For me it mainly comes in handy for making pure audio tracks in the DAW to go with a score that’s pretty much done and fairly well mixed and blended in Dorico itself. Sometimes it comes in handy for transcribing stuff from the audio world into a score/parts world.
It’s great for when I want to use outboard gear along side VSTi plugins.
Another time it can come in handy is any other time you want to get real time Note Performer audio output sounding through a tracking DAW mixer for some reason, as that sound engine only works in Dorico/Sibelius/Finale. I personally haven’t invested too much time experimenting in the many new ways NP can host advanced sample libraries, but those who do might find it highly desirable to get the mix it produces out of Dorcio and onto their DAW mixing desk, with the added benefit of the transports being synced.
As far as I know Dorico can only mix down to stereo. It doesn’t have a way to set up more outputs than 2 into the ASIO backend. Depending on your system, you ‘might’ have luck with something like reaStream hosted in Dorico mixer slots to get ‘audio streams’ diverted from Dorico mixer channels over to a DAW. For me there’s a considerable amount of latency in my experiments, but it might work for some? As far as I know, reaStream is VST2 only. I haven’t invested much time trying such a thing but it ‘might’ work for some people.
It is possible to set up virtual MIDI ports, and use it to route staves from Dorico into your DAW of choice, and host your instruments there instead of in Dorico. Is it worth it? In general, probably not; however, I can think of a few scenarios where that kind of real time hosting/mixing while composing in Dorico might be useful.
Personally I just go with a bidule plugin hosted directly in Dorico to get at such abilities. Examples are things like experimenting with multiple plugins/instruments layered together, or building hybrid monster orchestra templates (mixing and matching stuff from multiple instruments).
I.E. Say you’d like to have a stave from Dorico use arco from HALion for faster passages, something from Opus for acro on slower passages, something from Kontakt for short bows, and a pizzicato from your Yamaha MX keyboard…
I.E. Maybe you want to ‘layer up’ a spiccato from HALion with a sustain from a fiddle sound in ARIA to give it some more ‘bite’ on the attack, and also throw in some filtered out overtones from a viola sound in a Roland keyboard to ‘invent’ a new string sound.
Dorico can channel bounce within the same plugin or MIDI port, but not yet among different plugins. Generally we get around this by simply using a new player/section/stave. It works, but stopping play back, building a new stave, moving notes around, etc…isn’t something you can easily ‘tweak and try’ in real time in search of a sound that works for your arrangement.
By diverting a single player/section/stave to a virtual MIDI port, and into a DAW with a lot more real time routing capabilities, you could effectively pull off actual ‘plugin bounces’ from a single stave.
I’ve been using bidule for this sort of thing since Dorico 1 (and unlike the external DAW approach, you can quick-render flows directly from Dorico)…but if you don’t have bidule, and you do have a nice DAW…you can get into some fun sound design activities with the MIDI output directly from Dorcio, in real time.
Sometimes it obviously makes more sense to just export a MIDI file and go to work in the DAW, but yeah, there are times when it’s convenient, and fun, to play with your sounds in real time without tearing yourself too far away from your Score in Dorico.
