Dorico 6.2.20 update released with Cantai support

Photo courtesy cottonbro studiosWe have today released Dorico 6.2.20, another small but mighty update for Dorico Pro 6, Dorico Elements 6, and Dorico SE 6. This release focuses specifically on integration with Cantai, the vocal synthesis plug-in from Turing Opera Workshop that is also released today, but as always it brings other improvements and fixes to make working with Dorico 6 that bit smoother and easier. Read on for all the details.

Cantai support

Cantai is a vocal synthesis VST plug-in that makes it easy to hear the vocal parts in your projects sung by realistic voices. This is a burgeoning field with a number of options – Omnivocal from Yamaha, ACE Studio, Dreamtonics Synthesizer V, and others – and is made possible by advances in machine learning and AI. Cantai is the first vocal synthesis plug-in that is designed specifically for use in music notation software, and aims to be as close to "set and forget" as possible.

Cantai is developed by Turing Opera Workshop and Edge Audio Labs, and as of today, it's available for Dorico. My learned colleague John Barron showed how Cantai and Dorico work together in yesterday's Discover Dorico session, which you can watch here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tunXF5Yu0A

The easiest way to get started with Cantai is to use the playback template John has put together, which you can download here. (For more information on playback templates, and to see which other libraries and plug-ins are supported, visit our dedicated page.)

Once you've downloaded the playback template, unzip the downloaded archive. You'll find two files: a PDF with important information you should read, and the Cantai.dorico_pt playback template file itself. Drag this onto the Hub window in Dorico to install it. The PDF describes the steps you should then take to set up a combined playback template that uses Cantai for vocal instruments, and Dorico's default sounds for all other instruments.

Alternatively, you can manually add Cantai to your project. In Play mode, switch to the VST and MIDI panel on the left-hand side, and add a new slot to the rack: click the menu to load the Cantai plug-in. New in Dorico 6.2.20 is a search filter in that menu into which you can type a few letters of the name of the plug-in you want to add, so type can and you'll immediately see Cantai. Click the result to load Cantai into the empty slot in the rack. Now switch to the Track Inspector panel, select the instrument you want to be sung by Cantai, and choose Cantai from the menu of available plug-ins. In the Cantai window, all you need to do is choose which of the synthesised voices you want to use for that instrument, and then start playback.

It takes upwards of a few seconds for Cantai to render the audio for each vocal part (and it takes longer when you use the male or female choir voices, since it renders each singer in the section individually). You'll see a small notification in Dorico's status bar showing Cantai's progress. You don't have to wait for this progress indicator to disappear before starting playback, but some sung parts will be missing and will continue to be filled in during playback.

That's really all there is to it: type in your music as usual, apply the Cantai playback template or assign Cantai to the instrument, and then play back. As you continue to edit the music, Cantai will automatically re-render the voice parts, keeping them up-to-date as you write.

The team at Turing Opera Workshop and Edge Audio Labs have a roadmap for future improvements to Cantai, adding support for further languages, more voices, making pronunciation editable, and more. Be sure to subscribe to their newsletter to be kept up to date with their roadmap.

Other improvements

This update also includes more than 25 fixes for problems reported in Dorico 6.2.10 and earlier versions. One important fix is for Dorico for iPad, also updated to version 6.2.20 today, that prevented the app from opening projects with comma characters in their names (or in the names of the containing folder): that is now fixed.

There are a couple of small improvements to filtering and selection: a new quick filter for chord symbol regions has been added, and chord symbol regions are included in block selections (where you use Shift+click to select a range of music). Edit > Select More has been improved such that you can now select lyrics independently of their hyphens and extender lines in Engrave mode, which makes it easier to select a stack of lyrics to adjust their alignment.

As always, you can find comprehensive information about the changes and improvements in the update in the Dorico 6 Version History PDF.

Installing the update

Dorico 6.2.20 is a free update for existing Dorico Pro 6, Dorico Elements 6 and Dorico SE 6 users. If you are currently running Dorico Pro 5 or Dorico Elements 5 or earlier, you can buy an update to Dorico Pro 6 or Dorico Elements 6 from the Steinberg online shop.

Assuming you already have Dorico 6 installed, you can update to Dorico 6.2.20 free of charge. First, quit Dorico and any other Steinberg application that you are running on your computer. We recommend that you run Steinberg Download Assistant, which will automatically update Steinberg Activation Manager to the latest version, along with any other elements of the Steinberg run-time environment (including Steinberg Library Manager, MediaBay, and on Windows the Steinberg Built-in ASIO Driver) that may be outdated on your computer.

Once Steinberg Download Manager has finished updating any required components, go to My Product Downloads in the left-hand list, where you will find Dorico Pro 6, Dorico Elements 6, or Dorico SE 6, depending on which product you have installed. Select this, and on the right-hand side you will see Dorico 6.2.20 Application Installer. Click the Install button immediately to the right. This will download and run the Dorico 6.2.20 installer.

If for any reason you cannot use Steinberg Download Assistant, you can find all the installers you require here.

If you already have Dorico for iPad installed, it will probably update automatically, but if you need to update it manually, you can do so following these steps provided by Apple.

What's next

We will be keeping closely in touch with the team at Turing Opera Workshop and Edge Audio Labs as they continue to refine Cantai, and we have already identified a few further changes we can make to improve the integration between Dorico and Cantai, so there may well be one or two further small updates coming in the future. Besides that, we are hard at work on the next major version of Dorico, and have some exciting new feature developments underway. In the meantime, we look forward to seeing and hearing what new music you are able to make with Dorico 6.2.20. Come and tell us all about it on the forum!