Whenever I export stems from Dorico 3.5, or start selecting parts to export as PDF, the program starts going INCREDIBLY slow. To the point where I was trying to export like 16 stems at 4’ each and it wasn’t finished after 12 hours. After I cancel, Dorico crashes and won’t reboot unless I restart my computer. I am tempted to go back to Sibelius because even considering how slow it is at times, it is faster than this.
Can anyone help?
What do you mean with “stems”?
I had a similar experience:
Yesterday I tried to export my score and it’s 10 layouts as PDF files. I went to Print Mode and selected all layouts at the left. Print Mode opens at default with the Printer (on the right). At Page Setup Paper size “US Letter” is been displayed. I change it to “DIN A4” - because this is the standard paper size, we use here (Dorico does not respect it’s own Preferences - Default paper size type “International”). This step might be unnecessary, because I am not actually print the layouts now, instead exporting them as PDF files. Anyway, because I change 10 layouts at the same time, Dorico gets very busy - probably because it has to recalculate the Print Preview - and eventually stalls. Like yesterday the file became unresponsive. I did an emergency Cmd-S which seemed to have worked, but I could not close the program window or quit Dorico. I had to force quit/kill the application. After reopening I noticed that the last Cmd-S did not trigger a Save, as I was working on an earlier version from the last real Save.
Stems are individual audio tracks of each player…
Ah, thank you Dan.
Are you using any third-party VSTs? Can you tell us about your hardware and OS?
That’s certainly an unusual behaviour, so it may be fixable. I wouldn’t assume that ‘that’s how Dorico is’ and go back to Sibelius until you’ve investigated it a bit more.
Can you supply a sample project file? (Even make something up if you don’t want to post a real project.)
I am using Noteperformer, Ryzen 5 6-core processor, 16GB Ram, and x64 bit OS. Does that help?
And here’s a little attachment for you.
Blue bossa.dorico (574.9 KB)
I have no problem opening and printing those layouts to PDF. (The layouts are all set to US Letter in Layout Options, by the way.)
I can also change the paper size for all the layouts when going to printer, instantly.
Could it be a printer driver issue?
It helps in the sense of saying that is NOT normal… what I do sometimes see is that Dorico (actually I think the audio engine) will hang at a certain percentage. Its quite possible that if I were patient enough, that it might have completed in 12 hours. I’ve never been that patient though. 
I restart the computer ('cause as I said, audio engine) and can usually complete the export on the next attempt very quickly.
I have run into it more with Opus, so I think it isn’t necessarily the audio engine’s fault, but somewhere along the way with the engine and the VST they seem to stop talking to each other very well.
I save to pdf, so I am not using a printer for that.
Stems =
mute all but strings and export
mute all but percussion and export
mute all but sound design and export
mute…
Its a deliverable to certain kinds of customers, either because they want to use it directly (Use the song/cue but mute certain parts at certain times that interfere with dialog) or because the want to use live musicians, but also retain certain elements like maybe sound design. It does NOT mean export each instrument individually. Some might want that, but its then called a multi-track, not stems.
We’re splitting hairs here, people use different terms for things. When I say stems, I mean individual parts either mono or stereo (and that’s how Dorico, Studio One, and Sibelius all treat that term).
Post a Diagnostic Report (from the Help menu) here. Create one even after relaunching Dorico or restarting the computer. The team may be able to see what’s going on.
I know how to make a diagnostic report but I’m unsure if it has any info on it that I shouldn’t post. Is there anything I need to be worried about?
AFAIK, there is no personal info or anything from your documents.
Actually no - Dorico will tell you that they HAVE no way to do stems other that what I described.
Stems have an industry standard meaning (even though they don’t always agree on which stems are most important to break out.) It means the same to producers and engineers as far as deliverables. Or check out some of the music supervisor panel Q&A videos for instance - from something like the Taxi Road Rally conference.
I don’t personally mind what term anyone uses - but I don’t want to inadvertently put a bump in anyone’s road, as its on the list of a supe’s pet peeves if writers don’t understand these kinds of expectations.
Dorico literally exports stems by individual parts/tracks. I am sorry but I don’t know what you’re talking about. Regardless, my problem is not this definition, it’s the fact that Dorico took more than 12 hours to export 12 stems with 4 minutes of audio individually.
I thought stems were exported as MIDI rather than PDF.
thank you, fratveno