I have experienced a few problems with sound on an arrangement I am doing for clarinet choir of a Cherubini overture.
In the first place, on playback I am getting random growlings (sounding like a subterranean contra bass clarinet) where there are no notes in the score.
Secondly everything plays non legato despite copius slurs in the copy. Grace notes and trills don’t reproduce. Having read that the update should automatically load expression maps to cater for articulation I checked what was there. I am using HSO Bass Clarinet for alto clarinet downwards and HSO Clarinet Solo above that.
HSO Bass Clarinet contained
Natural
Staccato
HSO Clarinet contained
Natural
Staccato
Accent
Crescendo-Diminuendo
pt.trill.half
pt.trill.whole
pt.ornament.half
pt.ornament.whole
I added legato and trill to both and then tried again but the result was the same. Maybe I just don’t understand how expression maps work and need to study the Cubase literature to set them up properly.
One final point was that I switched from HALion Sonic SE to Symphonic Instuments in the VST instuments drop down and then back again. From then onwards I had no sound on the computer and Dorico started crashing, even when I had closed it down and restarted. I had to reboot the computer to get it up and running again.
Dorico does not yet support the legato playing technique, even if it’s defined in the VST Expression Map. Paul is busily working on this and hopefully it will be included soon.
You don’t need to choose the Symphonic Orchestra VST instrument: you should stick with HALion Sonic SE.
I’m not sure what to suggest about the growling, though: perhaps you could attach your project here (zip it up first) along with details of in which bars you can hear the growling, and we could see if we can hear it too.
I have isolated the groaning sound which appears to be whenever there is a staccato symbol on a note. This might of course be just to do with the clarinet I’ve picked (GM 072 Clarinet) which is the the only one with the range of sounds that I need.
I think the crashing problems may be associated with HALian Sonic SE not being set up correctly by me. I’m sure the clarinet sounds available in Dorico V1.0.0 were slightly different to 1.0.10 and thus causing confusion but I might be mistaken.
I’m also sure that the the octave edit feature, CTL + ALT + Arrow UP/Down worked fine in 1.0.0. but it doesn’t seem to in 1.0.10. Single note edit ALT + Arrow UP/Down works though.
Faniska.zip (276 KB)
The “groaning” noise is because you changed the sounds (to GM 072 clarinet) but Dorico is still trying to send the data to control the default clarinet playback, which has different sets of samples for legato, staccato, playing trills, etc. Dorico selects the correct samples by sending an out-of-range low note, usually called a “keyswitch”.
The GM (General Midi) patches ignore the actual range of the instrument (though obviously notes outside the true range may not sound very good) so it’s playing the “keyswitch” as a very low pitched note.
Go into Play mode, click the gear-wheel icon in the right hand panel, and change the “expression map” name to “Default” for the midi channel that corresponds to the GM 072 clarinet.
This might not play back dynamics correctly (IIRC there are some other threads in the forum about a bug specific to clarinet playback that affects this), but at least it will get rid of the groans.