Issue:
Orchestral playback (BBCSO Pro primarily) sounds consistently out of tune (approx. semitone perception). Exported audio is also affected in the same way. Sample rate 48k on computer and in Dorico. I emailed a friend my file and it performed all wrong notes in his NotePerformer. This is completely holding me up on important projects - plz help!
Hi @Anjelica, check also menu Library>Playback Options>Tuning.
Possibly posting a Diagnostic Report file here for the Team would be helpful (you can create it from menu help).
And if you could upload a cut-down version of your Dorico project (just a couple of bars) would be good to check what may be going on in the Project itself (you said that you already excluded a possible sample rate inconsistency between Dorico and the System).
Dorico Diagnostics.zip (1.6 MB)
Sinfonettia No 1 FOR PITCH TEST.dorico (1.4 MB)
Both attached - Many thanks in advance!
The pitch issue started largely after I was using “Reset Playback Overrides” so I suspect that is related? I wiped out a bunch of playback overrides…?
Yours is playing wrong notes also in the strings.
Here’s how it is supposed to sound - from an earlier export before the issue started.
Here the separate strings: all sounds as written (to my hears, beside the somehow extreme vibrato of NP):
Thank you for showing this on your screen - Apparently just Violin 2 notated wrong on that file. However I promise the issue is more severe on this attached file. This is the file that played back incorrectly on another machine as well.
SYMPHONY NO 1 2026 SOLILOQUY FOR PITCH CHECK.dorico (1.7 MB)
Dorico Diagnostics.zip (1.5 MB)Diagnostic file for this one. Many thank you’s for checking on this.
Sorry but I think some notes are possibly just wrong notated (maybe by editing you moved them inadvertently?):
Harp in bar 4 beat 3
French horn bar 10 beat 3
Harp and bassoon in bar 12 beat 3
Trumpet in bar 13
and so on…
Then you have some enharmonic situations that are necessary written differently as expected (but this doesn’t influences the playback):
Horn and trombone bar 5 beat 1
Viola cello bar 10
Horn bar 13 beat 1
and so on…
SYMPHONY NO 1 2026 - Full score - .mid (39.7 KB)
OK. If you don’t believe me, load this midi file into https://chiptune.app/ and listen to it.
On my setup the playback is pretty much out of tune. C-Major in bar 3 should definitely be recognisable…
I told Dorico to use the Auto Playback Template, when opening your project file (I don’t use NotePerformer)…
I am pretty much useless when it comes to Dorico’s Play Mode, but isn’t there somewhere a place, where one can strip the actual playback from MIDI pitchbend signals?
I’ve highlighted and “Reset Playback Overrides” and fully replaced playback templates with no effect on this. At this point I’m just re-inputting the whole piece from scratch.
Thank you for this validating video!
I searched a bit further and found this in the manual:
This might be the area where one can check the values and somehow reset them.
This is just a guess by me, as I suspect there might be a lot of pitchbending going on in your file. We do have very proficient Play Mode / Key Editor users here, hopefully one of them could chime in.
Another thought: Did you play in your big project with a MIDI keyboard? I myself have one with a dusty pitchbend wheel that often puts notes out of tune even when playing back. I have to disconnect it, to get rid of the detuned playback.
I have now opened your project Symphony 1 on my iPad and had a look at the pitch bend track.
If I select the Violin 1 track it looks like this:
If I select Violin 2 and Viola (and some others) I’ll see these blue spots:
If I then select one of these dots, it will display a pitch bend value of -25:
I think this might explain the out of tune playback.
As a total beginner I suspect one has to select and delete those spots to get the playback back to normal.
[edit] I went to my desktop computer and deleted all those -25 pitchbend values.
It did not help 
It’s the pitch bend values, I’m sure. How they got in there, I don’t know. Faulty pitch bend wheel? Not sure if I got rid of all of them. Had to set the playback template to Noteperformer.
Jesper
Does this playback right? (You need to change the playback template first.)
This is really weird,
I deleted all the Pitch Bend CC data, the playback was still out of tune.
Then I applied the simplest of all Playback Templates HALion Sonic Selection - and it played fine in tune. For the first time. I changed to another Playback Template (all the other ones have “Olympus” with them) → out of tune.
I tried the first one again, HALion Sonic Selection, now out of tune, too.
I narrowed down to this very strange behaviour - at least on my computer:
I select the very first Rehearsal mark [A] and hit p to start playback → out of tune. I hit p again and playback stops. Now I hit the Spacebar - and everything is in tune.
Spacebar to start playback = in tune
P to start playback = out of tune.