I’m a new user of Dorico Elements 5. When I write some music for recorder, the playback is giving me a pretty generic electronicky sounding tone that has no resemblance to any natural instrument. I’ve poked around with the sound options (the default seems to be Iconica Sketch), but don’t really understand how to remap an instrument to a different sound, or even whether any of the sounds in the libraries have a recorder sound in them. I have been unsuccessful in finding help topics on this. How do I select better sounds?
Hello Mike, I just checked: if I setup a score and give the player the default Alto Recorder instrument, I will get quite a decent sound (to my ears).
Change to Play Mode and have a look which sound has been given to the Alto Recorder.
In my case it is the [GM 075] Recorder:
ps: I have checked this on my Dorico iPad version - which corresponds to the Dorico Elements desktop version and also uses Iconica Sketch as sound library. It is here displayed as “Built-in”.
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Thanks for the response. When I look in the play window, this is what I see under routing. No mention of the instrument at all. Just “HALion Sonic”, followed by port, channel, and the expression map. If I click on the VST and MIDI tab, I also get no mention of which instrument is playing. How do I get to that?
Click the e button next to the ‘cog’. That opens the VST interface (in this case Halion Sonic)
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Thank you for that. It turns out I am getting what HALion thinks is the recorder sound, so presumably that’s as good as it gets. Ah well, but at least now I can stop worrying that something was set up wrong and decide whether to accept the poor-quality sound as a cost of using Dorico instead of Sibelius.
If you happen to use the Record often, and you want a realistic sound, I would suggest to purchase a Recorder VST.
Here a list (some links don’t work anymore, but you can easily google for the name…):
Here a nice free one (but it requires the Full version of Kontakt, and if you have Kontakt anyway, it has some Recorders in the Factory Library, if I remember correctly…):
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Thank you, I’ll poke around with that. Definitely use recorder a lot 
.
Here’s a rendition of a fugue by Johann Fisher using Noteperformer.
And here’s the same file using Halion Sonic
Then this:
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Yes, that is exactly the sound distinction I’m referring to. That Noteperformer sample is nice.
.. and I actually prefer the Halion Sonic sampling with its straight clean sound resembling an organ rather than recorder players trying to sound like violins.
So taste differs. The Noteperformer one has a slightly more realistic articulation at the beginning of the notes.
I also love the organ-like straight sound of the recorder for many kinds of music. To my ear, the Halion Sonic sample more closely resembles a 1970s Atari game machine.
This is new, but probably overkill: The Recorder - Versilian Studios
Is there a way to use a Kontakt library in Dorico?
Here’s a quick mockup using the Recorders in the Garritan World Instruments.
That’s using the Tenor and Bass Recorders only.
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FWIW, I bought these a while ago, they seem to be on sale now and are VERY nice!
Cheers,
Benji
Yes, of course. Just load Kontakt as VST, assign it to a channel/track (creating an player that hold an available instrument, or creating a custom instrument) and depending on the usage and needs, you can create Expression Map, Endpoint Configuration and Playback Template (or unify your Endpoint Configuration within another Playback Template).
In this videos playlist you will find all you need for Playback, and many related nice things, in Dorico:
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compared to a live performance (of a different piece..):
https://youtu.be/B9dc2ite_i4?si=LXboW8CVaVAeF7EA
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Yep, love the Woodpeckers and that video. Great sound. If you’re getting that sound from Halion Sonic, we’re not experiencing the same thing at all.