When Kontakt does not produce sound, I should restart Drico to resolve this problem.
As far as I correctly remember, this occurs with more project files.
My default sound engine is NotePerformer.
When I need other sound libraries, I put manually Kontakt and UVIWorkstation, then connect it manually to the players in Play mode.
Mostly, it works pretty well. However, I experience sometimes Kontakt produces no sound.
There is no other way than restarting Dorico to resolve it.
I would like to know if other users also have had the same problem.
Could you please be more precise? Is only Kontakt not producing sound then, but NotePerformer still does? Or is everything mute. If only Kontakt is not producing sound, then I would first check the Dorico mixer page, to see if no channel is muted. Then I’d check the settings of Kontakt.
Or, during playback on every MIDI command coming in, in the Kontakt window in the left top corner a red “LED” shall blink. If that is flickering, then it is most likely a Kontakt setup issue.
As it seems then, Dorico is crashing with you frequently, is that correct?
It should not in first place, so please create a diagnostics report, which also contains crash dumps, so we can have a look why it is crashing.
Second, no I don’t see a pattern or have a clue what is going on there. If NotePerformer is playing, I’d expect the same for Kontakt.
How about the red “LED” in the left top corner of Kontakt, is that flickering while Dorico is playing back?
That would mean, that Dorico is sending MIDI to Kontakt, and in that case it would be a Kontakt setup problem.
Thanks for the data. There is only one crash file and that is of Dorico itself. If just Dorico crashes, the audio engine will continue runninng, but may get into a funny state when Dorico launches again and tries to connect to it again. For that reason, if Dorico crashes, go into Activity Monitor and also kill the process VSTAudioEngine. Then launch Dorico again which in turn will also launch a new audio engine process. Then I’d expect everything to be fine.
You can use killall VSTAudioEngine3, but it’s correct that you’ll see no output. If you execute the command a second time you’ll be told that no matching process can be found.
Disconnecting a MIDI device leads Dorico to crash.
Is it intended?
I think it would be good if Dorico releases the audio and MIDI drivers when there is no input from the devices and no output to the devices more than some seconds.
I think then there would be no crash. (of course, I am not sure.)
Playing Kontakt in Dorico may not work with libraries that function as self-plays, i.e. the plugin has its own player and/or sequencer (NI Session Guitarist, NI Session Horns, etc.). This happens if the “Ext” button is pressed in Kontakt (host synchronization mode is enabled). Of course, in this case, Kontakt doesn’t know how fast to play, so it is silent. However, it may seem strange that the MIDI note signal is transmitted and the keys on the Kontakt keyboard are pressed. The problem can also occur in other VSTi plug-ins for self-playing: Toontrack EZkeys, EZbass, Ample Sound Guitars, and so on, if such plug-ins have the host synchronization mode set. In such situations, the cause of incorrect playback is a defective Dorico engine, which is not able to transmit tempo control signals to plug-ins. At first I thought that the reason lies in the type of VST2 plug-ins, which include Kontakt, EZkeys, etc., but I did some tests and found out that, for example, HALion (VST3) can’t change its playback according to the Dorico tempo either. As a conclusion: Dorico does not transmit data about the tempo of the song to the plugins (neither in VST2 nor VST3). Perhaps this is the company’s policy, or maybe the developers ’ flaw?.. I don’t know. Let Daniel answer this question.
However, it would be very great if you could connect a VSTi plug-in self-playing to a chord track, for example, NI Session Guitaris Strummed or EZbass, and much more. More creative searches and wins will open up! Many composers and arrangers would welcome this opportunity with great joy! And Dorico will add a new competitive advantage to its piggy Bank.
