I’m using Dorico 2.2 with Kontakt instruments and notice a wide variety of volume differences between instruments. Even before putting any dynamic markings in my score or making any changes in the Dorico Mixer, it seems Dorico is sending a very low CC volume message on some tracks. For example, I can see my Kontakt violin instrument volume slider on go way down when I play back the violin passage from Dorico.
How would I see and fix that? Should I manage each track’s volume from Dorico Play window, the Mixer, or from inside Kontakt itself?
Are you using Expression Maps that send the correct type of dynamic information (note velocity or a continuous controller) to each instrument? AFAIK with no dynamics in the score, the default level should be about 64 (i.e. half the maximum, or “mf”) not “way down”.
There are a couple of basic expression maps which do nothing except send the dynamic information. Default sends it to note velocities, CC11 sends it to controller 11. Some sample libraries use CC1 instead of CC11 so you would need to duplicate and edit the CC11 expression map to do that.
To get the best out of the VST samples you will need to add the other playing techniques that Dorico generates to your expression maps, to generate the correct key switches or whatever your sample library uses.