In a choral score, for some reason the soprano part plays back super quiet, while everything else balances fine. No one is muted. I’ve got sliders in the mixer adjusted the same - in fact, boosting the soprano doesn’t change it at all. I’m using NotePerformer as a Playback template. What am I missing? Why should one part be interpreted differently from all the others? Thanks for any advice!
Welcome to the forum @twiprud !
Are you talking about Note Performer mixer, or Dorico’s?
Working with Note Performer, you must set Note Performer’s one.
OK, thanks, that sounds promising. Where do I find NotePerformer’s mixer? In the Dorico mixer, I see duplicate sliders for all the parts to the right. Is that the NP mixer? If so, it doesn’t help. I’ve boosted soprano all the way up with no effect. In fact, now I notice that no change in any slider makes the least change to playback, EXCEPT, there’s ONE slider marked NotePerformer, which is a master controller - when slid too the bottom, I get no sound. ALSO - I just updated NP and no change.
I’ll add: this is my first Dorico project (coming over from Finale). As I’ve been inputting the score, I’ve used default playback with no issues. It’s only when I changed the playback template to NotePerformer that the soprano part dropped out. So charles_piano’s suggestion sounds reasonable.
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Thank you Jesper! ( How would I have known to click on the tilted e??) So now I have the NP mixer, and when I boost sopranos all the way up, they’re balanced with the rest. If I put them all at 100, I can’t hear sopranos. Bottom line: problem fixed, but not understood!
What dynamic markings are assigned to the voices in the score itself, is the soprano softer (p or pp or whatever) compared to the others?
Good question, but nope, all marked the same. I went through looking for any stray marking, don’t find any.
Velocities are the same? Did you input with a midi keyboard?
Hmm. Yes, input with a MIDI keyboard. Hard to see how velocities would be different among all the parts I keyed in, but - how would I check on that?
Velocity
As we normally say, upload it here and someone can look into it.
OK, well that’s fun! But there’s not a significant difference among velocities recorded for the various voices, to the extent of the playback differences.
This is becoming academic as now having access to the NotePerformer mixer enables me to compensate, but I’ll upload and welcome any analysis of the situation. Many thanks to all responding!
Don’t Let the Sun PV.dorico (1.6 MB)
All you are doing is showing the VST interface (which is what the e does). For NotePerformer that is it’s internal mixer (see p60 of the Noteperformer User Manual)
@twiprud sorry for the delay. I think it might be in your Setup, some are section (more voices so they are louder) and others are solo. I actually did not play around with it, but if you change the soprano to a Section Soprano, does it fix it?
Edit, NotePerformer is trying to be realistic; I tried HALion and the volumes were the same on the mixer.
Thank you for this! I hadn’t known how to designate soloists, other than by giving them names, so now I’ve used Player Settings to make all my soloists into soloists!
The soprano section part was not designated a soloist, so clicking soloist, and then unclicking it, didn’t help.
However, I noticed this - see screenshot - where the soprano section part is missing, or is perhaps the one titled “Empty Part,” which is not in the right order. This panel seems to be about appearance of the part, but may indicate where I went wrong in my initial setup…?
When you create a new player in Setup mode, there are two options in the left zone, bottom left. One head icon is adding a single player (single person or single person singing).
Two heads is a section, meaning more than one person, a group of singers.
Your Choral score, is it for single singers for sop, alto… or a group of each? Use the appropriate icon/button to create them.
We are currently thinking the reason you hear the soprano at a lower volume is because you selected an individual soprano singer and an alto section, group (of singers) and you are using NotePerformer which is presumably simulating a group of singers for altos so they are louder than your single person soprano singer.
User manual:
My screenshot from your previous upload (a few posts ago) shows presumably what you did. In the left zone in Setup mode we see a single soprano and tenor (each with a single head), section, group of altos and basses (and a single player on the piano, I don’t know if there should be two heads if the pianist has a page turner assistant … hmmm 
).
You might not have been aware of this distinction at the time you created them?
As you know I think, you can make a player a soloist from the players, information here:
(see Result to understand if you need to do this for your score).
Unless I am incorrect somewhere in all this or you want something different, here is a blog reference on how to move a single player into a newly created section:
[Aside: a section of players can divide (split) if needed, some sing one note, the others another; but one singer cannot. (I know you know this, just adding it in for anyone reading in the future.)]
You may or may not want divisi (we are just correcting volume (!), but near the end it shows how to move (drag) the music from one player to the new section of players in Setup mode.
Or if you want to practice setting up, a way to do this is to add a Soprano section in Setup, then in Write mode copy/paste (tip: Click first note/rest, Write mode, Edit, Select to end of flow) from the Soprano single player to the new Soprano section (after you have created one.)
Test: in the NotePerformer mixer, solo both Soprano and Alto sections to check if they are now more equal in volume.
(Or create a single alto player/singer and similarly copy/paste … if you only have one singer of each, test in the mixer.)
Then Save.
Then tidy up: check all the new parts have the music, and delete the players you no longer need.
You have reference to layout now, and an empty part, which could be if you had moved the music similar to the blog above. Before attending to layout, make sure you have your setup as you wish and your volumes (I know, you were not bothered about this with your volume higher in the soprano anyway) are similar, you have your sections, groups or single singers set up and players in order.
I understand if you want to move on regardless because all this does not actually matter (one player being quiet) for your purposes. 
First, my thanks for your time and detailed comments. This forum is proving invaluable for someone like me, making the transition from Finale.
I think I just found the simple solution to the volume problem. In the NotePerformer mixer (accessed via the tilted e button in the Play panel, for future readers), I find that if I click on the player ID at the top of each slider, I can re-assign the voice. I just went through and made sure the solo SATB were solo voices, and the choral SATB were choral. Problem solved.
What’s still curious to me is why in the Setup mode the Layouts panel shows no choral soprano part, but an "empty part.’ This however is truly academic because I’m never going to need a choral soprano part - chorus sings from piano-vocal score. And it no doubt goes back to my first-timer efforts at setup. I’ll be more careful on my second Dorico project.
Thanks again to everyone who chimed in.
For anyone seeing this thread in the future, this is one way an Empty part can appear:
If you had selected a player, then wanted to Delete it, you would have seen this message:
Players in the left zone (with the player you do not need highlighted), choose Delete (a message appears), Layouts in the right zone
If you had Deleted Player Only (red arrow), the Part Layout(s) remain in the Layouts, right zone:
Showing as an Empty part