the other artefact that happens when you have a non-flat dynamic at the start of the note, is that faster note sequences come out softer than longer note sequences, because the note is shorter than the time it takes for the sample to get to full volume.
Just a passing thought – what if Yamaha purchased NotePerformer, gave more money to Arne to strengthen his team, and made NotePerformer 4+ an exclusive of Dorico for desktop and mobile?
In one of the next versions, MuseScore will gain the playback interpretation abilities of StaffPad. It would be great if Dorico could gain even better capabilities before them.
Paolo
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MakeMusic bought Garritan, and since then Garritan has pretty much ossified. (Check the most recent date on the Garritan Blog site.)
Perhaps Arne prefers to work for his own company and that pride of ownership is what makes NP so spectacular.
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No idea if Arne would be happy or not, so it’s just a ‘passing thought’, if this makes any sense in English. Not recommending they find a deal, just thinking to how could happen if they did.
In any case, I would hesitate to compare Yamaha to MakeMusic. Yamaha has proven to be far-sighted enough in purchasing innovative companies, and have always been one of the most innovative company themselves.
Paolo
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We use the same expression so it makes perfect sense 
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With the miserable exception that their support for Dorico is non-existent and therefore exasperating, especially here in Australia, where we just don’t seem to matter. There’s a recent topic in Cubase forum on how appalling the Yamaha support is in Australia, and I understand people in other countries say the similar things. No doubt they do not even read these forums, for if they did they may consider lifting their game. Being owned by a company with deep pockets is not necessarily beneficial in all ways.
Steinberg refers support questions to your local Yamaha company. At which point I give up in despair. The only solutions come from the wonderful generous people on this forum and the Cubase forum. I do wish Steinberg would read the complaints about Yamaha and act on them - but maybe Yamaha prevents them from doing so!
Allow me to say that I air grudges against Yamaha Australia not to disseminate slander or libel, but in the faint hope that they may eventually read the posts here and on Cubase and provide a normal customer service standard instead of simply binning the emails which is what they appear to do.
I admit it’s hard to me to understand the relation between investing in the development of a new project and the customer support warranted by a local distributor.
Paolo
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The support is right here on this forum, and by all accounts, it’s exceptional.
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Exceptional even to the point that it is not uncommon for the head of the Dorico team to show up with advice or instruction that is normally reserved for a “support team.” He gives his email address out for people to send him projects.
This is true also of the actual developers, who interact constantly with customer who post their files.
And this is not to mention Facebook, which I do not use, but understand has the same sort of activity.
You cannot compare Dorico’s support to typical support. The way they offer it is completely different from most companies. If you learn how to work with them, you will get the support you need.
But I understand that if you limit yourself to support from local dealerships you will inevitably be disappointed. How is a guy from a local store going to know what to do to address a Dorico problem? There are dozens of people on this forum much more able and willing to help.
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Hello All, Well over here in Australia if I raise a support ticket with Steinberg I am forced to go to Yamaha Australia. I can’t understand why people say support is on the forum - of course it is, but for formal tickets for things like crashes you have to go to Yamaha - to no avail. That’s what I am talking about, and please read the current Cubase thread about how poor Yamaha Australia is. It is not my gripe alone.
So don’t misunderstand - some, but not all (especially crashes with Kontakt which get you into a vortex between Steinberg, Yamaha, and Native Instruments) are solved here, but I still have a list of items with Yamaha with no reply. That’s unacceptable by any standard. Yamaha is not just the ‘local distributor’, they are the owner and global parent company of Steinberg. A big difference.
So it’s not a matter of limiting one’s self - it’s Stenberg practice that you have to raise a ticket with Yamaha Australia.
In short, support on this forum is wonderful, but you can’t raise a ticket and track its progress with Yamaha as you are forced to do. Seems people have misunderstood what I am saying, and I explicitly praised the help offered on the forum in my original post.
See here for other complaints:
Perhaps this is only a problem in Australia, as global companies regard us as an insignificant and unimportant market.
Here’s what happens when I attempt to raise a support request with Steinberg:
M,aybe Europe and US do not see this?
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I don’t have Dorico but I am a Cubase user.
I don’t bother with Support anymore, because the forum has everything I need to resolve my problems.
Just post your issues here and people working for Dorico and users will help you out,
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Probably best to ask that as a new question. This threads getting pretty tangential as it is!
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You mean it’s a real hack!
Whenever I have a problem, where I would probably raise a ticket with any other software, I come here. A big part of the Dream Team is here, especially Ulf, Daniel and Lillie. And they are the ones able to put me back on tracks. And of course, our fellow Doricians with great knowledge and wisdom are here too and help a great deal. So why bother someone else — even if that’s how it’s supposed to work, normally?
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@Andro, I got in touch with my colleague who is responsible for managing the relationships with the various Yamaha subsidiaries who act on our behalf globally to ask her about what might be going on in Australia. There is one full-time employee who is responsible for providing support to customers in Australia for Steinberg products, and he was away with sickness for a while in April, which put things on the back foot. We have been assured that they are working to address the backlog and that they will keep a close eye on the support queue until the backlog is cleared.
At least for Dorico, I would recommend you make any bug or crash reports here in the forum rather than going through support in Australia, simply because that way you are cutting out the middle man: the person in Australia would need to contact us anyway to diagnose crash reports, so it is quicker simply to post them here.
I don’t know enough about Cubase to be able to provide any support or advice on that product, unfortunately, but at least for Dorico, it’s absolutely fine to post about the problems you are experiencing here, and we will do our best to help you as efficiently as we can.
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The other day I started working on my most recent commission, an extended piece for string orchestra.
Unfortunately, I’m still not 100% comfortable composing in Dorico, but it will come.
So I’ve been working in Finale (and continuously hitting the wrong keys because I’ve grown a good set of Dorico reflexes!)
Anyway, I’m working away, and I think “my god the sound is awful.”
After a week of working this way, I just couldn’t understand why Finale sounded so bad with NotePerformer.
Well, as it turns out, I didn’t HAVE NotePerformer generating the sounds. It was all Garritan strings.
As soon as I changed playback to NotePerformer there was a ridiculously HUGE improvement in the sound.
So, NotePerformer definitely beats out any of the presently-available Garritan libraries as far as sound is concerned.
Also, NP3 loads so incredibly fast! The Garritan sounds take forever to load.
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it’s not surprising that NotePerformer loads very fast as it only has a small sample set – much of the work is in the modelling which makes it pretty well unique among full orchestra emulations. And it’s not hard to beat the Garritan sounds.
The Garritan strings certainly sound ‘not great’ compared to NP. However, I do believe that a decent instrument could be created from the GPO samples with an entirely new definition file. But given that NP exists, it’s not worth the time.
NP Brass are also much better. I still prefer Garritan for some woodwind, keyboards, harp; and NP’s choir is pretty weak.
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