Anyone noticed issues with “blooming” in the brass since the update? I hadn’t noticed this before but haven’t had time to make a comparison since. This is an issue, because, when a teacher, I spent many a rehearsal breaking students of this nasty habit.
It’s not obnoxious, but quite noticeable.
I just noticed the french horn being a bit brassy at low dynamic levels. It used to sound more like a high pitched tuba. Is this a matter of settings?
I would think it is more somewhere between the two.
Here are examples of a Brass Quintet arrangement for comparison. The 1st uses NP 5.0.1; the second uses the new 5.1.0. Both are entirely NP. The mixer and reverb settings are the same for both.
1.
The newer NP brass has more presence and seems more ‘open’, I think-which I rather like. I don’t really hear ‘blooming’-except those changes brought about by the dynamics in the score. The trumpet staccatos are a bit harsher in 5.1.0 sometimes. Could you please clarify what you mean by ‘blooming’? I’m a wind player, so that’s a new term for me.
Thanks!
I just created four measures as a test, and it’s not so noticeable as it seems to be in a completed piece. Not sure what’s causing it, but it’s subtle enough I can just ignore it for now.
“Blooming” is the tendency of young brass players to start their tone timid, then swell as they are more confident in the pitch. It’s mostly noticeable on notes of more than one beat, depending on tempo.
It may be an artifact of Dorico’s playback options>dynamics> humanisation interacting with NP’s intelligence. Try changing some parameters.
That may indeed be the case. I haven’t really bothered with those.
I’d start by turning off pitch contour emphasis altogether and see if that helps.
Thank you. I learned something new today.
Janus,
I’ll try that also to see if i hear a difference.
Thanks!
I’m not handy to check at the moment but I thought that the playback options overrides in the NotePerformer expression map were generally configured to disable those types of humanization features built into Dorico. If so, changing the playback options would do nothing.
Yep. Unchecked the humanizing option with no effect. Here’s the file (cut down) in question. It’s pretty noticeable in the brass, and would be worse at a faster tempo. FWIW, this is an xml import from Finale I’m working on to update.
Selene - cutdown.dorico (685.7 KB)
how do I get to that dialog?
In Play, open the NotePerformer Expression Map and head down to the Playback Options Overrides section.
I used it today to make a mockup for a DCI group I arrange brass for.
The sound is significantly different. My ensemble is 3 trumpet parts, 1 mellophone, 2 baritones, 1 euphonium, and 1 tuba. I’m sending CC 104 at value 16 for all instrument staves here for ensemble sound, and CC 108 at value 1 for “always legato”. In my expression map, I’ve set default/legato/tenuto lengths to 99%. Sometimes tenuto plays back shorter than a full length note, and I will actually go into the expression map addons and delete the control change entry for this articulation.
I typically used the “alto horn” sound for the mellophone instrument, along with doubling that staff with a French horn instrument. Both combined gave me the timbre I was after for that voice, with a touch of EQ boost in the mid range.
Trumpets - Noticeable improvement in the strident nature of their sound found in previous versions of NP. I would usually EQ this, putting a high shelf on the top end around 8k. Now I find I need a little less off the top.
Alto Horn - sound is much different. It is much darker and is no longer a good substitute for a mellophone sound. It sounds identical to the baritone horn now.
French Horn - Sound is much different and to me, is more characteristic of what I want in a French horn sound.
Baritones/euphoniums/tubas - lacking clarity of attack for sure in this new update. Timbre is okay.
I don’t use the NP reverb settings at all because I’d much rather use the space template setup in Dorico, or mess with all of that in a DAW.
According to Arne, you MUST use the NP reverb to get the goodies he added to the overall sound. He indicated we might be able to get by with some unknown low amount so we can use our preferred reverb method, but his has to be present.
An additional note - Sometimes I have divisi parts in the mellophone staff. This happens seldom, and usually the rhythm is the same, so I do not write two parts. I noticed in my mock-up from today that when divisi happens, one of the splits is always significantly quieter than the other. My solution is going to be to duplicate my alto & french horn staff and have 4 to export.
which group do you write for, if I may ask? My son just finished his first year in the Crossmen, and is auditioning for the Troopers this weekend.
Tbis may stem from the pitch contour setting discussed earlier. Try disabling it 
