First of all, congratulations on the upcoming release this year! I have been looking forwards to this as so many other people.
I am also quite thrilled to see great things coming to us in regards to playback, as I would really love to be able to make good layouts for film music scores that will eventually be played by real instruments … without putting the producers off with my layout. 
On the other hand, at the moment I really love to use a notation program to just spend time on composition without having to worry about the actual sound (except for the sound in my mind). This to me is the next best thing to writing with my hands, but with some technical advantages and a much better look of the score.
For that purpose, Noteperformer By Wallander was a real breakthrough, because …
… it just loads in almost no time.
… it requires no tweaking, articulation switching, etc in most situations.
… it delivers most playing techniques of orchestral instruments, including rare ones.
… it is resource friendly.
… is sounds pretty decent in most cases (not close to a good mockup, of course, but decent for not having to put any additional work into it).
In short, it is close to perfect for the creative process, where technical details cloud your musical thinking. That is why, I would suggest to really consider working on something similar for a future version or maybe collaborate with Wallander. The Halion Orchestra is of course a logical choice for v1.0. But I am not sure, samples are a good choice for basic playback of a next gen notation program. Note performer (being mostly physical modeling) proves that point quite well in my mind. So, yes to the powerful Cubase engine in the background for situations, where you need to create a mockup for customers. But something like Note Performer will be brilliant in addition. Maybe just a new version from Wallander?
I last met with Arne Wallander at Musikmesse two years ago, and we discussed whether or not he might be able to produce a version of NotePerformer for Dorico (though of course we didn’t refer to it by name at that point). In principle, he said that it would be possible. Once we are a little further down the line with playback functionality, I will be sure to get in touch with Arne again and see whether he has any interest in adapting NotePerformer for Dorico.
Daniel, that’s excellent news!
I think a lot of present users of NotePerformer will regard this as very significant indeed. I think the vast majority of those who use it like it a lot.
Great to hear! Noteprformer is just the benchmark in terms of simplicity with notation playback (when your not into producing sophisticated sample mock-ups). I hope, Arne will do it!
Hi, any news on Noteperformer version for Dorico?
Would be great.
Jesper
Hi Friflo,
I’m using Sibelius exactly the way you do, and same for Note Performer. Fast loading, correctly sounding but nothing more. I just load it and compose then, nothing to worry about articulations, setup, midi things etc. That’s the perfect tool. For the rest everything is in my mind. And I just do very minor changes in composition after exporting to Cubase.
So I hope Wallander will provide a Dorico version of Note Performer ! Really.
I don’t think it should be a major overhaul for Arne to adapt NotePerformer (I also use it is Sibelius and is wonderful) for Dorico. Most of the mind-melt is done. I think it’s just a matter of creating the plug-in that works in Dorico. I don’t think the sound algorithms needs work…or a LOT of work. The NotePerformer Plug-In loads the sounds as they currently are…Arne just needs to create a NotePerformer-Dorico Plug-In. I hope he does!!
Any Update on NotePerformer for Dorico? 
No, no update yet. Once we have reasonable basic support for third-party virtual instruments, we’ll get in touch with Arne and see what can be done.
I’d like to add that I too would be very keen to be able to use NotePerformer with Dorico. It saves a huge amount of time that busy arrangers don’t have.
I just found NotePerformer. I listened to all audio demos I could find. The sound and dynamics really are much, much better than what you can get from Sibelius out of the box. Marvellous.
But how do you guys deal with the lack of agogics, especially if you export audio files to be delivered to your performers?
Still, also I “hope Wallander will provide a Dorico version of NotePerformer”. 
I emailed Arne at Wallander a few days after Dorico launched and I asked him about NP for Dorico. Here is his response:
"Hi Mike!
For sure Dorico will be looked into, but as they still have not
implemented playback (to the extent required) it’s still too early to
give any definite answers.
Best regards,
Arne
Wallander Instruments"
and of course he’s right --even the most basic playback of articulations is not yet finished though I suspect with the significant number of improvements in the recent update that we may not have that long to wait. Support for NotePerformer is a must for me to be able to switch from Sibelius. it’s not that the individual sounds are that special, it’s just they blend to sound quite close to a real orchestra. For small ensembles, I’d still go with VSL although if the primitive vibrato on solo strings can be sorted out, I wouldn’t rule it out in the future for string quartets
Hi there
I am also very much looking forward to Note Performer being available for Dorico. It is the one V.I that enables me to comfortably predict how my music’s balance will for most ensembles. It enabled me to focus on the composition rather than the playback.
The 1.0.2 update looks great as well.
Rob
Dorico’s playback is horrible. Just wanted to add that I eagerly wait for these.
Those interested in NotePerformer for Dorico should check out Arne Wallander’s recent interview with Philip Rothman on the Sibelius blog:
Reference is made to possible versions of NotePerformer for both Finale and Dorico.
Just piddled a bit with Garritan Personal Orchestra 5 in Dorico and came up with this.
It’s a pretty simple score in terms of the techniques required to get this much, so it only took a few minutes to get here.
The Scherzo rendered below is an example Score of a Shubert Scherzo (Initially provided here on the forum by fratveno, but I’ve attempted to tweak it out for GPO5).
Here one can hear a rendering of the above score.
F. Schubert - Scherzo No. 15 (Dorico-GPO5 Rendered to MP3)
For the final mix down I just put the following Inserts:
I’m using Stienberg’s REverence for reverb off the FX Sends. Effects are fully disabled in ARIA itself.
On the Master Output Channel I’ve added the following Effects, and rendered straight to MP3 from Dorico’s export option:
- Steinberg Stereo Enhancer.
- Steinberg Maximizer.
- Steinberg RV22HR Dithered to 16bit.
I’m not sure which of these effects are included with Dorico. I also have Cubase 9 Pro installed, so I may have access to others?
If any GPO5 users want a copy of this, hopefully load and play ready for Dorico to examine, I’ve attached a copy here in this Dorico/ARIA tutorial thread.
P.S.
Don’t be so quick to rule out the Halion Engine. It’s awesome! Content can be created with full waves, or even with tiny ‘wave-tables’, and more. Since Halion 6, users can now create and share libraries for Halion SE (which comes with Dorico).
It just needs the right libraries and expression-maps, which should be more plentiful for Halion as Dorico gradually shapes up with improved playback abilities as well.
Here is a quick rendering done with the new “Studio Strings” that come with Halion Sonic 3.
This Halion library is around 2,621,418KB on the hard drive.
I’ve done nothing fancy with this (It has far more potential with some expression-maps)…zero extra ‘techniques’ in the expression map, default Dorico playback settings.
F. Schubert - Scherzo No. 15 (Dorico-Sonic 3 With Steinberg Halion Studio Strings Rendered to MP3)
So, maybe Dorico could come with these strings (or an updated variant of HSO) and load them in Sonic SE 3 at some point?
Also, HSO has a lot more potential, it just needs a tweak here and there (in this case we could work wonders with the Viola in Hailon 6, sadly we’re a bit limited here in SE, but the Preset/Program could be ‘fixed’ and released as a content update). A better expression-map can help as well. Here’s a rendering with only a few minor tweaks, most notably disabling the internal HSO Ambiance, fiddling with the air and body settings, a bit of EQ on the Dorico Mixer, and choosing something other than the default reverb in REverence.
Here’s A run with Halion SE and the General MIDI (GM) Strings that are included with that in Dorico. This uses the ‘Default’ expression-maps, EQ off the Dorico Mixer, and some tube compression on each Instrument Slot. I’ve taken out too much of the dynamic range going for a fat sound via compression and didn’t want to spend more than a few minutes on this (I could tweak some and add them back) so here it is as SE GM instruments with a quick and dirty run.
F. Schubert - Scherzo No. 15 (Dorico-Sonic SE With GM Strings Rendered to MP3)
Here’s a remix using Sonic SE’s General MIDI Solo strings and Dorico’s Default (velocity based) expression map… I just took out the tube distortion/compressors from the mix above, so more of the dynamic range is exposed.
F. Schubert - Scherzo No. 15 (Dorico-Sonic SE With GM Strings Rendered to MP3)
I hope to start a new thread soon with some tips, tricks, and examples for getting more modern Guranish style solo string sounds out of Dorico/Sonic SE. I just need to confirm exactly which Halion content packs come with Dorico then I’ll get started.