As a Dorico Pro newcomer, I’m wondering why after installation I was asked to also install both Halion 7 SE and Groove Agent 5 SE, among other things, when I already own the complete versions of the aforementioned softwares. Shouldn’t Dorico be aware that those applications are already present and installed into their respective default directories?
Yes, if HALion Sonic 7 and Groove Agent SE 5 really are installed on your computer, then it should detect them. If you’re being told that they are not found, then it suggests the audio engine is refusing to load them for some reason. Please do Help > Create Diagnostic Report and attach the resulting zip file here so we can take a look and see if we can figure out what’s going on.
Thanks for your reply. At present Both Halion 7 and Groove Agent were already installed when I installed Dorico… But when I loaded Dorico, it asked to install Halion 7 SE and Groove Agent 5 SE… that sounds very strange…
I’ll create a diagnostic report asap.
Generally if something is already installed, the installer will sense it and install only the pieces tht are missing or need updating, skipping over the rest of the existing material.
Sonic SE is now obsolete.
It’s just Sonic 7 at present.
Sonic 7 is the ‘free player’ with no sounds included.
Some Content libraries come with Steinberg hosts. I.E. All versions of Dorico (even the free Elements version) come with Sonic Selection content, and the host key will provide license to use the Sonic Selection library. Most Steinberg hosts come with some bonus content as well. I.E. Dorico Pro includes the right to use libraries like Iconica Sketch, HALion Symphonic Orchestra, and some others…
More HALion libraries can be purchased individually, or purchased in larger ‘bundles’ like ‘Sonic Collections’, and/or the ‘Absolute’ bundle’. All of the libraries can work in the ‘free Sonic player’.
Full HALion, and the ‘Absolute’ bundle comes with a more robust Player/Building tool UI (HALion), as well as a huge bundle of content libraries (Same as ‘Sonic Collections’).
If you don’t have the Sonic UI installed, and are using just its big Brother HALion plugin, it’s probably a good idea to install Sonic 7.
It won’t take much space on your system, and having it around can come in handy if you intend to export scores for collaborators with sounds set up that ALL fellow Dorico users should have in common. Usually it doesn’t matter, and an end user can use whatever sounds/instruments they like with scores you might share; however, there might be times when you wish to preserve and share a universal instrument template that ALL Dorico users can use at no additional cost, and hopefully with zero ‘extra fuss’ to get it up and running ‘exactly’ as you intend the project to work/sound (pretty common with stuff like Music Lessons, or Educational scores, to want an entire class to at least begin with a uniform slate of tools and settings in the project).
As for Sonic 7 typically being a part of a full HALion installation as well…
Sonic 7 is the ‘free player’ for HALion content. You might wish to export sounds that you’ve authored in full HALion in a way that 'anyone can use it with their ‘free Sonic player’ in the projects of almost any ‘host/daw/scoring suite’.
Before sharing/distributing any HALion content you have authored yourself, you’ll usually want to test it in Sonic first, and sometimes even make a few adjustments to optimize the content for use in the ‘free player’.
Groove Agent SE…this level of Groove Agent does still exist. It’s just a scaled back version of Groove Agent. It usually installs with Steinberg hosts for the same reasons as Sonic. Like Sonic 7, Groove Agent SE is the ‘free player’ for GA content libraries. It’s good to have it installed (and up to date) for all the same reasons as keeping a copy of Sonic 7 installed.
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Unfortunately on another MacbookPro I’ve alredy installed everything in advance (Halion, Halion Sonic, Groove Agent and Groove Agent SE etc…) and Dorico 5.1.x was installed as the last one… Nevertheless, it keeps asking for Halion Sonic SE3 Content and Groove Agent SE5 Content and Iconica Sketch
You have to distinguish between the instrument plug-ins and the contents. The instrument plug-ins are loading the sound sample of the contents packs and do the playback in the correct pitch and timing.
So on your second Macbook Dorico does not complain about missing instrument plug-ins, but about missing contents.
Nevertheless, this is just an alert, not an error message, because Dorico will also function without it, you just won’t get any sound during playback. If that is fine with you, you can click on the “Don’t show again” option in the alert window and Dorico will stop nagging you about the missing contents in subsequent runs.