Does Dorico will continue to both support and develop the playback with Note Performer about all possibility that this one offered?
I’m actually experimenting Note Performer and I’m really impressed by the result.
As base level sound package you can not ask for better.
Note that I’m «VSL SE Full» ownner…
…of course I’m eager to get Dorico’s «expressionsmap» for VSL too !
Alain, I too am a VSL SE Full owner. Using Noteperformer out of the box is so much easier than trying to set up VSL support. VSL is still a long-term goal for me, but at this point I’d rather work on music.
If NP mixer functionality can be improved…
Alain, from what I’ve seen and read, there’s definitely continued synergy between Dorico and NP. Arne, the creator of NP, is continuing to develop it with an eye towards increasingly seamless integration with Dorico and other major scoring programs.
NotePerformer was first released by Arne Wallander in September 2013 and was at first compliant with only Sibelius notation software which he used. Arne Wallander is a composer himself who developed NotePerformer in order to hear his own music played back without the myriad adjustments necessary with other sample set v.i.'s. He had to work closely with the Sibelius team at the time (which is today the larger part of the Dorico team) and the resulting product, NotePerformer, was hugely popular with composers and caused many to either go to or stay with Sibelius. In the past year, Mr. Wallander has released “Beta” versions of NotePerformer for both Dorico and Finale and considering the many updates and improvements to NotePerformer since 2013, all free of charge for existing users, and his long history of working with today’s Dorico team, and the huge amount of interest and support for NotePerformer within the music notation world I feel confident that he will continue to work his magic, and also that any notation software maker would be VERY interested in working with him to ensure continuing and even improving compatibility with NotePerformer.
AFAIK one of the reasons NotePerformer didn’t interface sooner with Dorico was that it had to wait till the Dorico development team had done more work on Expression Maps, and Dorico could tell NotePerformer “what the written score looked like” for playback of articulations, slurs, etc.
Sibelius Finale and Dorico do this in different ways, but they can all pass similar information to NP.
I confess I don’t use Play mode effectively as most things get played by humans. But it’s nice to have better sound for testing. What exactly does NotePerformer do so well? Is it significantly better? I’ve read about it, but not heard a side-by-side comparison.
Ahh, so for a piano (which is essentially “digital”) you might not get much different effect. But for “analog” instruments, much more dynamics intra and inter-note. Hmmm… worth considering.
Also, you can download a 30-day trial version for free and see what you think. In a practical sense, NotePerformer allows you to focus more of your time on composing music and less on fiddling with virtual instruments to hear the effects you have in mind.
Just my personal opinions - your ears may work differently from mine 
If you ONLY want a piano, then something like PianoTeq Stage is a similar price to NotePerformer, and sounds much better. The sound generation algorithms are the same in all the versions of PianoTeq, the main difference is the amount of tweaking to the sound “out of the box” that you can do).
On the other hand NotePerformer sounds much better than comparable priced sound libraries for orchestral instruments, and is much easier to use than more expensive libraries that might sound better if you are prepared to invest the time both to learn how to use them, and then to actually use them on every project you do.
I absolutely second Rob’s opinion. Pianoteq for pianos and NP for the rest.
One of the unique things about NotePerformer is it’s ability to do more than just trigger sounds based on notes. Every library does that. According to Arne best I understand it NP reads ahead, looking at combinations of notes with slurs, articulations, etc., and actually interprets how best to implement them.
This is the key feature of NP. VST instruments require the user to either control all aspects of playback with Continuous Controllers or create detailed Expression Maps, often a combination of the two. There’s a LOT of extra work beyond the score itself. With NP all this work is taken off the shoulders of the composer.
Because the full scope of NP’s ambition is truly beyond the limits of any currently available software, it is not perfect, but it is the best I know of at what it does. The quality of instrument sounds and playback rendering is not at the level of a high-quality virtual instrument with skilled controller input, but the quality instrument libraries are very expensive, and it can take years to get good at controller input, which also required DAW software that is another expense.
Another vote for pianoteq here - I use it live as well as for sessions. I’ve been playing with the demo of NP. For strings it gets really quite close to hours spent massaging other libraries. If only you could apply NP’s cleverness to Spitfire or EW… The brass band instruments sound well together too.
Another +1 for Pianoteq. Like Rob, I find that the least expensive version, Pianteq Stage, is easy to use (its even VST3), sounds terrific and uses minimal computer resources. I regularly use it along with NotePerformer for other instruments.