Best orchestral and chamber music libraries for Dorico

Hello, I love Note Performer, but I was wondering if there is any library who works out-of-the-box great with Dorico.

Because I’m waiting for Black Friday discounts to get my hands on one, and an important criterion to decide might be this. Ideally, in addition to orchestral they should do decent work for chamber music or soloist, but I know that’s asking too much, I’ll settle for orchestral work.

For example BBC Symphonic Orchestra (Spitfire) is is attracting my attention

Any suggestions, I’m all ears. Thank you very much in advance and best regards.

Honestly, there’s no library that works out of the box as well as NotePerformer. I have BBCSO pro, I can tell.

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Indeed. Noteperformer’s whole shtick is that it’s plug-n-play. None of the others are that way and will involve futzing with playback templates. Some users are sharing their templates, though, so you might find one that matches a library that you’re eyeing which would get you much closer to your goal.

Thank you to both, your commens are very useful :slight_smile:

Fussing with Playback template AND with CC lanes… honestly, too much of a hassle for a result… that’s not better than the automatic one with NotePerformer, sometimes.

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It really depends on your end goal. If you are looking to produce near-realistic audio, then be prepared to spend a lot of money, and do a lot of tweaking (or porting to a DAW). But for out-of-the-box audio that lets you know how your score sounds, and plays it as written, the Noteperformer can’t be beat. Well worth the investment!

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the BBC SO Core version is quite inexpensive on sale (probably soon) and there is a decent template for it. Even so, you need to put some time into it as there are one of two things which may not be obvious immediately. But it’s more involving and more realistic than NP for a good deal (though by no means all) orchestral music.

Thank you all. I forgot to mention that I work with real orchestras and symphonic bands, so NotePerformer is everything I need for my demos.

The reason for I´m looking for orchestral libraries is because I am considering entering the world of soundtracks (documentaries, etc.) and there I would need a more realistic sound. I was thinking of buying it for use with Logic Pro, but wanted to see if there was any easy way to use it with Dorico.

So I like Spitfire BBC because I´ve seen in YouTube that it´s to use out-of-the-box (with DAWs) and has a great sound. But I wanted to know if it´s so good and easy to work as NotePerformer with Dorico (BBC or other library) because it would be perfect then.

(sorry for my english)

Thanks again!

Can I split my answer?

I don’t of know anything that is as easy to work with as NotePerformer. But there is too high a bar for broadcast work (you are basically comparing your work publicly with the best in the world) , . and the sound of NP will not be accepted .

IF you choose to enter that world, just go in knowing that it will involve significant additional work and a continual investment in time and tools. . Not that I haven’t seen Christian Henson work pretty fast , but he is up to his elbows in getting the samples to do what he wants. And then hands it off to a partner…

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I’m aware of that work, don’t worry, that’s why I’m looking for convenient and quick ways to save time and energy as much as possible.

My tip for the day - learn to use Tempo and Dynamic lanes in Dorico. They will bring the music to life more than buying a “better” sample library.

I have a large collection of Vienna Symphony instruments. VSL is considered to be one of the best libraries but I’ve pretty much stopped using it. The reason is that, to get a good performance, you have to programme in the idiomatic playing styles of every instrument. That takes too long and my objective is to finish an arrangement and produce rehearsal material. NotePerformer lets me do that incredibly quickly and, though it’s nowhere as good as handcrafted VSL, I get no more money for a VSL version than for one created with NotePerformer.

If I’m sending a mock-up to a big pro orchestra, of course I’ll spend the time on all the detailed programming required but I’ve just finished arranging music for a concert performance and the MD and cast were delighted with the rehearsal material I’d sent - thanks to NotePerformer.

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BTW, VSL just announced their Black Friday discounts which go into effect on Monday.

Indeed, and you can get even better results if you’re prepared to do a bit if tinkering in the Dynamics lane or edit the occasional note length.

About Note-Performer: I am working mostly with windband and wind instruments. Sometimes the sound is “muffled” (to compact and ugly). The solution is to work with the panning. Imagine how the instruments are sitting in real life and also use ultra-left and ultra-right in the panning. And spread the clarinet-group to different panning in the area “middle-left” (as an example). Then it is easier to “look through” the instrumentation and be able to focus on each player. There comes air in the sound. Dorico use as a preset the normal sittings in the symphony orchestra. Here the wind is a little centered.

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AFAIK, you can specify the panning per instrument in Noteperformer as well.

Thank you very much, I know and I use a lot Tempo and Dynamic Lanes in Dorico. I use Dorico with NotePerformer for my demos for orchestras and symphonic bands. But now I ´m looking for one more realistic sound, and then I ´m searching the best libraries for my purpose.

I dont work for VSL, far from it not even a professional musician.

But I have found VSL libraries to the most comprehensive and realistic. The key benefit of their libraries is the amazing consistency in the dynamics across articulations and the labelling of samples,…For example every string instrument has the exact same type of samples, So if you have a passage with vastly changing dynamics and consists of staccatos and legatos and detache, transitions between various articulations will sound extremely smooth. This is not trivial. Suppose that you passage has an ff for legato and transitioning to mf detache. If the detache mf is sampled slightly higher volume than the legato mf, then it sounds terrible. I have another library which sounds better for some instruments, but they do not have the consistency across articulations which is a killer for me since that is essential for “playability” of these samples. VSL realized that and put a lot of work to make sure samples are extremely consistent.

Its pricey but I felt it was worth it.

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If you are looking into cinematic sounds, you might find this YouTube channel interesting for the VST reviews:
https://www.youtube.com/c/AnneKathrinDernComposer

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Yes. It is very easy to control Panning in NotePerformer.

Thanks to all of you :slight_smile: