I’ve been using NP since it’s been available for Dorico, and although playback has always started one second after pressing P, the playhead has always been in sync, and all the other VSTi involved too. I simply don’t understand this whole discussion…
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I think it was/is a problem with Finale
This is an old thread, but I’m curious… did anyone ever succeed in making Musesounds work with Dorico? I’m a new Dorico SE user (only edited one composition in Dorico after importing XML) and I really want better sound playback. I’ve only worked with simple ScoreCloud notation software before Dorico so I’m a newbie at this. I’m barely beginning to understand how VSTs work and currently have not purchased any libraries, but I’m looking for something easy that just works. Right now I want a non-fake-sounding violin and cello. I’ve researched a little about Noteperformer, but seems like it doesn’t even have as good a sound as Musesounds. Any suggestions?
No, it’s not possible to use Muse Sounds with Dorico.
You’re taking someone else’s word for that? Why not try it out for yourself and see why many of us are quite satisfied with NP instead of first looking for a different solution?
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I remember when I first started using VSTis 10 or 15 years ago. I thought all the sounds were bad. But along the way, I learned that adjusting the stereo placement made a big difference, as did adding a touch of reverb. The dry sound of most libraries is not really natural, and the library providers expect you will add some reverb and other processing to it.
I also learned that I really should be using studio-grade monitors, including a good woofer (PreSonus Eris Sub8 in my case).
Today, I find the playback to be realistic enough that it often causes me to add articulations and dynamics to my score so that it plays more like a human would play it. Some of these articulations may be unnecessary when played by musicians deeply experienced with the genre. But I haven’t had any cases where I had to add an articulation that would be considered silly or redundant by a human musician.
A big part of this is expectations. If one is expecting the rendering to be realistic enough to fool trained musicians, then understand they are probably using very expensive libraries and spending many hours tweaking the MIDI in a DAW or at least fiddling with playback techniques.
For my purposes, the basic NotePerformer gets me close enough.
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Yeah, maybe I should try it myself. I was basing it on YouTube videos that showed playback through Noteperformer and compared it with Musesounds, and another video that compared Noteperformer 4 with 3 and was unhappy with it. Do you use Noteperformer 4?
Yes, that’s what intimidates me about VSTs! I’d love to know exactly what to do to use them well, but I don’t know the first thing about it at this point, so it’s going to be such a daunting learning curve.
Do you want to compose, or learn how to tweak CC lanes? Making convincing mock-ups will occupy all your time, in my opinion. Better to use NPPE and a good sample library.
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I just gave a MuseSounds a try out of curiosity. I am extremely impressed by the woodwinds, especially when using legato across longer lines – the realism is fantastic and they’ve managed to make it work with life-like keyclicks, taps, and breath sounds.
However I feel like none of the other instruments are all that impressive. They sound good but nothing to write home about. When using legato on strings it adds excessive portamento in particular where it doesn’t even make sense (where it would involve simple fingered or string crossing legato, and not any kind of shift). I googled and it doesn’t seem like you can change this. Also I found Musescore to be surprisingly un-intuitive, and that’s saying that as someone who used it years ago when I was a poor college student getting into composition… now that I’m used to how fast it is to work in Dorico I’m not sure I could ever go back, regardless of sounds.
But that said, between Dorico’s new Iconica, and NP along with NPPE (I’ve been using it with BBCSO), I’m getting some incredibly realistic sounds, and fast! I do hope that someday some of the legato especially on woodwinds could be improved. But in the meantime I’m really impressed with how far things have come using Dorico+NP. The technology is getting so amazing. What an incredible time to be a composer and practically have a live orchestra at your fingertips!
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Thanks, Dan! It’s true, I’d much rather be composing than tweaking sounds… I can give Noteperformer a try. I got the free BBCSO too, however it doesn’t appear to have any solo strings. That’s the main thing I want. If I get a sample library that has solo strings, will Noteperformer do all the tweaking for me or will I still have to adjust the settings anyway?
Stupid question… what’s NP and NPPE? (I thought they were two ways of referring to NotePerformer until Wing mentioned both in the same sentence.
NotePerformer is the traditional NP using adjusted sample sounds.
NPPE (Note Performer Playback Engine) is a collection of add-on modules that perform some of the same humanization functions on outside libraries like Iconica Sketch, BBCSO, etc. allowing one to incorporate them into the NP scheme.
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Just to amplify a bit beyond Derrek’s post,
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NP is the original breakthrough product that interfaces with Finale, Sibelius, and Dorico, giving a more humanized result AUTOMATICALLY using a relatively small and inexpensive set of sample libraries that are part of the NP package.
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NPPE is a set of add-ons to NP. NP still interfaces with the three major notation products, and still offers the built-in NP samples. But if you want to use the more expensive and more expansive commercial orchestra libraries, the NPPE add-ons allow you to do that while still being as automatic as NP. You just buy NP, the sample library you want, and the corresponding NPPE module and the rest happens automatically.
The point is that all of the above is essentially automatic and very, very good for most notation users who are interested in a highly representative playback to show off their scores. The basic NP is around $130. If you go with NP+a NPPE module + a big orchestral library, you may be looking at $500-2500. And you might need to look at a more robust computer to handle those big libraries, so a person can easily get to $4000 or more.
If you are really trying to use the sample libraries to produce a commercial product, like a movie soundtrack, then you will probably enter the realm of tedious fiddling with MIDI within a DAW. Recent releases allow Dorico users to do some of that tedious fiddling within Dorico rather than exporting to a DAW. But it is still a highly manual exercise, whereas NP and NPPE are automatic.
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Thank you! That really clarifies things for me. NP sounds like what I need! And if I find that I want better sound than the built-in NP ones, I can look at a NPPE plus a sample library, correct? I’m feeling less overwhelmed now! I appreciate everyone’s patience and comments as I get started.
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The NotePerformer website warns that "a playback engine may use 50GB of RAM!
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I quite understand what you want - we all do! Just a warning. String instruments are highly idiomatic and, to achieve a realistic sound, you have to decide on bowing technique, string choice, use of vibrato. glissando/portamento etc. This is especially true for solo strings. However, the overhead of deciding how every note will be played is a nightmare. I once spent 4 hours trying to get a 12-bar flugelhorn to sound “right”.
That level of detail requires programming (key switching, CC lanes, matrices of sounds to choose from etc).
Having said all of that, I found NotePerformer to be totally useful for full orchestra mock-ups. It’s only when a client wants more that I go to Vienna Symphony Library for detailed work, and then only for highly specific items, using NP for much of the bulk work.
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Exactly.
There is even a free NPPE-Engine for the Iconica Sketch library that came with Dorico 5.1, so if you don’t like the NP native sounds (although they are quite good), you already have a second library to play around with 
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It might be an idea to find a good violinist and let him record the track… that will sound realistic… Joshua Bell comes into my mind, if you can’t get Hillary Hahn. String quartet players are also always a good choice.
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I actually got a good bargain on Jascha Heifetz. It was an end-of-season promotion.