In future versions, please revisit the default sounds used for the vocal parts. They seem excessively delayed, wobbly, and flat to my ears. In order to be useful, I have to switch them to another instrument. To be sure, this is an issue in other notation programs as well, but the Dorico defaults are even more delayed, wobbly, and flat than the voice sounds in Sibelius and Finale, which I don’t like either.
Side note-- I use playback as a “proofreading” tool more than anything, and generally switch to oboe/bassoon or clarinet family sounds right off the bat for choral voices so that I can hear more accurately what is on the page. I have been poking about, trying to figure out how to change the sounds for the individual voices in Dorico, and have been getting a lot of unexpected results, none of them particularly useful. I could really use a thorough tutorial on how to effectively use the playback options beyond the defaults.
I generally find choral samples to be pretty dire, and I likewise also tend to switch the sounds for flute/clarinet/oboe/bassoon for an SATB choir. This is easy enough to do in Dorico: simply show the HALion Sonic SE window in Play mode, and click the little downward-pointing arrow to the right of the name of the sample loaded into the first slot, and in the MediaBay window that appears, type e.g. “Flute”. I suggest you choose the sounds whose names include “Combi” as these are the HALion Symphonic Orchestra sounds, and they’re generally of a higher quality than the other orchestral instrument sounds in the HALion Sonic SE set. Repeat as necessary for the other three voices, and that should be that. When you save and reopen your project, your preferred sounds will be loaded once more, so you need do this only once.
Thanks so much!
Took me a bit to figure out how to show the HALion Sonic SE window, but I finally found it, and it works like a charm.
I ought to mention that if you change some sounds from their defaults and then notice excess vibrato then that will be because the original sound used mod wheel to control dynamics but the new patch doesn’t. Currently there isn’t a way to change this, but we’re working on it for the next update.
Yesterday I installed Dorico and way playing a little bit with my new software… when I discovered the Samples of human voices (I was looking for opera sound) I was really shocked! This is far from being a professional tool!
Please instal in a very soon update some useful and realistic singers!
I know this is not easy, but in Sibelius at least you can use the samples, in Dorico not at all. Changing the sound to some instruments is the only way, but not an alternative… “the new gold standard” of professional notation should do better!
I could just use something not so staccato. Maybe there is a setting somewhere?
You can change the default un-slurred note duration on the Timing page of Play > Playback Options.
I generally find choral samples to be pretty dire, and I likewise also tend to switch the sounds for flute/clarinet/oboe/bassoon for an SATB choir. This is easy enough to do in Dorico: simply show the HALion Sonic SE window in Play mode, and click the little downward-pointing arrow to the right of the name of the sample loaded into the first slot, and in the MediaBay window that appears, type e.g. “Flute”. I suggest you choose the sounds whose names include “Combi” as these are the HALion Symphonic Orchestra sounds, and they’re generally of a higher quality than the other orchestral instrument sounds in the HALion Sonic SE set. Repeat as necessary for the other three voices, and that should be that. When you save and reopen your project, your preferred sounds will be loaded once more, so you need do this only once.
I tried this with the “Combi” instruments, and find that e.g. the Oboe Combi’s range extends only to the B-flat below middle C, not low enough for a tenor line. How do you make these instruments work outside the sampled ranges? I’d rather use good-sounding samples than general MIDI sounds if possible.
I tried using the sonatina choir which is really not too bad as a free plugin: bigcat Instruments: bigcat Maize VSTis
It’s a VST2 plugin so you’ll need to add to the whitelist (search this forum for info on that)