Mixer Issues and requests

Dorico
1

I’m close to finishing a VE Pro / BBCSO Classical Orchestra Template. All the BBCSO instruments have been assigned under one single VEPro instance within which I’ve used 4 ports, one for each different section of the Orchestra.

Rather than building individual VEPro setups from different templates, I’m looking at having one large VEPRO setup (with other libraries, not just BBCSO) and using endpoint setups as a means of calling on different instruments within that VEPRO setup.

All Instruments in VEPro are disabled until they’re needed.

BBCSO - VEPRO
BBCSO - VEPRO848×1798 139 KB

During the course of tying it back to Dorico, the only issue I came across was while implementing the Port / Channel settings I found myself having to click away from the instrument then back again in order for it to work properly. For example, if I changed the channel setting it would continue to play the instrument assigned to the channel I’d just switched from until I clicked away and then clicked back again - at which point it would play correctly. Not unduly onerous, but it would be good to have it responding to the changes straight away.

All instruments work perfectly with VEPro / BBCSO when they are clicked on in the Play window.

Play - Instruments
Play - Instruments846×1706 171 KB

The bigger issue is with the Mixer.

Mixer Channels
Mixer Channels2390×590 222 KB

  1. There are 12 instruments in the Classical Orchestra Template so I assigned 12 Audio Outputs to be showing in the Mixer (in the Endpoint Setup). However, only 10 Instruments show up. (11 if you count Dorico Beep)

Endpoint Setup
Endpoint Setup1488×1222 90.5 KB

  1. The instruments are not in the order listed above in the Play Window. Outputs 1-9 seem to be listed in Midi Channel Order (i.e. ignoring Midi Ports) but that theory goes out of the window with Output 10 which is Midi Channel 1 (Port 3).

  2. Only Port 1 instruments are responding in the Mixer - i.e. If I play that instrument, I can see activity in the Mixer. The also applies to the Mixer Channels that appear under the Inspector in the Play Page. There is one exception to this: The Trumpet (Port 2, Channel 3) has activity showing on the Horn Channel (Port 2, Channel 1).

I appreciate the Play Page and the new Mixer are both works in progress (brilliant news that’s been done btw) - apologies if I submit a few requests for consideration . . .

  1. Dorico Beep. I honestly don’t need to see this… As with all other channels, could it be included within the category list of things to show (Metronome?)

  2. Colors. Colors are a really useful aid for navigating. They’re almost essential for making sense of large DAW templates (Instrument sections in one colour and sub-sections - solo, ensemble etc. - in shades of that color). At the moment it’s all pre-defined in Dorico, but it would be great if users could determine the colors they’d like, by instrument. That would also enable consistency across different programs linked together on screen (i.e. color schemes in Dorico and VEPro end up being the same)

  3. Endpoint Setup When saving Endpoint Configurations, it would be good to be able to hide Unassigned Instruments in the Endpoint setup. Essentially, you’d just see the Instruments you were saving in that configuration.

  4. Enabling and Disabling It would fabulous to be able to enable / disable VEPro tracks directly from Dorico - either by a switch, or even by playing.

Thanks,
David

2 Likes
2

Adding to / reinforcing some of the comments above. The order of the sliders does not match the channel order, or alpha order. Seems random order? And when I map Chords to their own channel (using a Piano VST), the Chord slider doesn’t show up at all.

EDIT: and if I map to Ports instead of channels, those ports > 1 don’t show up in Mixer at all even though I added ports in Endpoint options.

3

With the release of Dorico 4.1 I am hoping to get back to using Dorico with VSL instead of just Noteperformer. But it turns out that unless I’m missing something, the Dorico mixer is still limited to showing only those instruments assigned to MIDI port 1. Instruments assigned to higher port numbers still play fine, but they do not show up in the mixer, and their activity appears in the instruments assigned to the same channel in port 1.

Am I in fact missing something, or am I still forced to up VE Pro with numerous instances, each limited to just 16 channels (if I want to see the instruments in the mixer) ? More instances mean more resource stress on VE Pro.

Is a mixer capable of displaying instruments from multiple MIDI ports still quite a ways off?

4

I can’t say for sure whether or not expanding the Mixer to be able to handle multiple ports is likely to be achievable in the timeframe of our next update. We know there is more work to do in this area, but we’re not sure when we will be able to do it.

2 Likes
5

Thanks for your honesty and transparency, Daniel.

The good news is that the mixing does not need to happen in Dorico.

6

I think it would be a really nice feature from a user experience PoV to do something similar to Cubase in that we can activate/select specific VePro outputs from within the VePro plug-in in Dorico. Maybe even rename the resulting audio channels in the Dorico mixer… That would be cool. :slight_smile: