I recently purchased Dorico Pro 3.5, and have found the program largely intuitive and easy to learn the basics of, but I do have one problem.
Many instruments, I’m not sure quite how many, don’t have the playback feature. I am using a program called note performer along with the application, and of the limited instruments I’ve tested so far, woodwinds and bowed strings don’t seem to work, though piano, Celeste, synth bass and ukulele do work fine. I’ve been going of sight singing, which is absolutely fine, but I’d love to experience the playback this program apparently offers. I’m relatively new to digital notation, so there might well be some obvious issue I’ve overlooked. My device has sufficient random access memory and windows type to run the program, if that is relevant.
After some more fiddling, I’ve found out that saxophones do indeed work, as do vocals and electronic instruments
Hi Daniel! Welcome to the forum!
The instruments supported by NotePerformer are listed in the documentation. And they do playback, when you apply the playback template. Make sure you’re running the latest Dorico (3.5.12 iirc) and the latest NotePerformer (3.3.2?)
If you still have problems, post a cut-down version of your file and we’ll try to help you with it!
It says its dorico 3.5.10, is that too old?
You should update to the latest, because bugs were resolved. It might make a difference on what you’re experiencing (and I’m definitively not!). I find it strange it’s 3.5.10 if you’ve purchased it recently. IIRC, 3.5.12.1066 is out since february 15th 2021…
I got it about 2 weeks ago, if I can figure out how ill post a screenshot
Have you been using NotePerformer before your bought Dorico (like with Sibelius or Finale)? In that case, you might need to re-install it because it needs to install specific things to run fine in Dorico.
I bought it the same day as dorico, and had previously been handwriting music when I needed too.
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Ok. Thanks for that information. Well, for what it’s worth, strings and woodwinds should work in NotePerformer without you needing to do anything else that using the NotePerformer playback template. Are you positive this is how you’ve been using it? You cannot set the sounds up “manually” as you could with HSSE+HSO, with NotePerformer. It’s a unique instrument, in that regard.
I used it instead of the hallion thing that came with dorico, I’m not sure entirely what you’re talking about with HSSE+HSO. All I’ve done intentionally is changed the device settings so it goes through my wireless bluetooth headphones, I might have done something else accidentally. sorry I’m not being very useful here, I admit I’m a bit out of my depth in this software system
Ok, I understand you’re just starting. Here’s what you need to do:
Go to Play mode (cmd-4)
Open the Play menu, select Playback template
There, select NotePerformer (playback template), then press Apply & Close.
You should find all the instruments you’ve set up in Setup mode will be routed to NotePerformer and will play, unless you’ve chosen an instrument that is not listed on NP’s documentation.
I suggest you change the default playback template to NotePerformer in Preferences>Play options 
This way, Dorico will do those first steps for you automatically for any new document.
hang on I just tried again before you replied again and apparently the halsonic thing didn’t install properly, would that be a possibility for the cause of the issues? i started re-installling it, since it said playback files were missing… I cant find the play menu, maybe that gets installed with the other midi playback options?
I don’t think the Play menu is linked to any additional thing to install. And I’m quite sure NotePerformer should work, even if you did not install the 9.smth GB file for HSSE+HSO
Here’s a picture of my Play mode :
You can see the Play menu on top, between View menu and Window menu.
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