No Sound on Windows 10

I’ve been at work (school!) all day, so have only just started to try out some of your ideas (thanks for them!)

I’ve tried replacing the Lenovo (maker of my laptop) audio driver with the Windows 7 version using the exe file they provide from their website (auto-identifying the laptop.) No luck - no difference with Dorico - still no sound, despite trying various combinations of computer audio settings (frequency and number of bits) and loading/unloading Dorico playback settings and device settings. Sound continues to play normally outside Dorico (unless I have the ASIO excusivity option on.) I have not yet tried uninstalling the windows 10 audio drivers first before installing the windows 7 drivers, so might try that next. Meanwhile, here’s the dxdiag file requested.
Philip
DxDiag.zip (15.5 KB)

I’ve now tried everything suggested so far, and still no luck, sadly.

I did try first removing the windows 10 drivers and then substituting windows 7 drivers from Lenovo, but no difference. I’ve now replaced them again with the windows 10 drivers. I also tried changing the IDT High Definition Audio CODEC via Device Manager. However, it does not have this CODEC installed and already has the High Definition Audio Device. Changing it made no difference.

Playing around with the keyboard in the HALion Sonic editor window has occasionally produced the odd short squeak (of the correct pitch), especially immediately after reinstalling ASIO4ALL just now. But recently I have not heard this sound again. Lights flash and the level indicators show sound is being produced (whether using ASIO4ALL or the ASIO driver provided by Dorico), but nothing can be heard. I have also tried playing around with the small adjustments in ASIO4ALL suggested (e.g. “Always resample 44.1 kHz <-> 48 kHz” / “Force WDM Driver to 16-Bit”) to no avail. I’ve continued to adjust the sample frequency of the computer to match the driver.

However, sound CAN still be heard from other applications once Dorico has been shut down, so there is nothing wrong with my amplifier and speakers. And as mentioned before, Sibelius 8.6 continues to work fine (with its rather limited range of choral and orchestral sounds - hence my interest in Dorico!)

Any other thoughts? Does my DxDiag file reveal anything?

Philip

Is Sibelius using the current ASIO driver? If so, maybe we’re barking up the wrong tree…

Perhaps the drivers are good and something is up with Halion’s configuration?

Does Dorico come with the stand alone executable for Halion? ( I have a full version of Halion 6, so I’m not 100% sure how Dorico is packaged.)

If so, can you get Halion SE going outside Dorico (still looking for variables to eliminate…). If not, perhaps you can download the stand alone Halion 6 trial as an experiment. Sorry I don’t have any better or surer ideas, but this one has outmatched all my usual tricks…

I took a look at the DxDiag, but my eyes couldn’t find anything unusual. I also had once more a look at your log and project data that you posted in the beginning, still nothing suspicious.
I already wanted to ask you to try with ASIO4All again, but you did that already yourself. The fact that the HALion Editor window shows metering activity indicates that Dorico’s audio engine is running normally and producing audio data.
Why that data doesn’t come out of your speakers, to be honest, I have no clue anymore.
Do you maybe have a friend or colleague from whom you could borrow an external audio device and try with that? I’m 100% sure it would work with you with e.g. a Steinberg UR12 or UR22. But pick any other well know manufacturer, M-Audio, Focusrite, you name it, you will get sound out.

On the other hand, be warned though. The orchestral sounds that come with Dorico are pretty good, the choral sounds however are not so convincing, so don’t put your expectations too high. On the other hand, you can load other virtual instruments (and their sound libraries) into Dorico as well.

You are making a good point here. I don’t have a proper Dorico installation here at home, but the HALion Symphonic Orchestra installation (that is part of the full Dorico installation) should have the standalone player.
Philip, press the Windows key and type “HALion Symphonic Orchestra”, does it come up? Do you get sound with the standalone player. I should wonder if you do, but it is worth a try.

I don’t generally use Sibelius with ASIO4ALL, so no, I don’t think it is using any ASIO drivers.

When I signed up for the trial version of Dorico, I found I had three installers, one for Dorico, one for Halion SE, and one for the Halion Symphonic Orchestra. So I have installed all three. I’m not sure how to use the “standalone player”, but maybe you mean uninstalling just Dorico (with its ASIO driver that I have noticed seems to be part of it)? I can try that in the morning…

Philip

What he means here is that HALion Sonic 3 can be run as a stand-alone program, where you can just play it like a live instrument with your MIDI controllers. It also has a basic MIDI player and recorder built in.

To see if you have it tap your windows key and type “hal”. Do you get a start menu entry for “HALion Sonic SE”?

If so, click it and see what happens.

If not, you can download the installer for SE, run it, and reinstall. You should get the executable version of HALion SE then (possibly even an icon for it on your desktop).
You can find HALion SE3 here: HALion Sonic : Download for Free | Steinberg

Note that the content it can play will stop working when your Demo time for Dorico runs out (Or you buy Dorico, Cubase, Nuendo, HALion, Sonic, one of the VST Collections or Libraries, or download ‘free content’ for it, etc).

Right, so the standalone player works fine with my computer. I do notice that it is version 3, whereas the version of HALion Sonic SE packaged with Dorico is version 1.1, and I wonder if this is the problem. I still have not managed to get any sound when using Dorico. (In fact Dorico will not load with the standalone player installed, as it says it is waiting for a connection to the audio player.) I wonder if version 1.1 is incompatible with my machine? Still experimenting, but soon to give up…
Philip

I’m NOT saying you should give up - I’m one who hates giving up on issues like this, but I once did… Trying to get audio from Dorico on a MS Surface Pro (V1, but fully updated W10) was unsuccessful, despite having tried “every trick of the trade” at least twice. Audio from all other apps worked fine. When installed on a Surface Pro 4, however Dorico played fine. Maybe there is such a thing as completely incompatible hardware… Just my two cents…

Well that eliminates (in my mind) the computer’s hardware, the sound chip’s driver, and the ASIO driver as likely causes. The Halion SE standalone should use the same audio path as other other ASIO-based programs. Since Sibelius 8.6 runs OK on the laptop (and the diag program says there’s lots of memory available on the laptop), I pretty much would conclude there is plenty of horsepower to run Dorico.

This boils it down (again in my mind) to the Dorico setup.

I understand Philip’s frustration at this point. Therefore, I am suggesting (only if Phillip wants to continue) to uninstall all Steinberg products from the laptop. Then be sure to delete:

  • C:\Program Files\Steinberg
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\Steinberg
    C:\ProgramData\Steinberg (this one is hidden)
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Steinberg
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Steinberg
    C:\Users<user>\AppData\Roaming\Steinberg (also hidden)
    C:\Users<user>\AppData\Local\Steinberg* (hidden, there may be more than one folder)

Then, reinstall Dorico, Halion SE, and HSO from the original download.

Short of reinstalling the OS (or the “nuclear option” as some might call it), I’m really running out of ideas unless the guys at Steinberg have an idea.

HTH

You put it so nicely and clearly, that I decided to have one last go, and I uninstalled/reinstalled everything as recommended. Sadly, no luck. It would seem there is something fundamentally awry with Dorico with regard to sound, at least on my computer (and it seems I am not the only one.) I am, however, currently getting hold of an external USB audio device, so as to try to avoid the problem (and also latency issues with Sibelius). Perhaps the makers of Dorico might like to consider wrapping its trial version with version 3 of HALion Sonic, rather than version 1.1?
Thanks for your efforts, Traubitz and others.
Philip

I just downloaded your test file. If you look in play mode on the right panel (see image) the power button is off. Is it the same on your system? It will play on my machine once you turn that on. It doesn’t play from the downloaded file.
play mode power button is off.png

Thanks for giving it a try, Phillip. I think we’ve exhausted most of the remote diagnosis. There is possibly a software conflict somewhere in one of the libraries installed on your machine, but it’s not likely to pop up easily since you’re not actually crashing Dorico. Last time I came up against something so stubborn, it turned out to be a random beta of QT-kit (a common application developer library) which had been installed by a some rogue application in the Windows system32 directory rather than it’s proper place. Short of a full OS-wipe (which I do not recommend in this case!), it might be impossible to remedy unless you stumble across it at some future date. The outboard USB-audio device is probably your best and least painful solution route. I use Focusrite models on portable systems and RME on the high-buck Windows systems, but there are tons of excellent alternatives including Steinberg’s line.

Best of luck!

Thanks!

To dbudde: have tried turning the power button on/off, but still no sound.

Philip

Philip, Dorioc is currently bundled with HALion Sonic SE 2, but this will change in the future. However, HALion Sonic SE 3 is already now available as download from our website. You just need to have a valid license of Dorico, Cubase or Nuendo to make it work.
You speak of HSSE 1.1, is that really the version that you have? Maybe then you didn’t run the whole installer and are still stuck with 1.1. After a full Dorico installation you should be at least at HSSE 2.0.

Thanks for the information. I downloaded the trial version available a few days ago. It has/had HSSE 1.1. I’m quite prepared to believe the full version of Dorico has more up-to-date components, but I was (and am still) hoping to see (hear!) this for myself in comparison to Sibelius 8.6.
P

I think the version number thing is a red herring: the version number for HALion Sonic SE and HSO reported in Steinberg Download Assistant is 1.1, but that’s just because of their association with Dorico 1.1. That is just a version number being shown for the installer itself, not for the software inside it. And we know that’s not very helpful, and we have asked our installer team to help us improve it.

Philip, your case is really strange. I’ve discussed this again with my colleagues and though we don’t have a solution, we have one more idea what you could try.
The audio engine of Dorico is in terms of audio processing 100% same to that of Cubase. You may know or not know, Cubase is Steinberg’s famous DAW software which runs reliably on hundred thousands of computer systems every day. Could you please go here Try Cubase now for 30 days | Steinberg and get the trial version of Cubase LE? Don’t get the trial for Cubase Pro, as that needs a USB dongle for license activation, get Cubase LE, the little brother, but again, the audio engine is the same.
Please install and see if you can get sound out with that. If you’ve never worked with DAWs and not sure how to set it up properly and what to do, please tell, I can provide you with pertinent information.

OK, Ulf. I installed Cubase LE as you asked. The instructions were reasonably staightforward. I wrote a small piano test file, but it produced no sound on my system, although it clearly was meant to be doing so, as the levels monitor showed sound being generated. It did not detect my speakers at first, and I had to switch them on manually. I also tried the keyboard. That did the same as the test file, just as in Dorico/HALION SE. I noticed (as I noticed in Dorico) that its response was always rather delayed and stuttering. But I could hear no sound, though the sound system of the computer clearly works just before and just after running Cubase. The other thing that happened was that Cubase would not exit cleanly. I had to use the Task Manager to kill it. Finally, I reinstalled the low latency ASIO driver (as I had not loaded it at first, due to it being already on my computer from Dorico). It made no difference - still no sound.

Clearly, there is some sort of incompatibility with the sound (conexant speaker chip) on my laptop - a Lenovo G50-80 laptop with Windows 10, bought 6-10 months ago.

Philip

Hi Philip, thanks for your effort. But somehow, I still can’t believe it.
I mean, your computer is not a no-name brand, Lenovo sells millions of those models, I also have two laptops of that line at home. Still, you get sound from any other app, but not from Dorico/Cubase (which share the same audio engine code.)
I’ve created a test project with Cubase Elements, just one audio track with and one audio clip with just a 440Hz sine wave, please see attachment. This is the most basic, trivial setup and must produce sound on your system. If you load the project, you will get prompted because the project’s root path changed, but just click the “New” button. Then hit the space bar which will start the transport. Still no sound…?
test.zip (492 KB)