Independent voice playback enabling/disabling issues

Dorico
1

I had some solvable but annoying and time consuming issues with independent voice payback (IVP). Maybe they can be addressed in future updates if others can reproduce them.

  1. when I have a player with IVP enabled and I disable it, I suddenly get two lines with the same player in Play mode. One the original enabled version with 2 or more voices and one the “new” player without IVP. Solution to get the original player with IPV disappear is to save the project, close it and open it again.

  2. Several times when activating independent voice playback I get more voices than I actually use. So I have a trombone with regular and muted i.e. 2 voices. I activate IPV and 3 voices show up in one of my 3 trombone lines in the play mode in one flow of three only. Or more complicated I have 2 divisi, 1 solo and 1 muted voice in a string section and 5 instead of 4 voices popup after enabling IPV.

If you have three flows of 200+ bars, one flow with just divisi, one with divisi and a solo section and a third with divisi and a muted part it is rather time consuming to find out which voice is the obsolete one as it has no notes. Even more so as sometimes the voice order in the Play mode in the flows is different.

For the first example I was able to solve it by disabling independent voice playback which gave issue 1 above which can be solved saving it, closing, opening again. Next re-enabling IPV and the unused voice was gone. The other example is still WIP.

  1. The most annoying is the last issue. It might be linked to the VE Pro based playback template I use. Each time I enable a player for IPV additional lines are added in the VST rack with non connected VE Pro instances as plugin. This although I already have all required instances for the voices loaded. These automatically generated instances are also connected to the new voices.

So after all IVP activations and connecting the new voices to the correct VE Pro channels I had already loaded, I end up deleting 8 or more obsolete lines in the VST rack. Is there maybe a setting to avoid this automatic VST lines generation?

2

I posted a similar request some time ago, but didn’t get an answer:

(These are busy times …)

3

Good morning- on your #3 most annoying case:) . I’m not using a Playback Template with VEP. Just saying that first because it affects my answer : So then in preferences I set my default playback template to silence, and therefore Dorico doesn’t attempt to add VEP instances like you describe.

FWIW, the Whole Project template fits better with VEP IMO so I don’t feel that not taking advantage of the playback template is a loss.

There is sort of a (new to me ) procedure of setting up Dorico so that I can export Dorico’s click as a separate track, which is a lot better at tracking and expressing tempo changes than putting something else in VEP I’ve found, especially if you use any gradual changes or fermata . And I’m also returning stems so I’m taking advantage of the different kinds of naming you can do in Dorico so that the mixer looks right, the score looks right and the export from Dorico has the stems and click right there ready to export.

I’m pretty sure my stem naming would confuse the crap out of a playback template anyway.

I don’t mean to be off topic, just saying why silence and a project template works better for me, to have all of that done.

Dorico is definitely not of aware how I’d want to add something new in VEP - I’m not necessarily sure myself either until I think through if I want to layer, what other instruments it might affect, etc.

Ive stayed out of the layers discussion untiI I think I might know what I’m talking about and explain it clearly - but I will say that that I’ve found a better way IMO for things like mutes than using IVP. I reserve IVP only for things like divisi where I really want both lines, and aVEP +VCV trick for the other.

And that means I don’t encounter your lane issues as much.

EX: When I switch to legendary strings as a layer, it’s doubling cello and bass in octaves and I have to switch the routing of both cello and db for that bit, that’s what I mean about having to think first when I add, and btw Im just using a PT in Dorico to trigger the change for both instruments, but that’s another discussion where you might have to drink some Koolaid.

4

#1 cleans itself up when you save the project – annoying nonetheless

#2 can’t reproduce.

#3 Happens to me all the time – quite annoying but Dorico sees VEP VST as a “normal” VST. It has no idea that you have, say, 2 1st violins, 1 muted. It just sees Violin 1 → VEP VST. Of course, when it loads the (new) VEP VST, it can’t connect to the same instance as that instance is already connected. This is the main reason I have a Project Template with divisi all routed correctly. The main drawback is that creating a new Flow disables IVP so you have to manually reroute.

5

Thanks for the feedback and confirmation.

Hi gdball, thanks for explaining your workflow. I also have Silence and default template but when using VE Pro it is really a timesaver to use templates. With a click of a button I can switch the complete orchestra for e.g. VSL SY to BBCSO or combinations thereof. It does seem that my point #3 is linked to this. It is interesting that upon loading the playback template all instances load correctly and connect through their respective channels to the correct instruments. It also work when you add an instrument. It either connects correctly or stays unlinked but no additional VST line is created, That only happens when you add a new voice.

Thanks derAbgang. Saving and changing focus indeed solves point #1. No need to close and open again.

Regarding point #2 it is more annoying than I thought. I traced back the additional voice in the violins example I described above. Originally I had written it without divisi but I did need a second down stem voice for some bars. After introducing divisi that voice becomes obsolete and has no content but it does not automatically delete. The only way I was able to do that is by disabling IVP and enabling it again but for some reason now some of voices will not connect properly to VE Pro or will not sound. Example: I change one voice to instance Div. 1 and a second to Div. 2. Go back to the first and see that it switched to Div. 2. For now I only found the very time-consuming solution to switch playback template to Silence and reconnect all VE Pro instances manually. All works now.

6

As long as there are no notes in that defunct voice, it will disappear when you re-open the project – annoying nonetheless, but I find that much less annoying than point #3.

7

Indeed that is what the manual and Daniel in many post says; it should disapear automatically but I closed and opened, closed Dorico and opened again and restarted my MacBook and it remains there. I also searched for any remaining hidden rests but ther are none. It is empty but does not disapear.

Anyway I went through the whole cleanup process and at the same time introduced my new VSL preset combining Pro Strings and Duality Strings CS into my template. I use it with a slightly modified Strings Pro EM. In general I now have three voices available for strings; 1 full volume for unison sections and two half volume for the divisi. If there is a three part divisi I use all three and manually adapt velocities. It sounds well balanced.

I think for IVP to work without time consuming issues you should implement all in one go as removing or changing voices later on is not full proof yet.

8

Exactly why I have a Project Template… all routing is fixed and every instrument under the sun is in it. I just use filters when inputting notes to remove staff clutter and then use layouts for piece-particular instrumentation.