Little problem with voices in Playback Template

Dorico
1

This days I’m exploring the Playback Template possibilities. Awesome design. Well thought out. Result of a lot of brainpower and long experience. I mean it, when I say that I feel myself privileged to work with this kind of software.
However there is a little problem I encounter with the Playback Templates.
I have a symphony orchestra template with just midi instruments. I made a template with for several parts more than one voice.

For instance:
I have one midi instrument for first violins and second violins:
first violins : 4 up-stem voices on the first staff and on one division staff 2 up-stem voices, that will say channel 1 to 6.
second violins: 4 up-stem voices on the first staff and on one division staff 2 up-stem voices, channel 7 to 12.
The midi instrument has 12 channels.
Of course every voice has its own expression map.

Now I made a new string orchestra template. I made first 6 up-stem voices in all the sections, except the Double basses (just 4, no divisi staff), just as it is in my Playback Template. I enabled in all staffs independent playback.

Now I applied my orchestra Playback Template.
Things that went well:

  • all the instruments got the right midi instrument
  • the expression maps were at the right place in the midi instruments

Things that went wrong:
The channels for the voices were not the right one.

  • First violins voices had channel 6 or channel 12
  • Second violins voices had channel 6 or channel 12
  • violas had on all voices channel 6
  • violoncelli had on all voices channel 12
  • Double basses had on all voices channel 4

I don’t know if this is a known issue. I attach an exported file of the Playback template.
Orkest template 3.zip (74.6 KB)

2

Your findings are roughly congruent with mine, possibly a tad more positive even :slight_smile: If you search, I’m pretty sure you will find this and/or related issues discussed. Using Midi instruments and VST instruments give different results for the same (intended) setup, and personally I’ve given up on Playback Templates until further notice. Musically too busy to hunt down bugs (or “bugs”) :frowning:

3

I did another attempt. This time I gave every voice another midi instrument. Of course I gave every instrument an unique name. But this didn’t work either. Unfortunately. I hope that in a future version this issue will be resolved. In my experience there is no problem as long as you don’t use independent voices. But as soon as you start this, you have to adapt manually the instruments of the voices. The quickest way is then with one midi instrument for a player or ensemble. In that case the adapting is more easy then when using a midi instrument for every voice.