@benwiggy - My findings exactly. For example I have reservations about certain instances of legato passages using BBC SO Pro with NPPE. Not so with NP by itself (just demonstrates what a clever piece of software NotePerformer really is)
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Yes, I also think it’s way easier to mix and match several libraries in NPPE, as they should be more balanced in relation to each other.
It’s definitly a huge timesaver in lots of ways, but it’s sadly not the end to all means currently. Currently, because it’s just the first version of it and they pretty much nailed all the basics - if they are able to refine the playback just a bit more, I don’t think I’d have any incentive to create own expression maps or spend hours in my DAW. I’m personally confident, that they will get there.
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This is an area I’d like to see both Dorico and NPPE be improved. Essentially, what NPPE does is interpret the score and turns it all into midi to send to the actual midi-driven instruments. Right now there is no way I can see to capture that midi performance and that is what would be desirable.
Dorico ought to have, for example, a feature that you can setup a much of expression maps and so forth…and then export a performance midi export which actually captures or bounces the midi that would be sent to the instruments after having gone through the expression mapping and everything else…in other words captures the midi just in front of the actual instrument. Export THAT. Then we can take that to a DAW if we want to edit it.
But same goes for NPPE. NPPE needs to be able to export the actual final midi in some way, so that we can theoretically hear it easily with NPPE and if we want to edit it further, then bounce that NPPE midi performance out as a midi file and load it up in cubase and have at it.
File → Export → MIDI exports everything including key switches (which NPPE doesn’t use). If you have your own expression maps for a particular library, you can simply export the MIDI and all velocity, CC data and keyswitches are included.
turns it all into midi to send to the actual midi-driven instruments
Yes, but as far as I understand NPPE, it utilizes the underlying samples, not the instrument. So, a custom expression map geared towards, say, Violin 1 would be completely different than, say, the NPPE Violin 1 rendering. They may sound identical (if you are good enough at xmaps), but the NPPE MIDI would be entirely different (excepting notes, of course) than the MIDI generated from an expression map.
EDIT: try exporting the MIDI and loading it into a DAW. You will there are many MIDI CCs, General Params etc.
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that is good to hear, I presume you’re saying Dorico export captures all the expression map results like a midi bounce. If true, I was not aware and that is good to hear.
No I don’t thing that’s true nor even possible in many cases. It might be possible that it’s calling up custom presets in each of the supported libraries…but still it will be restricted to using whatever instrument playback capabilities that each instrument provides. As such, sooner or later it has to reduce everything down to some kind of midi performance, it’s just that its doing it directly from score in Dorico…obtaining a lot of information it can use to generate a midi performance that makes sense for each instrument. What is desired here is a way to capture that performance the same way Dorico now does according to what you said above… NP basically is like Expression maps on steroids…but it’s still jsut an engine that manipulates the midi performance by interpreting the score. we need to bounce and capture that midi performance in order to export it to Cubase and tweak it if desired. Honestly that would be a killer feature and wallander should strongly consider it, it would massively motivate me to buy NPPE. Right now I don’t see the value because NP is good enough for me in terms of just using Dorico.
yea exactly that is what people do all day long when producing orchestral arrangements in a DAW. If NPPE could generate that in a way that it could then be imported into a DAW and edited further it would be a KILLER feature… I see no reason why it would not be possible and rather easily.
I believe there is a step in the middle: NotePerformer seems to get the MIDI data generated by the score, and converts into its own MIDI data.
That is: you have still some control on the note position and length, on dynamics and vibrato intensity.
Paolo
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I’m not an NPPE expert, but I can tell from MIDI exports that it definitely isn’t just loading up KS instruments. It may not go to the file system sample files, but it is streamlined somehow. Not to mention, with Eastwest, my VEP template is close to 90G while NPPE uses a mere 39G. So, it’s doing something very clever under the covers.
Like I said, MIDI export will include everything NPPE needs to render. What I fail to understand is, once you have imported the MIDI, where would you route it? You would need to know the exact samples NPPE chooses per instrument and load them up into your DAW via your library VST. Even then, NP(PE) uses algorithms inside the VST to further shape and humanize the output.
I’m missing your end game
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Well, the 3rd party instruments need midi, that is the point. NP does not have access to the underlying samples. Whether NPPE generates that midi using its expression maps or whether it accesses the Dorico score internals in some way in combination with the expression map output, in order to create a final midi output for the instrument, we don’t know… But with regular NP it creates the sound internally using sound modeling. IN the case of NPPE, it has to generate ultimately…one way or another…MIDI to the 3rd party instrument…and that is what we should be able to bounce to export. It’s not clear to me that we can assume that the expression maps included with NPPE are generating the final midi output needed for a given 3rd party library unless Arne says other wise. If the expression map output is exactly the final midi signal that always gets sent to the 3rd party instrument…and if Dorico indeed outputs that in its export…then the feature is already there!!
but I doubt that is the case because otherwise someone would just use the expression maps included with NPPE and there would be no need to use the NPPE separate hosting engine and all that. The expression maps alone don’t do everything. Further midi is being added or changed accordingly and ultimately the end result is a midi signal for the 3rd party instruments. And that is what we need to bounce out in export
“Very clever under the covers” is most likely just setting up a preset for each of those instruments that is using all the same controls you have access to when you use that instrument manually yourself…to change the instrument’s settings. Not internals. It would be possible for you to load the same instruments in VePro and twiddle the controls until your template is 39G also.
So that being said…it’s also theoretically possible that some instruments have certain things that can be changed dynamically via automation, but not by midi. Most of them simply don’t work that way, but theoretically it’s possible. If NPPE is somehow using automation of the plugin for any reason instead of midi…to change anything dynamically as it plays things which can’t be changed by midi…that is the thing that could not easily be exported in a midi bounce. But most instrument plugins don’t really do that, but still it’s theoretically possible.
Its extremely unlikely the NPPE is actually getting under the covers of 3rd parity instruments such as EW and VSL
You are correct that in addition to exporting the midi, it probably would need to export all the specific plugin parameters that were used to setup the instrument preset used in NPPE. which isn’t included in midi export. Perhaps the new new DAW.project format used in CB14 could do it though. Keep asking for this feature…it would be killer.
another alternative he could do to make this possible would be to export the final midi stream if dorico isn’t already…AND provide a special NPPe client plugin which can be inserted into a DAW project that can interpret that midi out of the dAW’s midi track and send it over to the NPPE external host… In this way basically you’d be able to move the tracks to a DAW…do further editing of the post-expression-map midi…tweak curves or whatever you want…and then the playback would still go through the NPPE external instrument hosting thing, which hosts the plugins using his instrument settings, etc… and bringing the audio back to the DAW…ideally as separate stereo per instrument, so that you can fully mix it in the DAW.
If you look at a MIDI dump of NP(PE) you can clearly see that the generated MIDI is not what is actually sent to the library VST – Opus doesn’t react to general parameters, e.g., but yet they are there. The interim MIDI stream that Dorico sends to NP(PE) should be considered input for internal interpretation (NP) or translation into library-specific MIDI (NPPE).
Until you get a spec outlining which samples for which library and which parameters are used by NP(PE), you are barking at the moon. That’s NP’s secret sauce.
How do you get the midi dump from np? Do you mean the midi dump from dorico? If it’s not the same midi as what is received by the vst Instrument then I revert back to my original suggestion that nppe needs a midi export option to get exactly that. That was my point to begin with. But it’s also true that it would also need to export the vst parameter presets for each vst used as well.
Nppe does not have access to any internal samples. The vst spec just doesn’t work that way. Ultimately it has to send midi to the vst instrument to play everything. Somewhere between dorico and the instrument is where np interprets the score, applies some manner of expression mapping which provides at least some behavior that np needs but ultimately expression maps alone can’t do everything that np does or else it would have just shipped nothing but expression maps a long time ago. Np uses expression maps in some clever way to determine what some markings are on the score but then rather then actually having the expression map generate midi, np generates and modifies the midi stream. Well I should say at that point in regular np it doesn’t need midi anymore it just uses its own internal modeled instruments. However with NPPE it in fact does absolutely HAVE to generate midi to drive the vst instrument. Thing is dorico only exports that midi output from expression maps, it does not export that final midi stream that nppe would have created based on knowledge it got of the score from the expression map and/or other internal Dorico structures.
To repeat, if nppe provided an export feature it should be possible to import the final midi stream as well as any needed vst instrument parameters and then play back the same performance from a daw.
So this is a bit of investment and learning curve, but I have to say NP + NPPE + MIR Pro 3D + automation sweetening here and there has been creating mockups for me which I think are on par if not even better than what I’d previously done in a DAW, with way less effort dealing with all the complex articulation-per-track separation (shorts and longs and legatos / balancing / delay compensations) you have to do over there. It frees me up to focus on writing.
To me MIR Pro is what really opened up NPPE - more than just a reverb, in many ways it’s kind of a full-blown mixing environment. It’s a bit more effort in Dorico but when I have time, my NPPE-based mockups before and after MIR have gone from 85% to 110%+ in terms of realism and spaciousness.
One of the major downsides is that don’t find automation nearly as graceful and fluid and easy to use, as in a DAW, and volume automation requires a bit of a workaround since it’s not technically implemented… but with these few things in mind, I am getting DAW-level mockups where to the point I’m spending less and less time in DAWs, personally.
I never really enjoyed dealing with dozens of tracks for one instrument and all the overlay tricks & latency compensations just to get it to sound good. Instead I work with one staff and get generally predictable and consistent results all around, which gets me to my end goal a lot faster.
YMMV.
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What Dorico sends to the VSTi is what gets exported when you export MIDI from Dorico, but in the case of NotePerformer this consists of the notes plus MIDI CC’s that have special meaning to NotePerformer (and these are the same regardless of whether it is regular NP or NPPE), and these MIDI CC’s would be gibberish if fed directly into the target plugin.
If you’re not using NotePerformer, you can export MIDI from Dorico, bring it into Cubase, plug in the same instrument, and it should sound the same, and have all articulation changes, shaping, the whole nine yards.
If you are using NotePerformer, it isn’t so easy. If you exported MIDI from Dorico, it would include all these NP-specific MIDI CC’s which would just be garbage for any other plugin. NotePerformer takes the MIDI sent by Dorico which consists of these NotePerformer-specific controllers (look at the CC lanes for a NotePerformer track in Dorico to see the details) and creates its own MIDI which it sends to the instruments it is hosting.
But the problem is, it isn’t just one MIDI track - NotePerformer doesn’t host just one copy of the instrument, but several copies in every case, for layering purposes, which is why it takes up so much RAM. That’s why Kontakt libraries, or SINE libraries like OT Berlin Berklee are such memory hogs with NotePerformer. So if you load up, say, VSL Synchron Strings Pro first violins, it’s actually loading up probably 5-10 copies of that instrument at least, even if you choose only “1 staff”, because it simulates agile legato by layering articulations on top of each other, like it might simulate agile legato by layering legato on one track with staccato on another, or by layering legato with a trill or something. So it isn’t just a single MIDI track per instrument, but a series of MIDI tracks per instrument, each of which is designed to use certain settings for this layering. Not only this, but it is also presumably automating the output amplitude of each of these 5-10 copies of the instrument in order to make balance corrections and things like that.
Even if it had the ability to export MIDI tracks for every instrument, you’re going to end up with hundreds of MIDI tracks for a full orchestra, and missing the automation curves. It’s not going to be easy to get playback in a DAW matching what you were hearing in NP.
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Just want to point out that Vienna is currently having a substantial sale on their newly redesigned website for those interested in MIR, which I agree is excellent.
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I can’t stand CC work, it’s like programming not music. When Dorico came along it turned on its head where now I worry about music and not fiddly CC details. I use the Dorico output as a baseline then just tweak up the CC to taste. Which isn’t usually much, it’s like being a conductor shaping the players. Some rubato, note separation, shaping the lines a bit.
Answering your question “Is Dorico output as good as DAW CC” to me it doesn’t matter, I’ll only work this way, and I can fiddle the CC as much as I want so the answer is yes. Working in CC is like writing music by conducting and orchestra.
No, again I don’t think so. Dorico sends midi through expression maps provided by Wallander with NP…that midi goes through NP and NPPE before it finally hits the VST. The final midi going to the VST is not the same as what Dorico can export. You would need NP and/or NPPE to provide the ability to export that.
No wrong again. NP doesn’t need midi once it’s inside NP, NP uses its own modeling, it IS the VST instrument in that case. But for NPPE and 3rd party VST, it must be converted to a legit midi signal to feed to the instrument. That is the only way that NPPE can communicate with the VST per the VST architecture.
But yes, the midi coming out of Dorico’s expression map, the bit that is exportable by Dorico…would actually be complete jibberish because NP is using that midi only to obtain information about the score via the expression map. The generation of the actual midi which will arrive at the VST comes later in the chain…through NP and NPPE and that midi will arrive at the VST.
Sure. But we’re talking about NPPE
I agree, the Dorico export is not sufficient. that’s why I said long time ago it would be nice feature add from NPPE to export this actual final midi that currently arrives at the VST
correct.
Sounds about right, well so what though, if someone wants to do that, why not? By the way most sample instruments such as VSL are smart enough to not load the same sample into ram multiple times. if you load 5 instances of one instrument, it only loads the relevant samples once and shares that memory between the 5 instrument instances. Not all do that, but some day. VSL definitely does.
but anyway, this may not be interesting for you, but it very well might be interesting to someone who seriously wants to take the nppe production and move it to a daw for more refined mixing and fine haired tweaking it further… I for one would be much more interested in NPPE if this capability existed.
Most orchestral sample instruments don’t do much with automation curves, they use midi predominantly. But there are ways to export that too. Hundreds of tracks is nothing of any concern for DAW orchestra mockup producers.
That’s exactly what I said though. So I’m confused. You first say I’m wrong, then you explain exactly how I understood it to work, and exactly what I just said but in different words.
Again, you’re saying I’m wrong, and then you give me an explanation intended to correct my understanding of how it works, but telling me exactly what I already know and just said.
To be absolutely clear:
“What Dorico sends to the VSTi is what gets exported when you send MIDI from Dorico” - this is stating that in the case of direct hosted VSTi’s in Dorico when not using NotePerformer at all, What Dorico exports is the same as the MIDI that goes to the VSTi.
“but in the case of NotePerformer this consists of the notes plus MIDI CC’s that have special meaning to NotePerformer” - this is stating that in the case of NotePerformer, it consists of the notes plus the MIDI CC’s that are generated by the NotePerformer expression maps. (again you told me that I’m wrong, that the correct answer is that it is generated by the NotePerformer expression maps)
“(and these are the same regardless of whether it is regular NP or NPPE), and these MIDI CC’s would be gibberish if fed directly into the target plugin.” - this is me saying that the MIDI that Dorico feeds NP (which is the same as what it feeds NPPE) is different from the MIDI that NPPE in turn feeds the VSTi plugin that is loaded in NPPE. (again, you told me I’m wrong, and that the correct answer is that the MIDI that Dorico feeds NotePerformer is different from the MIDI that NPPE feeds the VSTi plugin)
I feel like I’m saying “the sky is blue in color” and you’re saying “you’re wrong - the sky is colored blue”.
I am interested in this, but I just don’t expect it to be quite as useful as you might expect. If NPPE gave the ability to export the MIDI that it sends to the plugins that it hosts, and you plugged that in to the DAW, it would not at all sound the same because you’d lose all the automation and other magic that NP does on the output. You’re not going from the same starting point. You’d have to do a bunch of automation potentially, spending hours just to get it sounding reasonably close to how it already sounded. And then there is potential EQ/compression/reverb that NPPE or NP is doing internally that you would have to try to replicate. You could spend forever trying to just get it to sound the same as a starting point. I’m just not sure that that is really worth the time investment vs. driving the libraries directly from Dorico and exporting that MIDI and then adjusting that in the DAW. If the balance of everything is completely off and you have to adjust it all anyway, it may not actually save any time.