Feature Request: ReWire/MTC

Definitely takes off on its own. I also tried options like auto-punch for a certain region but no dice. Auto punch only takes effect when you press record on the transport - and that still takes off like a rabbit. I agree with you FWIW. Reaper is just as you say, and Pro Tools too as far as I recall.

Interesting. Might be some settings somewhere in S1. Could it be using it’s own clock, but just getting MMC to ‘start/stop’ or something? I’m baffled at how the transport could track in slave mode if there’s not time code coming in. Maybe some kind of flag in there to disable that behavior?

I did read appropriate sections in the fabulous manual a few more times, but no answers popped out. Not the end of the world especially with the transport window as you mentioned.

Thank you for the heads up on this Brian…
I managed to get Dorico synced up with Logic using the IACBus on my Mac and this Timecode app - Wow, this is huge! Not having so much luck syncing to Cubase, but I must be doing something wrong…I need to play around with it a bit more. For those people that miss REWIRE, this TXL Timecode app does work. You can demo it for free and it only costs 20euros. I also managed to record the output of Dorico into Logic by using a program from Rogue Amoeba called Loopback. This seemed to work well (after trying a few other audio routing apps) and with a bit of negative track delay I was able to hear that it all stayed in sync on playback. I did have to start Dorico a couple of bars early and then jump over to Logic and hit the record button. All in all this opens up a lot of possibilities.

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Not sure if the Mac thing would be a huge difference, but here’s my method for syncing to Cubase on Windows. Works well here.

  1. In Dorcio load the TXL Timecode VST in the playtab’s Instrument rack. Set the Midi Output dropdown to the MIDI port you wish to send the timecode over. In my case I’ve used loopMIDI to set up a virtual port. I’ll leave everything else alone and just go with the defaults and deal with the offsets in my DAW.

  2. In Cubase’s top menu go to Transport/Project Synchronization Setup and establish these settings.

  3. This part is optional and one can kind of guess at it instead, but I do it to get an idea of exactly where on the timeline Dorico makes a sound and set my project time code offset accordingly.

I suspect the settings one needs can all change a bit if you change sample rates, or use a different audio device later, etc.

a. Use ASIOLink Pro (or Jack2, or reaStream, or an actual patch cord) to send Dorico’s audio output into the Cubase Mixer. I set up a track to record this input and arm it.

b. Make sure the Cubase Project Setup “Start Time” and “Display Time Offset” are set to zero to begin with. You can get there from the main menu: Project/Project Setup (Shift s).

c. Choose the timecode display option in the transport, DISABLE the tempo track, and click record on the Cubase transport. It turns red but nothing happens yet as the transport is waiting for some time code to tell it to move.

d. I play my Dorico score from the very beginning and let a few bars record in Cubase. Note that it won’t be at the start of the project at this time, but rather, several seconds in.

e. After stopping Dorico disable record on the Cubase Transport if it doesn’t happen by itself. If we don’t do this “Project Set Up” will be grayed out when we need it below.

f. In the Cubase project view select the event that just recorded in Cubase. Tap the l key so the Cubase cursor snaps to the beginning of the part.

g. Double click the cursor position to highlight it, and tap ctrl-c (to copy it into the text buffer).

h. In the Main Cubase Menu go to Project/Project Setup (Shift S).

i. Double click Project Start Time and tap ctrl v to paste in the cursor position.

Click OK
Cubase will ask if it should keep the event at the current time position.
Choose Yes.

At this point the transport is now in sync with Dorico.

Optionally you can set a time code offset in the Cubase Project Setup. In this example I will round up from the start time we pasted earlier to the nearest second so my first bar-line in Cubase shows as 00:00:00:00, and there’s a few frames of leadin for Dorico to get ramped up.

Click OK
This time when Cubase asks if it should move the event to the time position choose NO; because, we want it to stay right where it is, at the beginning of the project.

And now the Cubase transport is locked and loaded. If one wants the grid to kind of match up with what’s going on in Dorico in terms of bar sizes and whatnot, don’t forget that you can export a Master Track in MIDI format from Dorico, and import it into Cubase. Just remember disable the Tempo track after importing it so the transport stays locked up with the time code.

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Thank you very much, Brian. I will experiment and report back!

I have Dorico and Cubase synced up perfectly - Thanks Brian - and using a Mac program called Loopback from Rogue Amoeba I am able to record audio from Dorico into Cubase with virtually no latency. It should be possible to work successfully with both programs together - I will have to try it in a real world project now, but essentially, it looks good!

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Please tell if you face any problems or just how the workflow turned out to be like!

I tried today syncing cubase and dorico - it works very well!

For MIDI routing from dorico to cubase, I used macs own AUDIO-MIDI Studio. In there, you have to create a midi port by double clicking the red thing in the top left corner:

For me, the difference in timecode was roughly 20 seconds. I wonder where this difference comes from, it seems that dorico and the TXL Timecode -plugin have different timecodes unless it is manually corrected.

For me it was sort of a first love elation, but I feel as if I spoke too soon in this thread. It does work as advertised so can’t complain about the product. But alas, once past the first experiments with a couple of instruments - I’ve found that the load on my machine is (perhaps obviously) much higher that running Dorico alone, which means the sound devolves into crackles and pauses that much faster.

I might find use for it? But because offline audio exports from Dorico are always artifact free, I find it much more useful to build a high level sketch first, then work on certain parts or section at a time, export as audio and import a “video” of my current progress into Dorico as I work on remaining sections. I have hopes that version 4 will have made the on/off switches for instruments in the play tab a little more finished and consistent in their display.

Dig around at the TXL website. There is a PDF file for it somewhere. It explains how certain MIDI Notes can be sent at different velocities to set the plugin’s ‘start time’.

Since that can require yet another stave to mess with, or some other kludge to get it all set up, I just found it easier to go with whatever pops up here, and offset in the DAW.

Rather used to it from working with real-world SMPTE stripes anyway (when working with real tape you get what you get on the stime-code-stripe).

I’m not sure if there are any major benefits when working with only vst instruments, but I think the MTC sync opens up very exiting possibilities for composing for any kind of mix of real players and sound design/tape material.

It would be excellent if this sync could be expanded to time signatures, bar/beat structure, tempo track and rehearsal marks - and if dorico could also follow cubase with playback. Perhaps in version 5?

Agreed, it’d mostly be of interest for doing audio tracking work. I.E. Laying in sound effects for a film score. I.E. Nuendo users taking advantage of post production tools to make a game score (You’d probably ultimately want to just do a full MIDI import for this, but it still might be really nice for creative/compositional stages).

If you want a tempo grid that matches up with Dorico try exporting a master track from Dorico then importing it into Cubase (import MIDI file). Once you’ve imported it make a tempo track and you should see that it matches your Score. Set Cubase to use the Tempo track, but don’t forget you can independently lock tracks to time-code or the tempo track.

If one were to host the instruments in Cubase rather than Dorico and play them over virtual MIDI ports there ‘might’ be some mixing advantages. Worth the trouble? In most cases probably not, but if there’s some reason that you might benefit from the advanced mixing console, and/or the real-time transformation, routing and such afforded by Cubase, well there ya go (people who use a lot of external gear might find it advantageous to route from Dorico into Cubase, then to the instrument(s)). Note there might also be some ‘disadvantages’ to it…particularly if you’re using advanced VST3 plugins, dealing with micro-tuning, note-expression stuff that might be supported by Dorico (not sure what of that it uses at this time), etc.

Of course it is possible to export the tempo track and bar structure once it is finished, but while working on a composition you have to do any alterations to it twice (if you want to have the structures synced).

Yesterday I traced the tempo of a piece I had transcribed in dorico, now it plays in sync with the original audio file (playing in cubase). Matching the tempo in dorico went quite nicely just by listening and drawing lines to the dorico tempo track (dorico playing back in left speaker and cubase (original audio) in right speaker)

This proved quite benetificial approach as I later got the stems to the recording from the composer and could refine the transcription by soloing different tracks in cubase.

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“… exciting possibilities for composing for any kind of mix of real players and …”

Definitely agree on those benefits. I think the technology is there (or mostly there.) I think that for me the issue is a lack of processing power.

Noticed today that there is an update for the TXL Timecode plugin to version 2.
TXL Timecode Plug-in - TXL (txl20.com)

One of the best things about time code sync…is you can drag some of that old hardware out of the closet and put it to use. Run some stuff on a different machine.

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I wonder if Dorico 4 will have the fabled Dorico->Cubase linkage. One can hope! We’ll find out next week at any rate.

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I bought Cubase 11 for this reason. Even if it doesn’t come with Dorcio 4 it will come eventually.

I seem to remember Daniel saying that although integration with Cubase is clearly coming in the future, it will not be included in Dorico 4. However, I have been unable to locate any such comment and hope I am wrong. Perhaps somebody else might recall related comments from Daniel that will either heighten (hopefully) or dampen our excitement.

I’m almost certain you’re correct with your first thought. I too remember Daniel making some such assertion. However, in using the TXL Timecode plugin recently and doing some experimentation I found that syncing the two programs up worked very well and I was also able to route audio successfully into Cubase from Dorico. I was impressed with the ability to drag midi regions from Cubase into Dorico which I had never actually tried before. It will be interesting to see how future closer integration will actually manifest itself because many things are possible right now, and each program will always have it’s own strengths and weaknesses. If you want the best of both worlds then I would not hold your breath for D4 - could be wrong of course, but rather I would dive in with this sync plugin and an internal audio routing app (I’m using ‘Loopback’ on a Mac) and just use the two programs together in a way that works for your particular work flow, if that’s what you need.

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