This issue comes up a lot and I work this way too. Just in the last week there are posts here and here. Basically cutting and pasting from one of my previous posts …
It would be great if we could specify a default input sound in Dorico, but we can’t. Here’s how I do it though:
- Open a Pianoteq as a standalone VST outside of Dorico.
- Use a software MIDI router to route the MIDI signal to both Dorico and Pianoteq simultaneously. You can create virtual MIDI ports with a freeware program called loopMIDI. To route the signal to the ports I use Bome, but last I checked the ancient free program MIDI-OX still works too.
- Select one of the ports you created in your standalone VST, and another in Preferences / Play / MIDI Input Devices.
- Now that Dorico and your Piano VST are receiving the signal simultaneously, you no longer need to hear the input signal in Dorico, so go to Preferences / Play and uncheck “Enable MIDI Thru.” You should now only hear Piano when inputting, but of course hear the full complement of loaded VST sounds when playing back.
As I know there are others that work this way too, it would be a nice feature if Dorico could support this automatically within the program, but it’s still not too hard to accomplish.