# Question for Dorico users - input lag?



## aaronnt1 (Dec 29, 2021)

Hi, I'm a long time Sibelius user, currently on the latest version but as much as I love it, there is one major downside for me and that is that with larger scale scores with lots of VST's loaded, editing and inputting gets increasingly laggy. Sometimes clicking onto a note or other score object can take a few seconds before it is ready for editing and so this can add a lot more time to my work day. Playback of large scores is fine as it utilises all my CPU cores but I believe that when it comes to inputting and editing, Sibelius only uses a single core which is why it slows down significantly the more VST's and midi instructions there are. And of course Avid don't seem to be willing to attend to this matter.

So my question to Dorico users is whether this slowdown also happens with Dorico? On the Dorico page its says "Its unique modular architecture allows multiple operations to be carried out in parallel across multiple cores. Scrolling through even the largest of projects is always smooth and responsive."

Does that apply to input and editing as well as scrolling? Thanks.


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## Bollen (Dec 29, 2021)

aaronnt1 said:


> Hi, I'm a long time Sibelius user, currently on the latest version but as much as I love it, there is one major downside for me and that is that with larger scale scores with lots of VST's loaded, editing and inputting gets increasingly laggy. Sometimes clicking onto a note or other score object can take a few seconds before it is ready for editing and so this can add a lot more time to my work day. Playback of large scores is fine as it utilises all my CPU cores but I believe that when it comes to inputting and editing, Sibelius only uses a single core which is why it slows down significantly the more VST's and midi instructions there are. And of course Avid don't seem to be willing to attend to this matter.
> 
> So my question to Dorico users is whether this slowdown also happens with Dorico? On the Dorico page its says "Its unique modular architecture allows multiple operations to be carried out in parallel across multiple cores. Scrolling through even the largest of projects is always smooth and responsive."
> 
> Does that apply to input and editing as well as scrolling? Thanks.


I hear you Aaron, I struggled with that for years. Unfortunately Dorico also suffers from the same issue and I assume it's inevitable because of the way notation editors work. However, there is something you can do on both programs to vastly improve their performance and that is to use a separate VST host such as Vienna Ensemble Pro or another alternative (I think there's a free open source one). In Sibelius not using Expression Maps also helped enormously, I haven't tried it in Dorico because I never use them any more.


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## aaronnt1 (Dec 30, 2021)

Hi Bollen, that sounds like an intriguing solution, I can do this all on one machine? So I'd load up all my VST instruments in VEP instead of Sibelius and the notations, midi data and keyswitching in my score will trigger the correct playback in VEP? Is it quite easy to set up?

Thanks for replying!


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## Bollen (Dec 30, 2021)

aaronnt1 said:


> Hi Bollen, that sounds like an intriguing solution, I can do this all on one machine? So I'd load up all my VST instruments in VEP instead of Sibelius and the notations, midi data and keyswitching in my score will trigger the correct playback in VEP? Is it quite easy to set up?
> 
> Thanks for replying!


Hi Aaron, yes that's correct. You load up your template in VEP (or alternative) and make sure to click on decoupled mode, otherwise you'll only notice a small improvement. The important thing to remember is that you need to save separately. The point of using decoupled is that Dorico or Sibelius think they are only running one VST, so whenever you press save in the notation program you also need to press save in VEP. Expression maps also slow the program down, because every time you press play or click on a note the program needs to read the whole score looking for things like “arco” or "pizz" and then look through its list of articulations to know what sound to trigger. If you do all these things manually e.g. put the keyswitches in a separate staff and draw the expression CC, then the program only needs to read the score straight without any preview. These things make working on large scores much more pleasant!


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## aaronnt1 (Dec 31, 2021)

Thank you Bollen, will definitely look into this!


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