I will try these settings, as I must admit I had given up on BBCSO for a while…
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I tried this with Core standalone and it was considerably better though still clicks and pops. I then tried it with VEPro which is my normal way of working with BBC SO. Only about 60% of the previous samples were preloaded and that in itself was done far faster than before. Performance was flawless even from the beginning. I’m amazed if this really is not a fluke. In that case, why does the BBC have such idiotic defaults?
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Hi @dko22,
Well, I don’t know what to reply on the topic about the “idiotic defaults”?! Most probably they have issues with the Player.
I tried to push the team to improve the player and make it works as expected. Even Ulf did his best in order to help the Spitfire Audio team to improve the situation, but no feedback from those guys…
I was replied by the support this:
Thank you for your follow up - I’m afraid there is no update on this issue yet - it is the only report of its kind, but I will continue to monitor this for you and advise as soon as there is anything to share.
Basically I was told that I’m the only one to complain about the performance of the BBC SO Player.
Probably if someone else tell them about the very same issue, would help somehow?! I don’t know.
Here both Sychron Player and the Spitfire Player share similar problem, and both companies do nothing to improve it.
Even the guys at VSL do not reply on this issue.
Here a video with the Performance issues I’m having could be seen (Cubase Pro 12.0.30):
The real-time peaks sometimes are jumping up to 100%. I suppose it happens during the changing the KeySwitches.
Here is a video about the how SY-zed DS Bundle behaves hosted in Dorico 4.1.10:
Despite that the performance in Dorico looks worse than in Cubase, the Playback is far better,
even without pops or dropouts, or they are sometimes just very few.
Actually in Dorico the worse behavior is caused by the moving ModWheel.
Unfortunately the MIDI CC and KeySwitch changes have serious impact on the overall behavior of
Synchron Player.
Best wishes,
Thurisaz 
Thanks, @dko22 .
You mention using the VSL Special Edition with a modest CPU and I wonder how much RAM you have on that computer—I have little experience to guide me but worry that the 16 GB on my M1 Mac mini might not be enough to allow smooth playback.
You have also mentioned using Vienna Ensemble Pro. I understand the principle of keeping all samples loaded in VEP but also understand VEP helps a CPU “keep up” with playback and wonder if somebody who doesn’t use VEP (like me) would get similar playback results to somebody who does use it . Of course, adding VEP to my own system would be one option but wouldn’t this be overkill if I only have one library?
Finally, the Special Edition comes in multiple packages. Do the provided Dorico expression maps automatically “adjust” which samples are used for playback depending on which packages a user currently has, effectively choosing the best sample out of those available?
I don’t generally use VEPro with VSL --only third party full orchestral libraries. I currently have 32Gb RAM but it was perfectly OK when I had 16Gb. VEP is very useful for mixed libraries or in some cases better performance but there’s no need for it with VSL SE on its own in my experience.
As for the Expression Maps, I don’t use the VSL official ones as I prefer my own (I did them for vol. 1,2 and 5 before VSL finally got round to doing it anyway and subsequently added 7) so I’m not entirely sure what’s the answer to your question though I assume you need to use the correct map for the relevant library.
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Many thanks, David. Your input on this posting and related others has been helpful indeed.
I need to update my evaluation of the new BBC settings. As I thought it was too good to be true, after an overnight break and restarting VEPro and Dorico, the performance was initially no better than before. As before the situation stabilises after around a minute playback after which it seems generally OK. As the issue is noticeably less with Dorico 3.5, I still think that in this particular respect, it’s the current Steinberg audio engine which is the main factor in the performance and it will be interesting to try it with the new one when it becomes available in Dorico.
Hi @dko22,
Well, that’s strange… hmmm…
You could conduct another test. Try to host your BBC SO Template, with the same project and the new settings directly in Dorico. This is the only proper way to test the audio engine. You need to exclude VE Pro from the picture, because it’s a third party factor which may also lead to some issues, since many issues with the iLok versions of the VSL products were reported, especially in the Cubase section.
We will continue to investigate performance issues on specific systems and provide additional improvements in future updates. We still rely on your reports, so please get in touch with us in the Steinberg Forum if you are still experiencing issues after this update.
According to the official statement there is improvement in the communication between Cubase and VE Pro, but still possible issues could exist.
The BBC SO Player settings I provided above, everything works fine for me, when hosted directly in Dorico 4.1.10.
By the way, you could make Windows Performance Recording with WPR Toolkit while using Dorico in combination with VE Pro:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/4847.install-the-windows-performance-toolkit-wpt.aspx
And send the result to Ulf for further investigation. This would be much more helpful than sharing personal observations. After all we are not engineers and we don’t know what exactly happens under the hood. The WPR file will provide much more information about the problem, to the team at Steinberg.
Here is how to use the WPR:
- Install it.
- Turn Off the Anti-Virus software,
and any other app that is running in the background. - Fully load your VE Pro template.
- Open your Dorico project .
- Launch Windows Performance Recording.
- Press “Record” button.
- Playback your Dorico project.
- Stop the WPR.
- Save the WPR file.
This is it!
Best wishes,
Thurisaz
Hi @Thurisaz , I have previously used the WPT to share performance info with Ulf and indeed I only used the BBC SO in standalone mode for that. I only use VEP because the performance is better but did test your settings initially in standalone. As Ulf has, said, it is likely that a version of the new Cubase audio engine will be ported to Dorico before too long so it might be best to wait for that before doing too many new tests.