I’m baffled. In the VST rack, I have five identical monophonic synths each on their own MIDI channel (Ch. 1,2,3,4,5). There are pitchbend-tuned notes on each staff, but the staves are monophonic and each staff is on its individual channel and VSTi. Dorico does not play the second and third staff together. It plays a single note with a pitch bend glitch (the high A of the third staff; the clefs are 1-3 treble, 4-5 bass). It does play 1+2, 1+2+4, 1+2+4+5 and 1+2+3+5 correctly. Why does the second track interfere with the playback of the third track even though they’re on different VSTis and different MIDI Channels?
A cut-down example of the affected project is probably best here. It’s impossible to diagnose playback problems from a screenshot of notation.
Here is the Dorico file for that bar. It behaves as I explain in the OP. Each part is played by its own synthesizer, on its own midi channel (I was using five instances of Steinberg Retrologue, and tried other synths as well). The microtuning method for the Tonality System is pitch bend with +/- 2 semitones range. Dorico does not play the note on the second staff except in isolation as I explain in the OP.
channel interference.dorico (1.6 MB)
I recreated your setup with external MIDI ports (same channel assignments, same pitch bend data .. I don’t see anything wrong with how Dorico is generating and sending MIDI. Here is the raw data from previewing the note (selecting each):
Everything is going where it is supposed to go with proper port and channel. Here is playback:
Could it be something having to do with the samples in your synth, some sort of phasing/cancellation when multiple notes sound simultaneously? Does it happen if you change the octave of the second staff?
If you are using different instances for each synth, then, once you have set up the routing to the correct synth in Track Inspector, there is no need to use different channel numbers in each. Just use port 1 ch 1 for everything.
Yes, thanks; that’s what I thought but I tried using separate channels just in case the interference problem had something to do with this. I now put all the synths back to channel 1. (The problem prevails.)
Thank you for these MIDI monitor readouts. I’m not surprised that they look OK: if I export a MIDI file from the Dorico project and play it in a DAW, with an identical synth setup, all the notes are correctly played and tuned. This is also not a problem in the synths or synth sounds, as I tried several synths and sounds, and I also changed the notes - transposed by an octave, as you suggested but also changed them to other random pitches. Always the same result. This is a problem in the Dorico playback, and I can’t figure out what causes it. Instrument tracks 2 and 3 are mysteriously linked even if they should be completely independent. There must be a setting I’ve missed. Or there’s something wrong with my file. I need to create the same example form scratch and see if this happens in a new file. Did you try playing my file, with five synths loaded on the tracks?
No, I don’t have that synth. I just wanted to confirm that all the routing was correct (ports/channels etc.). I replaced the synth with halion (concert grand) for all instruments and I hear the entire chord on the first beat - although I don’t think that patch responds to pitch bend (clue perhaps?)
If you go to Write mode and open up the mixer pane, when selecting individual notes, do the faders move separately for each different note selected, i.e., is the audio routing actually going to different channel strips? Sorry, running out of ideas… but tracking down if two individual VSTs are linked somehow seems like a red herring.
That’s it! I checked the mixer and indeed the second and third track play through the same channel strip (which causes the problem). In fact, there is no channel strip for track 3 at all. But I don’t understand why, as all the tracks have assigned their own VSTi in the Track Inspector / VST and MIDI section.
I don’t know anything about Repro. Is it a multi? The reason I ask, if you open the endpoint setup for channel 2 or 3 it is showing two instruments not just one. This doesn’t happen with channel 1, 4 or 5. So it thinks your endpoint for channels 2 and 3 are going the same endpoints (and there are two of them). Seems like this should only happen if repro is a multi.
One thing you can try is to set the number of midi channels in each instance to 1 and then route the instrument to channel one. This should remove any multi related issue.
Repro is monophonic. As I wrote in one of the comments above, I did what you suggest (each synth on ch 1, port 1), and yet the problem prevails. I suppose the file has somehow been damaged. I’ll try to create a new part and insert a new synth on it and copypaste the music from part 2 to it.