as my work is focused on engraving, with very few requests to care about how things sound, I have always found NotePerformer to be more than enough, especially for orchestral scores and some chamber formations with different instruments (e.g., a Piano Trio).
For String Quartets and, now for a Cello Trio, I am finding NP unbearable to listen to as soon as any instrument passes the middle C and goes above. The low register is decent, the rest is not and the amalgam is painful.
I tried the stock Halion included in Dorico and … came back to NP.
Could you offer advice on a good sounding cello library? I would probably purchase only that, but I am not strict nor putting any filters to your creativity !
For solo cello, I do rather like the Stradivari Cello from the Cremona Quartet collection (available from Native Instruments). Actually the whole quartet can sound good. And somewhere around the forum there’s an Expression Map.
Xsample is very good for contemporary music where a lot of articulations are required but a lot find it hard to master for more lyrical music. Wouldn’t rule out something like the VSL cello which is fairly straightforward to use if not perhaps the most expressive sound.
Garritan Personal Orchestra 5 from MakeMusic has decent sounding strings in both solo and section setups. I’ve not heard anything that turned me off to those strings but I do admit that I don’t work with music for strings terribly often.
I feel your pain. I have a work for cello quartet that, when using NotePerformer, was so god awful that, if I recall correctly, I ended up using GPO 5 (the score was done with Finale as it was several years before we knew for sure Finale was terminal). I also have a work for string quartet in which I did some sections in GPO 5 and others in NP. It’s a shame. I did point out the issues with Wallander, but they didn’t have any plans to improve the output, although at that time they were still focused on interfacing with external libraries.
GPO5 was, actually, quite good in terms of strings. What sold me on NP was its really realistic harmonics along with better col legno battuto than GPO5. But NP doesn’t always get it right, especially regarding solo celli (see my earlier response to the OP).
I own Finale 27, and I have a ~7GB folder of GIFF sounds in my Mac’s internal SSD but it seems I cannot directly access it in Dorico? I know it goes a bit on a tangent from the original question but could you help me access it? I recall Finale sounds being quite good for what they were. Thanks!
If not you need to install the ARIA player (at least the latest available version) to get the ARIA Player VST3 plugin (on Mac located in /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/ARIA Player.vst3/)
The problem is my dumb & stiff brain that goes into panic mode every time something with digital audio is concerned. I know what I have to do, with patience and care, so ignore my rambling in this!
I indeed have the Garritan > Aria and Aria (Multi). Curiously, using Aria, setting the first three channels to Solo Cello (not sure what the difference is between this and the Solo Cello KS) resulted in the second cello to be awfully out of tune, something like a quarter tone or more. Then I switched to the Aria (Multi), reassigned the channels, and it seems to work ah-ok.
It is definitely a smoother and rounder sound than NP, although quite muffled so I may explore some other options among those kindly offered here.
Yes, indeed. The stock version of Garritan’s instruments leaves a bit to be desired. The paid version of GPO5 is what I’ve used and I’ve not had issues. In your case, I would recommend using Aria Multi as you have. There is almost no reverb on these instruments so I tend to use Roomworks SE for Garritan and other instruments with a 3 sec reverb time to add that fullness and warmth many of us prefer.
Indeed. GPO5 strings aren’t too bad. I’ll use some or all of them at times with @benwiggy’s GPO5 template. I think my favorite (of those libraries I own) are VSL 'sElite Strings for small ensemble work and the updated SSO 2024 Solo Strings. I use them with the NPPE engine in NP 5.0.
I think it’s a challenge to find a good string VSTi that will work with Dorico. This is because such VSTs are really intended to be used with a DAW (or in live performance), rather than with a notation program like Dorico. That’s why, when you see demos of libraries on Youtube, it’s always with someone playing notes on a MIDI keyboard with one hand and waggling CC faders with the other. The result is indeed then quite convincing.
I write quite a lot of music for solo cello, string quartet and cello quartet. When I first started using Dorico, I bought a number of solo string VSTs but, like you, was very unhappy with the results. It was an expensive and unrewarding exercise. The main reason for the disappointment lies in the interpretation of the notation into the MIDI stream that powers the VST. In Dorico, this is accomplished using expression maps. However, IMHO, this is one of the weakest parts of Dorico. The expression map editor provides only very limited ways to transform notation into a “CC-shaped” MIDI stream that emulates a real player. NotePerformer was created to address this issue and does a pretty good job, but as you say, its weakness is its instruments. (NP tried to address this with NPPE, but had to retire that approach.)
FWIW, what I ended up doing was to create my own CC-based grammar to allow richer expression of notated music. Much like NP, I have a custom expression map that creates a “generic” MIDI stream from Dorico, which I then pass into my DAW via LoopMIDI. I built my own MIDI-to-MIDI VST plugin that takes Dorico’s MIDI output and transforms it into a MIDI stream appropriate for my string VSTi. I also built an editor that creates a custom JSON profile for each string VSTi that I use, which I load into my plugin. I then have the string VSTi chained off the plugin. In effect, I’ve created my own richer expression mapper that allows much greater control of the MIDI stream. So, the flow is Dorico → “generic” MIDI → plugin → custom MIDI → instrument. Like NP, my plugin has a look-ahead buffer that allows interpretation according to note context. (I tried creating a wrapper plugin to host the VSTi that I could load directly into Dorico, but I found it was unstable.)
Overall, I’m pleased with the audio that my approach yields, but I recognize that it’s a somewhat complicated solution to the problem you’re facing.
There’s much talk on this forum about possible applications of AI with respect to Dorico. There are all sorts of ways that AI could improve the Dorico user experience, but surely one of the most promising would be to make a better expression mapper that would render better audio from dots on a staff.
I agree with a lot of this. A year ago the biggest problem areas with virtual instruments were vocal and solo strings. The former has made huge strides recently but solo strings haven’t. Although you can in fact get much the same results with a library programmed in a DAW as in Dorico, virtually all of them are designed in the first instance for live playback.
Dorico 6 has brought no improvements to expression maps or indeed playback in general. Probably not a surprise for various understandable reasons and we all have to wait our turn for the features we want— the Dorico user base is very diverse and many have no interest in playback. For me the safest solo cello for use in a chamber ensemble in Dorico’is probably the relatively new VSL Synchron set but of course it’s subjective.
I’ve just downloaded the software and installed the solo cello trial.
How do I actually get it to show up in Dorico? The manual doesn’t say and the FAQ do not mention notation software…
Thanks!
PS: somehow I got it to show in VST instruments. It was not there, then it was … uff … anyway, it started to play at the wrong octave (default transpose -12???); I fixed that; then it played wrong notes… I mean, not the notes written on the staff. I guess I will stay with either Garritan or NP and swallow it…
!