Hello,
First of all, I’m not sure if this is a problem with Dorico or NotePerformer. If it turns to be the latter, I’ll contact Wallander.
The thing is that I opened a score I made in 2023 that had a suspended cymbal in a drum kit. While it used to play back fine, now it sounds like an out-of-range flute or something similar.
I’ve tried to reload the playback template. I’ve also tried to open the Noteperformed console, but the slot for the suspended cymbal doesn’t let you change instruments.
I tried to delete the instrument and re-create it, but that destroys the notes in that part of the staff and I’d need to input everything from scratch. Newly created suspended cymbals players sound as expected.
Any ideas? Here’s the problematic file (cropped).
problematic score.dorico (1.4 MB)
Thanks!
Update: Adding a new suspended cymbal player and reloading the playback template turns the flute sound of the old suspended cymbal into something akin to a bass drum.
Have you tried re-applying the playback template?
Yes. I’ve switched to “silence” and then back to “Noteperformer.”
Here’s your corrected file.
problematic score.dorico (1,4 Mo)
I have no idea how your file got in that state. I reapplied a NotePerformer playback template, and had to take the piatti out of the kit, change the suspended cymbal to… Suspended cymbal again, and bring it back into the kit
As you can see, it now works correctly.
Yes, that’s it! It’s curious because I’d tried to take the instruments in and out of the kit and it still wasn’t working. Turns out you must reapply the template at that moment as well.
Thank you, Marc!
Hi devs! This one just bit again today (and I remembered about the cymbals sounding like a flute…)
I have a theory, which might be totally wrong… Someone wants some kind of clash cymbals, and in the instrument picker, doesn’t pick clash cymbals nor piatti, because they’re using Dorico in French. So they pick “Cymbales de défilé” (which should correspond to the marching cymbals that are new in Dorico 6 and meant to be used with the new Marching Percussion instrument, but that is still me guessing). The playback template is NotePerformer. And it plays flute. Maybe something should be done, either by @Wallander or by the Team so that people don’t get bitten by this 
This happens to me occasionally, as well, and I discovered the kludge by accident. I wish I knew why it happens…
I’d say the reason is quite simple: you should not use marching cymbals (1 line) unless you use Auto or Marching Band Percussion playback template. I just tried the 1 line and the kit version, and I don’t get the flute, but some conga (which is plain wrong too) with NotePerformer… If I use Auto, then Marching Cymbals Dorico get loaded in Halion Sonic and it’s perfectly fine.
Every time you don’t hear the right instrument, there is a mismatch between the instrument you want and the instrument that’s loaded. It can be solved by changing the instrument in the instrument picker, or by changing the playback template. In the meantime, what we can do is report those mismatches, because the Team can probably solve most of those, provided they know about them!
