Still fairly new to Dorico. Loving it, though a lot of things about it are still confusing to me.
Oftentimes, I find that my project has developed Sonic Amnesia. For instance, I’m working on a demo project that has a lot of different ‘song chunks’ (snippets from longer songs.) I’m using generic Halion Sonic instruments: Oboe Combi, Eagle Piano Init, Modern Jazz Upright, Snare Drum, and others. Each song chunk exists is in its own flow. I’m adding new song chunks as a I go along, usually indicating ‘create new instruments’, rather than reusing existing. Also adding new snippets to my project, as I go along.
I often find Dorico has managed to:
forget which Halion Sonic programs (intruments) I’ve loaded, and
spawned additional, unneeded versions of Halion Sonic.
I suppose these issues might have something to do with my process of adding new flows, (created via importing musicxml or a different Dorico file).
Ultimately, I suppose there’s something wrong with my workflow that’s triggering this amnesia. I seek ‘best practices’ advice about how to avoid Halion Sonic repeatedly forgetting which instruments I’ve set up, and spawning multiple, unneeded Halion Sonic VST instances.
Also, is there a way to save and reuse collections of ‘program’ (instruments), for reuse? BTW, I also have Halion 7, but I haven’t really figured out how to use it for the same functionality I’m getting in Halion Sonic.
When Dorico creates sounds for imported instruments it will try to do so using either the template set up in Preferences>Play>Playback template or whatever template has been applied to the current project.
If you re-apply a template (or choose a different one) this effectively clears out everything and starts again from scratch (so manual changes you made will be lost).
Still taking me a bit to figure out the interplay of Custom Endpoints and Custom Playback Templates, as well as understanding how to utilize them to avoid ‘amnesia’. I’m sure I’ll understand this, in detail, soon.
(simplistically) Endpoints hold Expression maps + VSTs for Instruments. And Templates hold a bunch of Endpoints. When you add an instrument to a Player, Dorico runs through the Template to find a suitable Endpoint to load for it.
When you load an XML import, you get a dialog asking if you want to “merge” the instruments, or create separate ones. If the data doesn’t match, then Dorico will just add another instrument anyway.
So check Setup mode, and see if you’ve got more Players than you expect. It’s possible that each Flow is using a different selection of Players, each with its own samples.
This is very likely to be the cause. If you are finding that Dorico is loading extra instances of HALion Sonic, that’s usually because there are more players in the project, and each one is being assigned a sound. If you’ve created them as new players then each one will have independent playback.
As a general principle, I would advise trying to assemble all the flows of your project and work out the rough list of required players. Once that’s in the right sort of shape, then start setting up the sounds.
If you find that you have multiple redundant instances of HALion Sonic then that’s because the players have been changing (eg if you delete players). Dorico tries very hard to not overwrite any changes that you’ve made to existing players (eg loading a different sound in HALion), but once you have settled on your player list then applying the Playback Template again will unload all HALions and re-allocate sounds.
So, in summary:
Try to establish the list of required players first, or import the extra MusicXML flows and merge players
Apply Playback Template again to consolidate HALion instances
Don’t forget that you can save programs and multi-programs in Sonic itself.
It’s good to have a backup plan to recall the full plugin state of Sonic anytime you like. Should you find yourself needing to rebuild a Sonic instance to get what you want for a stave…boom, your favorite custom stuff is right there at your fingertips to recall in any Sonic instance.
For things you will be using often, it can be a bit confusing understanding the method and order that Dorico will recall custom end points. Particularly if you like to have several instruments in a single instance of Sonic.
Personally, I recommend for simplicity sake, that anything you wish to make the default sound for a given player/section instrument, that you give him his own instance. Set it up manually exactly as you like it. Save a copy of the multi-program in Sonic itself (as a backup precaution). Name and Save the end point. Place it in your Playback Template in order of priority. In many cases you might want to change the output configuration of all 16 channels in Sonic to only use a single Stereo Pair (Mains) for the output.
I recommend single instances for a number of reasons.
Easier to rearrange the order of these ‘end points’ in your Playback template in different priority orders. Keeping adjustments is as simple as overwriting your old endpoint.
Sonic can take those seemingly bland/dry instruments that come with Sonic Selections, and turn them into rich/lush arrangements! You can use all those layers and channels in a Sonic Instance to turn that boring GM String Section sound into a rather nice sounding section. You can layer up several solo clarinets into a ‘section’ of them. You can shape up alternate ‘articulations’ on the different channels, and teach an expression map to ‘channel bounce’ among them as needed.
It IS possible to set up endpoints for multi-timbral plugin setups. The problem with this approach is that it’s not as simple to get precise control over what Dorico is going to ‘automatically choose’ each time you start a new stave that uses that instrument.
Have a look at these threads to get some idea of how Dorico is going to go down the Playback Template and pick instruments.
And here’s a primer on some concepts that can be applied to get more out Sonic and the Sonic Selection library.