Hello. I used to use Finale for all my choral work (I produce MP3s to help my choir learn the music). I have had to move to Dorico, but am finding it very difficult (so, please, go heavy on the techno speak!). My problem is that the voices sound like they are in a tunnel. I have tried to edit each voice to make it a solo and/or to make it brighter, but it makes no difference. Also, I don’t seem to be able to save the changes I make. All suggestions very welcome. Annie O
Annie, which choir sounds did you use in Finale? Did you use the Garritan Ahh and Ohh, or did you use something different?
- Included Choir Sounds: Garritan libraries in Finale provide standard “Ah” and “Oh” vocal samples rather than word-building or lyric-singing capabilities.
- Alternative Options: Users often upgrade to full libraries like EastWest Symphonic Choirs or Garritan Personal Orchestra for more advanced, phrase-building, and high-quality vocal sounds.
- Integration: The sounds are accessed via the ARIA Player, which acts as the VST/AU engine for playback in Finale.
Hello. I used Ah vocal samples in Finale. Is there any way of accessing this for Dorico? I will need my hand holding, as I understand VERY little of what appears in the manuals and help pages.
Many thanks
Annie O
Hi again
I had a play with the Aria player and thought I had created channels with Ah, but the choir still sounds like it’s singing in a tunnel. I really would like to get back to the clear sound I had with Finale 
. Annie O
I am sure you can use your Garritan Ah and Oh samples with Dorico, too.
Besides that you might like the simple
[GM 053] Voice Aahs
[GM 054] Voice Oohs
sounds.
GM is General Midi.
Can you upload a sample document here, with the voice instrument/players that you want, and I’ll see how best to set it up.
Let me know if you only have the Finale bundled GIFF library, or if you have GPO5 as well.
Hello both. I have no idea where GM 053 is or how to load it 
. I managed to get Aria player up and made all my voices Ah with that. I also watched a video which talked about using Halion Sonic, but my version doesn’t seem to have that. I’m upload a small part of William Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast (my choir next project). You’ll see that I haven’t a clue what I’m doing! 
It sounds terrible …
Walton 1-2.dorico (1.5 MB)
This might be better, as I haven’t messed about with it. Also, it has the paint part.
Walton 0-3.dorico (2.1 MB)
Piano part!
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OK. You’ve set up your 1st document to use the Garritan GIFF samples. You’ve used one “Multi-output” VST to contain all the samples.
However, you’ve currently got all the samples going out of the VST on the same single output, which is why only the Soprano mixer in Dorico affects the volume for all of the instruments.
We can fix this by setting different outputs on each slot in the ARIA Player:
Click on the little “1/2” on each slot, and set a different pair for each instrument. Then you will be able to mix each part separately in Dorico’s mixer.
(Alternatively, use separate VSTs for each instrument, with only one Garritan sample.) In Play mode > VST and MIDI, where you added the ARIA VST, you can duplicate one over and over.)
You seem to have turned up the mixers very high in Dorico. Garritan is fairly “in yer face” to start with, on the assumption that it’s easier to turn things down than turn them up. If you’re really finding everything too quiet, then the problem may be outside of Dorico.
Your 2nd document does look to have been set up for HALion Sonic and using GM voices, so I’m sure you do have that.
You’ve got one Section Player and one Single Player for each voice type. Is that deliberate?
You should also have the Olympus Micro choir, which is Dorico’s ‘better’ choir sample. You can select that in the Playback Template selector, under the Play menu. (Use one of the options that includes “Olympus”.)
Also, it looks like you haven’t upgraded to 6.1 yet. I’d recommend doing that, as it’s free; and comes with loads of features and fixes.
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Annie,
I’m fairly new to Dorico as well - have been exploring the AI voice plugins this weekend. I watched John Barron’s live video on Synthesizer V - and downloaded it… you might want to give it a go… The company that created this VST plugin just introduced some choir voices that (to me) are now the market leader. In my opinion, none of the other options come even close to this. Also - none of the others work directly within Dorico - they mostly require a DAW or are stand-alone.
If you are creating rehearsal tracks - this might be a big upgrade from Ooo’s and Ahhh’s.
Here’s a link to the last 90 seconds of America the Beautiful - I was creating a full score that included the vocal parts as a way to learn Dorico on a “real” project and just gave it a try.
I followed the instructions from the video and this is what I got on my SECOND playback. The only thing I did after listening to it once - again, based on the video, was edit two vowel sounds and added a little (maybe too much) reverb, saved it as an audio file in Dorico - and added a fade in and fade out before uploading this example.
CLICK HERE for the example. Would love to know what you or anyone else thinks. Now, before people start ripping into it - know that I’m not a choir director - this is a very RAW example of a few minutes experimenting with a brand new Dorico Pro VST plug-in option.
I used Dorico Pro 6, NotePerformer, and Synthesizer V Pro 2.2.0 to create it, and Audacity to add the fades.
That’s the beauty of Synth V. It really sounds fantastic with minimal effort but also offers myriad ways to tweak and improve as one learns it.
I am interested in Synth V‘s new choirs libraries that are currently on sale. To my understanding, there are currently some limitations in regards to what is working with Dorico, so I am wondering what your best practises are.
How do you deal with a Dorico project that has several flows/songs? Do you split the project in single files/projects for each flow or do you start with multiple files/projects and combine the flows later on in a single project?
Thank you SO much for this. I can now change the volumes for each singer. I’ve tried the different Olympus choirs, and they are better, but still sound like they’re in a tunnel. I’m attaching the same music written in Finale (although I seem to have dropped an octave somehow!) It is SO much clearer. My choir is not going to be happy if I switch to Dorico, but I’m reluctant to stay with Finale as the support will die eventually … Oh, it won’t let me upload an MP3 file … take my word for it, Finale is very, very much clearer. Is there anything else I could use? I’m happy to pay for any add-ons. Annie O
I have now converted all my sacred choral works to SynthV – the link is vocal music in case anyone missed it.
The plugin works well with Dorico but there are a few things to be aware of::
- as it works by importing MusicXML files, you have to process one flow at a time. If a flow is particularly long or has a lot of choral writing, it might be best to split that as well – I had to do that once to get acceptable performance. I’d then export the audio from each flow and then reconstitute in a DAW or any audio editor (very simple to do in Cubase for instance). You could probably also combine the various flows back to a single project in Dorico but I wouldn’t use that for playback as you’d then have to put the various flows in the correct place in the SynthV editor which could be time-consuming – and potentially strain your system.
- MusicXML normally correctly imports fixed tempi but any gradual tempi are not exported accurately by Dorico and need to be adjusted (or removed). Generally taking the midpoint of the gradual tempo works well but sometimes a little experimentation is needed. Fermatas involve a bit of guesswork – easiest is really to remove them in the Dorico project and replace with appropriate rests.
- By default, playback echoes the default tone for your choral lines. You certainly won’t want this so I find it’s easiest to deactivate the “natural” patch in the Expression Map. For obvious reasons, you would only use the default map as it’s otherwise ignored.
There is a bit to think about but the results speak for themselves – there’s nothing else on the market that comes close that I’m aware of. It’s importnt to realise also that the choirs can be set from anything from 1 to 16 voices per part. Some of them make for really beautiful soloists which will be a major use going forward. To listen to a variety of combinations, I’d recommend perhaps dipping into my Requiem from the link above.
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It’s lovely, though I have no idea how to do what you suggest. Could you please let me know the program you bought and how to incorporate it into Dorico? Many thanks. Annie O
I think @BakkumD refers to this video which you might find instructive
It’s lovely. I can’t judge if it would help me, though. I would need to hear one of the voices amplified above the others (this is how my choir learns their parts). Thanks. Annie O - also an Owen!
this video came out before the choirs and the 2.2 release version came out so they are not mentioned directly but it can be a useful starting point (I admit I only looked at it after I’d familiarised myself with how it worked anyway)
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I mock up pieces for my wife’s choir all the time. Voice levels can be controlled directly inside Synth V. The “Master” as well as Individual voices can be exported for more granularity.
My process is to have the full choir singing “ahs” with Eastwest Choirs, export to Synth V and for each part, pick a voice and raise the volume slightly. So the individual part to be practiced has words and is louder, while the full context is available with the full choir.
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