Where is the playback engine? I just installed version 5 but I cant find it.
NPPE have been removed in version 5.0.1. See this very thread 
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Thanks Estigy, but how do people do when they mention they are loading the libraries like BBC orchestra?
They are either still on version 4.5, or they did not update from 5.0.0 to 5.0.1, where NPPE had to be removed for some reasons, probably legal stuff.
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See here: Playback Engines Discontinued
ahhhh gotcha! Now I get it, thanks Estigy, I was like am I missing something?
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I do have the symphonic riot expression maps for VSL solo strings and they work very well - I can get very decent renderings of string quartets or solo parts from that. Better than the VSL expression maps. But currently they work only for the old VSL library, not the synchron one. However, they intend to move towards synchron when the older option is not available any more.
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I know 1 other person who is also very much liking it.
I won’t hold my breath for this. Besides, they say that they’re utilizing some features in the old player that Synchron Player doesn’t have (yet?).
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I think it’s going to depend on the music. I liked some things about what they’d done and admire the huge amount of effort put into it but when comparing my own Synchron maps to their VI ones for my music, I certainly overall preferred my own results (and indeed it seems even they said I had a point). I’ve never been a big fan of the VSL EM’s, though with the in-progress new solo strings, I do now use them as a starting point to save time.
As I no longer have the VI versions installed, I can’t do direct comparisons any more.
The old VI library has much more articulations recorded / available in the synchron player. However, VSL is not supporting the old player in a few months, so Symphonic Riot either have to move towards Synchron or go out of (their presumably small) business.
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Did I understand it correctly, that you created your own Dorico maps instead of straightly using the provided ones that, I believe, were created by VSL itself?
I have a few Synchrons, but not (yet) enough to be used as a complete orchestra, so I didn’t pay much attention to their maps.
What were/are the things that drove you to do the work in making your own maps (which I assume would take some time)?
initially the answer was very simple – VSL maps didn’t exist when I programmed my libraries. But when they did produce them, I found a number or errors, oddities and omissions . A major one, or instance, was in the Special Edition Dimension strings, they did not programme the different instrument groupings although this can be done quite compactly with add-ons. Biggest single issue was their use of velocity rather than CC patches which never made any sense to me.
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Given the current lack of ongoing third-party library integration in NotePerformer and with an eye toward future possibilities, I’m exploring alternative options. Arne worked wonders with CSSS and NPEE 4.5. Unless I’ve misunderstood comments elsewhere, it seems that even specially tailored expression maps for Dorico haven’t quite matched that level of realism.
If you’re willing, would you mind sharing some audio examples of legato string writing using VSL’s libraries? It would really help me get a better sense of their capabilities.
in general when they’ve been available, I’ve also preferred NPPE 4.5. However they didn’t support the VSL solo strings (other than the cut down version in the Special Edition vol.1). If they had, it’s likely I’d be using it - for instance I do use their Cinematic Studio solo strings.
If solo strings are any use – I rarely use VSL orchestral strings – you could try say the adagio of my 14th quartet here latest works. (starts 11’29") This mixes the old Synchronised violin and viola with the new Synchron cello and violin which strike me as being generally more musical so I’m waiting for the set to be completed.
If you’re mainly interested in orchestral music, then perhaps someone else could chip in as for that, I find the Cinematic Studio legato better than anything I’ve heard from VSL.
I was an early adopter of Staffpad, bought it in the first week on a Surface Pro 3, and had the same issues. It was a wonderful idea, but wasn’t properly implemented at the time. I’ll probably revisit now that I have a proper desktop and am no longer using my Pro 7 for that purpose. I’ll be carrying the little guy wherever I go, now, so having the ability to input with the pen might speed things up on the road. We’ll see…
Even die-hard StaffPad supporters are no longer advising people to use it, considering it a dead product.
I’ve seen horror stories a few times about people losing all their scores due to some glitch and not being able to get them back, unless they saved them somewhere else.
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I actually invested a bit of money in the VI Series and Symphonic Riot maps, and asked them directly about their plan for the future support of Synchron. They responded with this, which I am pasting here since it may be helpful info:
We are currently working on supporting the Synchron Orchestra, but at this point there are no plans to support the “Synchronized” Series.
In Dorico it does not really matter which player is “under the hood” and therefore it would already be hard to justify the immense development effort to recreate something that does already exist in another player. What’s worse, aside from the fact that many Synchronized libraries are lacking content (e.g. the patches required for the “HD Shorts” are not included), the Synchron Player is still too limited and far less efficient than VI pro (and this is only painfully slowly improving), so that we simply could not offer many key features (like the 3D control) the current VI presets offer at this point (we spend a lot of time testing and trying various workarounds, but it is just impossible to make this work in the current Synchron Player). That’s why VSL’s recent decision is really unfortunate.
As an owner of both VI Series and many Synchron equivalents (I also got a very nice discount to upgrade to the Studio editions now in Synchron, without the need to lose my VI Series license) – I don’t entirely understand the tech but I do believe I get what Symphonic Riot is talking about above, regarding the “3D control” - you can do a lot of advanced blending and crossfading across patches in an XYZ fashion, in ways that the Synchron player doesn’t really support. It allows for some really nice mixed articulation expression mapping not otherwise possible with the standard VSL maps. They also ditched a few articulations in the Studio updates here and there - not always but sometimes, which is a bummer. I’m hoping VSL will bring some of these tools back into Synchron, using VI Pro with the Symphonic Riot maps, as you probably know, has been about the closest to NotePerformer and NPPEs I have gotten natively using other libraries/maps directly within Dorico.
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Yeah, they are really leveraging the matrix in the VI player. Unfortunately I found the matrix to be a constant source of confusion when I just wanted to do simple things. So I am generally glad to go up to the Synchron-ized (now called Studio) versions of things because the player is so much nicer from an end user perspective. Maybe VSL can do something in future updates to allow Symphonic Riot to incorporate their old methods. Lately they’ve been really trying to make their Studio ports match the VI ports as closely as possible (while this wasn’t a priority for them early on, when they were simply intended as an alternative option).
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Indeed – the matrix and the VI Pro player is a pain to use. The Synchron player is so much nicer and intuitive (and I will admit, when I don’t need anything fancy, I too prefer using them, even for the Studio editions which may lack a few articulations). If it weren’t for the Symphonic Riot maps which were pretty much plug and play for me, I don’t think I would’ve bothered creating my own maps for VI Pro – it’s a lot of work using that player and I noticed some stability issues that I rarely have with Synchron.
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That’s a shame. The concept showed so much promise. It probably would have been better if they’d never sold out to Muse. But that’s true for most software…
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