Been a Finale user for decades and switched over to Dorico last week. I’ve got a lot of it figured out but one MASSIVE problem has stumped me.
On Finale the strings sounds were always on the beat during playback. In Dorico they are “late” or slightly behind the beat and so don’t match up with winds or percussion. Why is this happening and how do I fix it? Many thanks for assistance.
Which instrument library are you using?
Whichever the software came with, I guess HALion Sonic. Iconica sketch for the Ex Map. I never use a piano keyboard, I do everything simple entry on a MacBook Air. I don’t need fancy strings sounds, I just need them to be on the beat. 
Try the HSO template rather than Iconica Sketch (I don’t like Iconica either)
Hi Janus! The HSO was better. I also put a negative number in the “delay” option and that helped even more.
How do you work with expression maps? How do you tell Dorico to replace the Iconico Sketch strings with HSO ones?
You choose a different Playback Template. The ones that do not choose Iconica instruments do not have Iconica Sketch in their name…
Which dialog is this? How do I get there?
Play>Playback Templates…
Thanks a million, @Janus ! You saved my day 
May I ask you something else while we’re at it? Why do sounds disappear (actually suddenly go down to very low volume) in the middle of playback? I have written something for lute, piano and strings. Now it plays back nicely with your help . While listening to it, all of a sudden, the piano sound drops to pppp! I stop and restart playback, then it’s fixed. Then it dies again at another random moment (not always at the same spot, I think).
This kind of thing cannot be explained from a general description. We will have to reproduce the behavior in a sample project.
I closed all other applications and after that, for a while it seemed to work fine, but then it started to mess-up again. It doesn’t do it on a shorter, simpler project. It tends to do it on large projects, large files. It seems like it’s a computer capacity issue. When I open a large project, it takes time for Dorico to come to it’s senses for playback. If I hit play soon after opening the project, it starts playing some tracks but not all. Eventually the other tracks join-in. They may drop-out later though. I suppose I need to try it on a faster computer.
Here’s the file if you wanna look at it (kindly):
Mimar for Playback.dorico (3.3 MB)
Thanks for the project! (And wow, quite a piece!) I tried playing it, and the percussion does not sound for me because I didn’t install some of the VST. Everything else seems to play at consistent volumes for me.
Of course opening any large project, Dorico takes a while to set up all the playback before it’s ready to play. Try to notice the “power” button in the toolbar, next to the time display. Wait for it to light up before you do anything, because it indicates that playback is ready.
Thank you so much @Mark_Johnson Very nice of you to take the time to look at it.
OK, I’ll watch for the power button. And I’ll try to get a faster MAC in the near future:)