seemingly circumstantial to each individual case, so I’d like to seek help from those who might have more ideas I haven’t already tried.
In Dorico Pro 6, my audio cuts out pretty frequently for a second or two before coming back on. Occasionally the drops are longer than that. It doesn’t seem to matter the size of the ensemble I’m using, so it seems unlikely that it’s a simple matter of overloading the audio process.
I’m running v6.2.30.6245 (May 29 2026) with AudioEngine v6.1.10.13, although this has been an issue for a long time and I’m only now asking about it.
Here is my device setup; I have also tried the Steinberg built-in ASIO driver and it was somehow even worse. The sample rate matches Windows and (as you can see) also matches the MOTU setup window.
I’ll also attach a LatencyMon graph. When the audio cuts out, there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as to what the top bar is doing and the rest pretty much stay static the whole time.
Let’s see, what else. No other applications exhibit any kind of audio issues whatsoever. I’ve had this same behavior with both NotePerformer and HALion. I’ve attached the requisite diagnostic report. I can’t think of anything else to add here although I’m sure that will happen shortly after I post. Thanks for any help anyone might be able to offer.
using the Motu driver in your case is the best choice, but in the driver panel you don’t have the option ticked for syncing with Windows’ sample rate. Please try that one.
That box is supposed to be checked by default, but I had clearly unchecked it at some point; I wonder if I was having different problems before that prompted me to do so. Of course now I’ll never know. It could have been years ago.
At any rate, turning that back on was certainly an adventure. Checking that box forced me to restart my computer because it somehow hung the Windows Audio service. But upon return, I was able to at least get sound working again. I opened Dorico to the most recent project I’d finished, which is only string orchestra. There are still audio drops.
Of note, perhaps, checking that box doesn’t seem to do what it says it should do. One can still change the sample rates in the MOTU software and Windows independently.
I’ve had dropouts before and the issue was always the sample rate being wrong, too low for the samples being used. Kicked it up to 4800 and the problem went away.
I’d similarly say like rawmuse that it is a sample rate mismatch issue. Doesn’t matter if it be 44.1kHz or 48kHz, but make sure that every app and Windows are using the same sample rate.
Also, we know that Dorico has some deficit at the moment in detecting sample rate changes that come from outside. In the next major Dorico version a fix will finally come for that. Until then, yes, double check on the sample rate settings in Dorico and everywhere else.
I think I’m comfortable at this point calling it fixed. Despite having multiple drops directly after changing the settings and restarting my computer, it’s been a day and a half and no more drops after that. Perhaps the drops were leftover from what Ulf mentioned regarding detection of sample rate changes that come from outside the program. At any rate, it’s really curious to me that having matched sample rates wasn’t enough (my sample rate in Windows before was also 48k but I neglected to take a screenshot). But somehow specifically telling my interface driver to link them by force did the trick. Weird.
