Possible difference between Dorico playback and recorded output

Dorico
1

I’ve noticed a subtle issue with recorded output from the latest version of Dorico 6 that seems to differ from what I hear when playing the same passage back within Dorico itself. I’d be grateful if others could confirm whether they hear the same behaviour.

I’m using the Cinematic Studio Series String library via NPPE 4.1. In Doric and I have the Playback Start and End Offsets set to -50 in the relevant Properties. I’m using these settings to compensate for the library’s pre-bloom on notes, which at lower dynamics can give the impression of a late onset, particularly with legato passages.

I’ve also set Dorico’s Pre-roll before flow to 0.5, to ensure that this initial pre-bloom is captured in the recorded output.

The issue I’m seeing is with a string passage marked con sordino at the opening of a flow. The playing technique shown in Dorico’s Play window is correctly set to con sordino, and playback from within Dorico behaves as expected.

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However, in the recorded output, the first note seems to be played senza sordino. Subsequent notes appear to behave correctly.

For comparison:

  • Ver A: captured from Dorico’s internal playback using Audio Hijack. The first note correctly plays con sordino.

  • Ver B: Dorico’s exported/recorded audio file. The first note plays senza sordino.

Ver A

Ver B

This makes me wonder whether the playback start/pre-roll or playing-technique state is being handled differently during recording compared with real-time playback. If I disable the Start and End Offsets, the recorded output matches the internal playback (Ver C - recorded output with Start and End Offsets disabled on the first note in the strings).

Ver C

It appears that the initial playback technique is not being captured correctly when a negative Start Offset is set.

2

Do you have only NotePerformer installed as instrument?

If you have HALion Sonic and corresponding libraries installed, how do they behave in that situation?

3

Hi Ulf,

I have a large number of VSTs in use in this project, but I only use the Start and End Offset property with the Cinematic Studio Strings. I’ll try a little experiment later to see if I can reproduce the issue with other libraries and techniques.

I’ll be in touch later today or tomorrow morning.

All best, Roy

4

It does seem that something isn’t working as expected when the Playback Start Offset is set to a negative value at the start of a flow, even when the flow’s pre-roll timing is also configured to accommodate this early start.

In the attached project, the Auto template is active. With the initial note’s Playback Start Offset set to -50, the note is not performed at all.

This appears to be a slightly different issue from the one I originally reported, where the notes were played but the wrong technique was applied.

Test for Playback Start Offset.dorico (747.2 KB)

5

The issue here is that key switches and MIDI CC changes required to handle playing technique changes are clamped to “zero”, and won’t currently be moved before zero even if the first notes have a negative offset. We’ll look into changing this at some point in the future, but for the time being, I’d avoid using negative offsets on the very first note of the flow, unless they come after the initial beat.