Thanks to the generosity of John Barron and another use on the FB forum (Roger Huang), I have two NPPE demos of one of my arrangements. No modifications to the file have been done, just exported the audio. For context, this is a hymn arrangement for a church orchestra, meant to accompany congregational singing.
If anyone would benefit from this comparison, I’ve posted them below (files were too big to upload directly).
If anyone wants to contribute to this thread with their own comparisons (of this file or their own files), I think it could be instructive to have them all in one place.
And Can It Be: Original Dorico file
And Can It Be: PDF
And Can It Be: NP3 demo
And Can It Be: NPPE + HOOPUS
Overall, this is my favorite, and I’m almost certainly going to buy this library. Note: there is a stutter at 0:05, probably due to it being rendered on a machine with 16GB RAM. And at 1:44, the brass hits are very odd. NP is grabbing the 32nd note, but burying the following long note. This happens throughout the piece: short brass notes are disproportionately emphasized. @Wallander is this something to be addressed on NP’s end? Or do these need to just be tweaked in playback?
And Can It Be: NPPE + BBCSO Core
2 Likes
I saw mention of NP specific tweaking in the other thread, but it quickly got buried in the onslaught that I don’t even know if there was any followup. Maybe this thread or another would be a good place for a discussion of the why’s and wherefore’s of tweaking Dorico to get better NP output.
Definitely would be helpful, but maybe another thread would be best, and keep this one for just comparison demos with no tweaks. I don’t mind either way.
2 Likes
I already shared this link in the FB group. I’ve uploaded the 1st movement of the fifth’s Beethoven symphony, and the 2nd movement of the seventh. Rendered with NP4 , NPPE + BBCSO, NPPE + HOOPUS.
All can be heard there (I could upload them here, but I like the way we can see the waveforms, and click at anytime into another version to listen to the same passage) :
6 Likes
Earnestly curious question: which kind of occasion/service would usually accommodate these forces?
Our orchestra plays about every three or four weeks in the morning services.
I’d be happy to post a couple if mine to this thread; how do i post a link to my Dropbox to this thread?
I agree, Dan, that accents play a role in NP in a disproportionate way (overly emphasized both in volume and brassiness - at least in trumpets). I noticed this with NP3 and my concert band piece. I wish there were a way to tweak accented notes (at least in trumpets and or brass). I believe this would result in a much more even performance in those areas that have accents.
As a quick experiment, it would be interesting to hear some of those sections without accents (temporarily deleting them) and see what result you get.
When you’re typing the post, select some text, press Ctrl-K, and paste the Dropbox link.
Arne acknowledges this on p. 69 of the User Manual, “Known Issues.”
2 Likes
You are truly blessed to have such a resource 
How big a congregation are we talking here?
A little under 800 these days.
Another: Praise to the Lord, the Almighty:Praise to ther Lord, the Almighty NP4
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty NPPE & Synchron Prime. The Choir and organ are NP4. All others are Synchron Prime instruments.
1 Like
By today’s standards, that’s big.
VERY nicely done! I have BBCSO Core, but alas, my machine is a bit slow to use more than a few instruments at a time.
What if anything did you change in Dorico’s mixer? I’m guessing you left the default Dorico compressor on for these? When I compare your BBCSO Core file with the one I exported using NPPE with BBCSO Pro, mine is pretty clipped.
Not hard to account for obviously, but it does mean there’s at least some additional step the user needs to do other than simply export the file with everything flat. Just wondering what you did in your demo files.
I didn’t do anything, actually… these demos came from other users. I ended up buying BBCSO Core but haven’t installed it yet.
1 Like
Thanks for pointing this out. I had previously tried to use Dorico’s Play mode to decrease the volume of accented notes without success. As shown on page 69 of the NotePerformer manual, Library/Playback Options, accented notes can be tweaked down in Dorico. This fixes my issue.
