NotePerformer (4.5.1) Saxes: Trouble with Sustained Notes

I’ve been scratching my head with this strange playback behavior (which I’ve never experienced before):

Using NotePerformer 4.5.1 in Dorico 5.1.81.2225, the Alto and Tenor Saxes in a jazz big band arrangement will not sustain notes, but the Bari does. (1) If I apply the Halion Playback Template then everyone sustains, but reapplying the NP template doesn’t fix the problem; (2) If I create a new project then NP saxes all sustain (as has always been my experience). There must be something in this project file that’s the cause, but darned if I can find it.

I’m hoping someone in the collective wisdom might spot whatever it is I’m missing.

Cut-down project:

Sustained Saxes Problem.dorico (623.0 KB)

UPDATE: I was just in the Key Editor to change some Played Durations, and sometimes when I make the played duration of the note just before one of the sustained notes then suddenly the long note plays correctly. :man_shrugging:

Follow-up to my earlier post: Now I’m having trouble (the same issue as above, perhaps) when I edit slurs. Suddenly NotePerformer switches the Playback Technique to natural rather than legato, and I can’t fix it. Am I making some utter newb-error in missing how to fix this?

Edited slur:

Key Editor:

I can edit slurs in the brasses without any trouble. Is this a glitch in NotePerformer’s saxes? (@Wallander)

If it says “Natural” for the articulation in Play view, Dorico doesn’t resolve the note to legato to begin with. The legato entry in the Expression Map won’t be triggered, regardless of the playback device.

My guess is a glissando can’t go beneath a slur and produce the appropriate playback. I don’t think that works in Sibelius or Finale, either.

Yup, the instant I removed the gliss in the Bari, the natural playback reverted to legato. Thanks?

Any ideas about the upper saxes losing the legato playback when I edit slurs?

If you lose legato playback in other places, the first step would be checking Play view. If it doesn’t say “Legato,” the problem is typically in the document. For example, some other articulation might collide with the slur, like the glissando.

Forgive me for being dense, but that’s what I’m struggling to understand with these saxes from the project file in my OP:

Why wouldn’t a natural isolated note sustain? Does playback-only duration editing have some predictable relationship to the behavior?

Just so I understand. You want a longer duration for natural notes?

I want the 4-3/4-beat note to sustain rather than play back as if it were a quarter note. If that requires a legato expression trigger rather than natural, then I suppose my question is how the latter got there in the first place, as I simply wrote a long note and it wouldn’t sustain.

(Also, I have no idea if this is relevant, but I created the project sarong a Scoring Express Dorico template rather than from scratch.)

Can you set CC108 to a value of 1, to see if that does what you’re after? As in this articulation entry:

That means you open the CC108 controller in Play view, and input a value of “1” on the controller lane, first thing in the score for that staff.

This is a special mode where NotePerformer’s contextual shortening is bypassed and notes are played for their full duration (but not legato, unless marked so.)

The mystery continues…

Adding a CC108 line with value “1” didn’t help.

I have a short passage that plays back correctly in Alto 1: both longer notes sustain. I then copy/paste-d to Alto 2: the first long note sustains, but the second does not.

Alto 1:

Alto 2:

I’m really at a loss to understand this quirky behavior.

Hmm, I’m not sure why that would be. Could you attach the .dorico file with the problem? You can remove all the instruments but the alto saxophones, if there are copyright concerns. I can troubleshoot the problem here.