Dear all,
I’m working on an orchestra score with about 50 players. I pressed “F3” to make the harp sound more quiet over all. I went to “Midi” and played around with the “harp” button but it doesn’t have any effect on the velocity of the harp. I’m using note performer.
Does anyone have an idea how to fix this?
Thank you very much!
Félix
A harp’s dynamic range (unless amplified) is not unlimited. It may be that NP controls for that.
Have you tried another VST for the harp sound to see if your F3 makes a difference there. You could also play with the Dorico Mixer and dynamics controller lanes in Play to see if that helps you out.
(Not sure what F3 does actually; I usually just use Dorico’s SHIFT+D dynamics to control volume in the first instance.)
You’re absolutely right. Harps tend to sound less loud in real life than on the computer. That’s why I’d like to turn down the volume for the harp so I can use loud dynamics (mf-fff) that will encourage the real player to play loudly without the playback in the computer sounding as loud as a piano would with the same dynamics…
F3 is just the key shortcut to access the mixer. 
Thank you, I will try the dynamics controller lanes.
I’d say the main problem with the harp sounds in the computer vs real life is that harp sound in an orchestra is almost 100% reverbed sound, while we get a lot of direct sound from the vsti (hence too much presence, no matter the volume)… My advice to make it sound more “real” would be to apply a great deal of reverb + early reflections to the harp sound, to melt it better inside the orchestra. Unless it is a concerto for harp, obviously.
If your harp is on its own channel in the Dorico Mixer, I believe you can set its relative base level there if volume is your primary concern.