I’m thinking of switching from an exclusively NP/Dorico platform to one that uses a Dorico sound library like HSO, or even a 3P VST.
I generally compose orchestral & chamber pieces, but may soon begin writing for acoustic jazz ensembles or producing mixed arrangements that incorporate electronic or electric instruments.
Any opinions, based on personal experience, re: whether, e.g., Dorico+HSO produces output of quality sufficient to justify the loss of NP’s “AI-based” humanization?
D
Why switch, rather than combine? It is perfectly feasible to combine a NotePerformer orchestral ensemble with other VSTs. There’s a raft of electronic sounds bundled with Halion Sonic, so why not experiment with combining those with a NP ensemble?
@Janus: That’s a possibility, and perhaps a likely one, for further down the road.
In the interim, my original threshold question remains.
I think most people will say that NP sounds much better than HSO. Arguably, if HSO was any good, then Steinberg wouldn’t have felt the need to create Iconica Sketch as the new orchestral library for Dorico.
(And of course, you can use NP to control Iconica Sketch, for the best of both worlds.)
The consensus is that even if you’re using one of the high-end third-party VSTs, like Spitfire BBCSO, OT’s Berlin Orchestra, EW’s Hollywood Orchestra, Vienna Syncron, etc, they sound better when NotePerformer is controlling them.
Dorico comes with plenty of electronic samples and synthesised instruments, in addition to HSO.
What is 3P?
But I’d agree with Janus: you don’t need to ‘switch’. You can keep NP on your computer for the orchestral stuff, and use HALion, or something else, for other instruments.
your own ears should be able to guide you but I don’t think there are many who would say that HSO is better than NP. And following on from @benwiggy 's argument,
Arne Wallander would not have found it necessary to create the NotePerformer Performance Engine if NP on its own had been tonally up to the mark.
For a combination of quality and ease of use in notation software, NotePerfomer controlling a high end third party library (my own favourite is Cinematic Studio but BBC Core is a cheaper alternative which can also give expressive results) is the best solution.
Like others have posted, I’ve found my most satisfying results from taking advantage of Dorico’s remarkable flexibility in allowing my NP, NPPE and VST libraries to ‘mix and match’; HOWEVER, I have also found that, depending on the instrumentation/arrangement, I can achieve quite satisfying results using HSO. With HSO, the stage and sound templates and pitch contour emphasis work beautifully. Attached is a link to one arrangement of mine that, except for Garritan’s solo flute, uses only HSO library sounds with the stage and sound templates. I have tried mixing and matching using my other libraries, but am most satisfied with the results here from HSO. I still use my other libraries more often though 
.
Well, I like your arrangement – some great voicings – more than I like the HSO sounds, esp. the winds. That’s not what I expected, but your comments & sample were still pretty helpful.
Wait, what? It’s possible for NotePerformer’s Performance engine to control other sound libraries? For me, that would be the best of all worlds.
I think I’ve missed something important. Is this done through a NP function or in Dorico Play Mode?
Re: sound quality, I’ve only taken a few halting first steps re: comparing NP’s sonics to those of other sound libraries. But when I ported a previously written drumkit part to HSO, the latter sounded quite a bit more realistic; and HSO offered a more robust selection of percussion instruments. In fact, that little experiment was the motivation for my original posting.
If you own NotePerformer, you can install the NotePerformer Iconica Sketch Playback Engine for free. Other libraries require a one-off payment around US$60 depending on the library. You need to install the NPPE app. Then you can choose the playback template in Play mode.
See John Barron’s excellent video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeRkvIiE-4k&list=PLwAxQK_CBQ9pXYGB2GKdW6_auzsfkVlu0&index=7
NotePerformer is primarily focused on traditional orchestral instruments. The percussion is decent but doesn’t get far beyond orchestral percussion such as a drumkit or various instruments found in jazz etc. But it’s great, I have playback templates which mix and match the best of all worlds, so you can use NP for orchestral instruments and HSO for the drum kit, etc.
And yes, NP can control other sound libraries (not just any libraries though, only those which are supported which you can view on the website). It’s very awesome and basically plug-and-play in terms of articulations and dynamics - everything just works, and you can mix and match libaries too. You’re able to demo the engines before purchase to see if it works for you.
Yes, you missed the launch of Noteperformer 4! NP now comes with a separate application, called “Noteperformer Playback Engines.app”. In there, you can purchase ‘engines’, where you can then load the instruments from a variety of sample libraries.
So, Dorico sends MIDI to NP, which does its magic, and sends the signal onto the samples.
Thanks. 
Remember that except for the flute, everything else in that arrangement was exclusively HSO. I do hope you can find your happy medium; Dorico provides a lot of flexibility to help us do so.
Well, I did upgrade to NP4, but didn’t notice an announcement of this PE app. THANKS for the heads-up! I’ll defnitely explore this further.
Update
I read through the material at your link and TBH, it sounds too good to be true. I understand that this will mean purchasing an inexpensive piece of Wallendar software and perhaps reconfiguring my system to store my VST instruments on an SSD. But those are hardly showstoppers.
My one reservation is that this new NP utility doesn’t seem to support GASE, which might be a problem for my current project.
But regardless, this may still be a game-changer for me in future projects. I’ll be researching further…
I don’t use GASE but suspect you are correct about there being no NPPE that supports it in NotePerformer 4. However, you can still use GASE with its Steinberg expression map along with NotePerformer 4 and another third-party library with an applicable NPPE from NP, so hopefully will work out fine for your work flow.
What problem would this cause for your current project? You can still use Groove Agent alongside NP. And (with respect to percussionists everywhere), the sort of phrasing and balancing that NP does is less of an issue for percussion.
@benwiggy
The issue for my current project is that I 've already spent some time writing a complex, lengthy orchestral-percussion parts w/GASE. Originally, the whole piece is NP, but the NP percussion smples just weren’t working out. So for this composition, it seems, my best option may still be GASE+Dorico percussion. I guess I could take a few steps back and use NPPE to port those perc players to NP+HSO. Have to think about whether it’s worth the time – although it would be cleaner to use NP for the entire piece.
Either way, this doesn’t diminish the value of what I’ve learned int his thread, for future projects. Maybe I’ll be moving to a platform in which most, if not all, parts are controlled by NP, regardless of which VST sound library they reference.
I have no idea about the actual hands-on procedures needed to integrate NPPE into Dorico, but maybe by now there are tutorials. I see that a # of videos embedded into the page at the link.
D
As said, you can use NP for the strings, woodwind, etc, and GASE for the percussion.
Anything you use usually has some strengths and weaknesses. In 2010 (13 years ago), I used what I could find on the internet, in my first attempt into more or less a classical genre. (these were most of the good sounds in soundfonts, Can’'t say much for the composition)
Stream experiment_1 (soundfonts) by symphonicinvention | Listen online for free on SoundCloud
I myself was surprised to learn it’s essentially plug and play. I just installed the separate NP engine app, and initially demo’ed an engine (with a library I have installed) before buying. With Dorico open, and NP in my playback template, the result was instantaneous. It just worked. Then if I wish to audition a different sound for an instrument, I can mute it in the engine, or swap for something else. It pretty much requires no setup or learning time. Creating a combined NP+HSO playback template is pretty simple too. Best part is if you don’t like what works you can simply mute or change templates. Give it a try!