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Cantai for DoricoDorico 6.2.20 or later
Quick start guide

Dorico edition.

Cantai renders expressive vocal performances directly from your Dorico score. No manual phoneme editing, no fiddling with MIDI: just write your music and hear it sung.

What Cantai does

Cantai reads your score (notes, lyrics, dynamics, tempo, expression markings) and generates a realistic sung vocal performance. It works inside Dorico as a dedicated playback device, so your vocal parts play back through Cantai automatically alongside the rest of your ensemble.

System requirements

  • Dorico 6.2.20 or later
  • macOS: Apple Silicon (M1 or later) on macOS 14 Sonoma or later; Intel on macOS 13.4 Ventura or later (renders on the CPU, slower than Apple Silicon)
  • Windows: Windows 10 (2020 update) or later, x86-64 processor
  • 8 GB of RAM minimum, 16 GB recommended · 4 GB of free disk space

The full list, and what happens on a computer that doesn't qualify, is on System requirements.

Installation & activation

  1. Create a free account at cantai.app (or log in if you already have one).
  2. Go to Downloads and download the installer for your OS, then run it.
  3. Launch Dorico. Cantai will appear as an available playback device.
  4. Open the account menu (top right of cantai.app) and choose Profile to find your license key.
  5. Paste the license key from your Profile into the Cantai plugin and click Activate.
The cantai.app header with Downloads selected The cantai.app account menu open, with Profile, where your license key is

Setting up a vocal part

1. Add lyrics to your score

Select the first note in your vocal part and press Shift+L to open the lyrics popover. Type your lyrics, pressing Space to advance after a complete word, or - (hyphen) to advance after each syllable of a multi-syllable word.

2. Load Cantai in Play mode

Switch to Play mode and open the VST and MIDI tab. Load one Cantai instance for each vocal stave you want Cantai to sing.

Dorico Play mode — VST and MIDI tab showing a Cantai instance loaded

3. Assign it in the Track Inspector

Click the Track Inspector tab and select the Cantai instance you just added. Dorico connects it to the corresponding voice automatically.

Dorico Play mode — Track Inspector showing Cantai selected in routing

4. Press Play

That's it. Whenever you change anything that affects a vocal part (notes, lyrics, dynamics, tempo or expression), Cantai automatically re-renders just the affected segments. No manual refresh needed.

Choosing a voice

To change the voice assigned to a Cantai instance, click the Show Instrument button Show Instrument button next to the instance in the VST and MIDI panel. Select your preferred voice from the dropdown in the Cantai interface.

Cantai voice selection dropdown showing voice categories and individual voices

Choral voices

Cantai includes two dedicated choir voices, Choir — Female and Choir — Male, which render a full choral section rather than a single singer. To set the number of voices per part (3–10), open the … menu in the Cantai interface and adjust the choir section count.

The … menu also provides Clear Cache and Reset Instance Settings if you need to troubleshoot or start fresh.

Languages

Cantai sings English, Latin and Spanish, with more languages coming in later updates.

EnglishLatinSpanishMore coming

Choose the language in the Cantai plugin; it isn't detected from your lyrics, and it applies to every Cantai voice in the project. Spell your lyrics correctly: Cantai's phoneme engine derives pronunciation directly from the text.

Dynamics & expression

You don't need to draw any MIDI automation. Write your score the way you would for human performers, and Cantai interprets it.

Dynamic markings     p, mp, mf, f, ff, etc.
Hairpins             crescendo, decrescendo
Tempo markings       Allegro, Andante, ritardando, etc.

Tips for best results

  • Write singable lines: Cantai performs best on parts a real singer could manage.
  • Avoid extremely fast melismatic passages on unstressed syllables.
  • Hyphenate multi-syllable words so each syllable aligns to its note. Cantai reads Dorico's lyric hyphens to map phonemes correctly; in the lyrics popover, press - after each syllable to advance to the next note. For example: beau- ti- ful · hal- le- lu- jah · a- maz- ing
  • If a word sounds unexpected, check the spelling: misspelled lyrics produce incorrect phonemes.

Exporting audio

  1. Choose File > Export > Audio.
  2. Select the flows and players you want to include.
  3. Choose your format: WAV for highest quality, MP3 for a smaller file.
  4. Click OK to export.

Cantai audio exports at full quality: the same engine used for playback renders the final file.

Reporting issues

If something isn't working, reach us through the Help chat button in the bottom-right corner of any page on cantai.app. Please include your log files by dragging them into the Help chat window:

macOS

Server log: ~/.cache/Cantai/stderr.txt
VST log:    ~/.cache/Cantai/VST.log

Replace ~ with your home folder, e.g. /Users/yourname.

Windows

Server log: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Cantai\stderr.txt
VST log:    C:\Users\yourname\.cache\Cantai\VST.log

Replace yourname with your Windows username.

Licensing

One license covers Dorico and Sibelius: $9.99 a month, or $299 for a lifetime license with free updates. The free trial is the full plugin, up to 30 seconds of audio.

View pricing

Cantai is made by Turing Opera Workshop. We build tools for composers who take vocal writing seriously.