Dorico playback issue: no sound with any template except NotePerformer

Dorico
1

Hi everyone,

I’m having a strange issue with my current setup and I’m hoping someone might recognize what’s going on. I’m using Dorico Elements 5 together with NotePerformer 4.5.1, NotePerformer Engine, and the Orchestral Tools Berlin Orchestra library. My usual workflow has always been to start a piece with NotePerformer’s built-in sounds for composing, and then, once I’m happy with the music, I enable the NotePerformer Engine to get playback through Berlin Orchestra. This setup has always worked perfectly for me in the past.

Recently, however, when I turn on the NotePerformer Engine, Dorico suddenly stops producing any sound. The strange thing is that I can clearly see activity both in the NotePerformer Engine and in Dorico’s NotePerformer mixer — the white dots light up during playback, which means that MIDI data is definitely being sent correctly. Despite that, there’s absolutely no audio output. The Dorico mixer doesn’t show any signal either, and there’s no sound coming from my speakers.

If I switch back to regular NotePerformer playback (without using the Engine), everything works as expected and I get sound. But as soon as I activate the Engine again, the audio disappears. I’ve also tried switching playback templates to other options such as HALion Sonic and Berlin Orchestra, but none of them produce sound either. It seems that the only playback method currently giving me any audio is NotePerformer with its own internal sound libraries, which sound much less realistic compared to the Berlin Orchestra samples.

It almost feels as if NotePerformer has somehow “hijacked” Dorico’s audio engine. I’ve double-checked the audio device setup (Focusrite ASIO at 48 kHz), which is correct, and there are no muted tracks in the mixer.

Worth mentioning — earlier I uninstalled all the HALion Sonic SE libraries since I never used them, but I’ve now reinstalled them just in case. I’ve also confirmed that my NotePerformer version is 4.5.1, not version 5, so in theory the Engine should still be supported.

In short: I get sound only when using NotePerformer’s built-in sounds. As soon as I activate the NotePerformer Engine, or try any other playback template, there’s no audio output — even though the MIDI signal is clearly being recognized.

Does anyone know what might cause this? I’d be really grateful for any ideas or insights.

Thanks!

2

UPDATE:

I tried creating a completely new project, and it seems that in the new project I’m able to get playback from both the Berlin Orchestra (using the Berlin samples) and the HALion Sonic libraries without any issues.

The only library that still isn’t working is the NotePerformer Engine — as soon as I start the Engine, the sound disappears entirely.

Is it because noteperformer have stopped supporting the engine?

3

Seems to be a NotePerformer issue to me. Have you also contacted Wallander Support on this?

4

I am about to do that next - since now it’s basically confirmed that it’s a noteperformer issue indeed.

I can keep this forum updated with their response once I get it.

1 Like
5

Have you updated the Berlin sounds since NP5 came out? If so, it might be that Berlin reconfigured their sounds not to support the NP engines.