I am using Dorico to arrange for big band., It would be very helpful if the instruments in the mixer were in the same order as in the setup list. Since the setup items are players, not instruments, it would be fine for them to be in player/instrument order. Actually any order, z.B. alphabetical, would be OK, but as it is, I do not discern an order and the instruments names do not fit in the available space, so it’s cumbersome.
IIRC one can define a sort order for Players in Dorico Pro 5.1. Does this not carry over to the Mixer?
This allows one to set the order within a family, which is not the issue.
The mixer order is:
Trumpet 1,
Piano,
Upright bass,
Drum set,
Alto 1,
Tenor 1,
Guitar,
Trombone 1,
Alto 2,
Tenor 2,
etc.
The order in Setup is:
saxes
trumpets
trombones
guitar
piano
bass
drums
Reapplying your Playback Template will usually fix a scrambled mixer order.
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The order of channels in the Mixer is determined by the order of outputs to which instruments are assigned in the plug-ins you’re using. As Todd says, reapplying the playback template typically sorts this out because it assigns instruments to outputs sequentially.
When I compose I add instruments as I move along the creation process. Meaning I add instruments as I go - no pre-ordered templates. In Dorico 5 this makes the mixer faders order random and unhelpful. In Notion 6 I can drag and drop the order to suit the needs of the arrangement. Dorico 5 seems not to allow these instruments to be put in a user-friendly order. I hope I’m incorrect, if so, please share the answer for re-ordering the various mixer faders in a user-friendly order as the composition unfolds. Thank you.
Welcome to the forum, @seasidedr.
I believe the mixer order follows directly the order of players in the player panel (left side in Setup Mode). So I’d expect you to be able to find them in the mixer in relation to the order they were added.
Is that not how it’s working for you?
Unfortunately instruments in the mixer reflect the order in which they were created, not necessarily the same order on the setup page. So in other words if you added a flute, then a violin, then a trumpet, etc as you write, even if your setup presents players in traditional orchestral score order, the channels in the mixer will indeed be all over the place based on the order of instrument/player creation, and will also include channels for instruments you may have decided to remove, too.
@seasidedr if you are using a simple playback template (Halion, NotePerformer etc), you can do as suggested above, simply reapply the playback template (Play > Playback Template, apply & close), and it will flush everything and sequence them correctly based on your score order.
However, the downside here is you will also lose any mixing settings you may have applied, including any insert effects or sends. You will also lose any custom VSTs you may have setup outside your playback template, if you do that sort of thing.
Me personally, I would love to be able to re-order the channels, organize the mixer (color coding!), and even hide/show selected channels, as I see fit, regardless of the playback template; especially because I use a lot of custom VSTs and VEPro and MIR and if I go to reset the playback template, I lose all of that hard work. It’s a touchy workflow. So for now, I just kinda deal with the mixer chaos (or use VEP’s mixer when I can!)
Thanks for the response, Judddanby. The version of Dorico I have doesn’t allow for any changes to the mixer-fader order. Changing the score order when mixing and writing does not affect the mixer order. The response below “Wing” is probably correct. From my experience, NOTHING changes the score order except the order in which the instruments were added with no changing them later - at all. Your confirmation that it should work helps me to understand that I’m not crazy. This is such a basic feature that I’m shocked to see it’s “the way it was designed.” Thanks again for your response.
Dorico is not a DAW…
(but I’m sure the team will be making some changes in future releases)