Hi everyone!
I downloaded Dorico 5 to test/learn it. Till now I used Notion 6 for my scores but it has it’s limitations, that is why I am looking to change it. I have some issue with the control of the mute and solo for different kontakt 7 instruments. Here is my setup:
I did a few new instruments, two violins and a cello
loaded kontakt 7 as multi with 3 instruments in Dorico
did the expression maps for them
defined for each instrument in Dorico the routing, 1st violin port 1 ch 1, 2nd violin port 1 ch 2, cello port 1 ch9 and kontakt 7 for the vst in use
did modify for each instrument the receiving channel in kontakt, violin 1 port A ch1, violin 2 port A ch 2, cello port A ch 9
So, when I mute violin 1, all the instruments go mute, if I solo violin 1 one all the instrument are playing and in the mixer only the violin one has signal…if I mute violin 2 or the cello, all the instruments are playing…what am I doing wrong?
Welcome to the forum, @zoleeon. It sounds as if the problem is that your Kontakt instance is returning the signal from each of its channels on the first output. Please take a look at this thread, which I think will help:
Dorico inputs are kind of chaotic towards kontakt or vice versa(I don’t know for sure) …to be able to set up I had to add in kontakt a new output that should be the same which dorico is uses …If you put the mouse cursor on dorico’s mixer name label , it will appear the name of the input(kontakt output) which is used for that channel
No, you can only configure the inputs in Dorico, i.e. which channel Dorico should send the MIDI data to. The outputs have to be configured in Kontakt itself.
I watched a video on youtube about expression maps and playback template for dorico 3.5 and there is no messing up the channels but it is needed for every instrument to have separate instances opened of the same vst…Which is the best, to have one instance of vst with several instrument loaded(one kontakt 7 with all the strigs for example) or several instances for each and every instrument(let say 2K7 for violins, 1 K7 for violas, 1K7 for cellos and 1K7 for basses)? Which one is eating up more resources of my pc? Thank you!
Buy the way, the online tutorials are very good. Thanks for them!
It has been discussed here already and it seems to be easier to have one instance per instrument. In the past I always had several instruments in one instance but this is more complex and does not save resources at all (in fact it’s the opposite). So I switched to only one instrument per instance and be happy with that (I use Halion 7 and Kontakt 7).
I believe that anyone trying Dorico for the first time expects the mute and solo buttons in the Play area to control the instrument (and associated MIDI channel) directly, not their respective audio outputs.
The thing is, with Kontakt and other sample hosts, all 16 MIDI channels are by default routed to the 1/2 stereo output. This design ensures users get instant audio feedback from all 16 MIDI channels. As a result, with the way Dorico works, when you solo or mute the Violin, you’re actually affecting the shared audio channel (violins, violas, celli, and basses), not just the individual MIDI channel for the Violin.
To avoid this confusion, Dorico’s mute and solo buttons should control the MIDI channels directly. Then, if desired, users can add and route individual outputs back to Dorico. This is a significant oversight, in my opinion, and also makes the Solo Selected Instruments key command unusable.
One normally expects a mixer to handle sound rather than MIDI inputs to the sound module. If one decides to use Kontakt, there is a certain expectation that one should learn how to use it, and that is not Dorico’s responsibility. One can always mute channels in Kontakt if one does not want to create multi-outputs in Kontakt.
Even NotePerfomer, in its NPPE iteration, gives the option to channel NPPE sounds to separate mixer outputs.
I realize this causes some folks confusion, but I’d prefer the Dorico Mixer to remain as it is. If the Development Team decides in the future to create an option to mute MIDI export channels as well, I’ll not object.
I disagree with this in this particular case. I’m also not much talking about the mixer here, but instead, the mute and solo controls by the track name. In Cubase, the Mute and Solo controls to the left of a MIDI track mute or solo the MIDI, so they still work as expected regardless of how the audio output is routed.
In Dorico, the similarly-placed mute and solo controls to the left of a MIDI track in Play mode mute or solo the audio return. Different behaviour than the same buttons in Cubase, often resulting in them impacting other tracks.
Other DAWs I’ve used work similarly to Cubase and not Dorico. Dorico’s behavior is the odd one out here.
I suspect this was done just for simplicity, that if instruments returned each sound as a separate audio output and they all corresponded as expected, it was easier to handle, less work to implement, and perhaps also less confusing for the end user by hiding a bit what was actually going on underneath. Ultimately though, it is much less flexible.
DAW’s customarily display tracks for both MIDI info and audio returns. Were Dorico to choose to do that (and some day they may), then one would presumably be able to mute the MIDI signal.
But so far that is not the case, and Dorico has given no indication that they plan to move in that direction.
I was specifically referring to the Play area, not the mixer, and explained in detail why every sample host and DAW work the opposite way compared to Dorico. As mducharme also pointed out, Dorico is the odd one out.
