NotePerformer

[mmike]

I had tried it, admittedly a long time ago, and wasn't impressed. However, I'm ready to give it another shot, but before I even bother with the trial download, some questions. I see that there apparently still is a second delay during playback - how irritating do you feel that is? Is one supposed to use HP (which I actually never use with Garritan PO) with it, or not at all? I don't use Finale to make demos, only basically use it to check notes and get some general idea of orchestration, but it might be nice to find something somewhat better than what I am doing now. Working much with voices at the moment (individual and choral) - how does NP3 specifically compare there with GPO? And some more (ignorant) questions - does it work with Ctrl-spacebar playback? Can several instances of NP be loaded into different banks in order to have more volume control over groups of instruments? When switching between several open Finale files, does NP have to reload each time? If so, does it take a long time? Any other comments? Thanks ...

[MikeHalloran]

There were two delay issues. One was fixed in Finale 26; the other in Finale 26.3.1. This one has yet to be fixed:

Glissandos may not playback correctly.
In the Human Playback Configuration, we must set Start/Stop Time to "No HP Effect", to preserve the written length of notes.
Unfortunately, the same switch negatively impacts glissandos.

I don't other issues for Windows other than these:

If your Windows User Account was named such that it includes non-English characters Human Playback Preferences becomes inoperable in Finale.

So, if you login to Windows by the name of (for example) François, Jörg or 伟 you can use only the built-in sounds in Finale.

The only workaround that we know of currently is to create an alternative Windows user account using only A-Z characters to run Finale from.

[mmike]

Thanks for that info.

I've since more or less been talked into needing to try it, and I am getting acquainted with NP3.
Sounds good in general, but some things elude me so far (not much specific info to find in the documentation ...)

1) I don't seem to be able to keep different groups of NP instruments assigned to separate banks. I can do it in the score manager, but then when I run Reassign Playback Sounds everything goes back to Bank 1. Does NP always insist on filling up a bank untl all 16 channels are used?

2) I have also created a separate bank for some sounds I want to use with the ARIA player, but when I Reassign, then that goes also back to NP on Bank 1.

3) I assume it's because of this MIDI feature of percussion having to be on channel 10 - I have a vibraphone on ch.15, but the marimba doesn't want to be on ch.16, it always turns up on ch.10 (changing the score layout in the Mixer) - it' confusing.

4) And here the problem (or ignorance, as it may be) that made me discard NP last time I tried. All eigth notes (particularly brass) are played more or less staccato. How can one achieve a more tenuto or legato phrasing?
P.S.: later ... it seems it can only be done by applying slurs (expressions don't seem to), which works fine, but that's usually something I don't apply until the very end, when finishing a score and parts.

[Bill Reed]

Why are you running Reassign Playback Sounds ?

[mmike]

Becuse the documentation told me so (I thought) .... However, your question is (may be) the answer - it worked fine changing the bank and instruments in the score manager and just go to playback (WITHOUT reassigning sounds). Why "may be"? When I then went and changed another couple of instruments to a different bank, although the sounds seem to be correctly playing and the bank shows in the VST Banks & Effects window, when opening the NP mixer for that bank it shows nothing and does not populate when playing back. Any explanation for that?

[tss-music]

Reading this thread with interest because I've also been on the verge of trying NP, but not feeling optimistic given what I'm seeing. I noticed in NP's own demos that eighth notes not marked slurred were being played short. Not looking forward to having to mark every dang eighth note legato to avoid that. How much battling does one have to do against the software to get what one wants, how many such battles does one have to fight, and can one ever win?

And BTW there are two other closely related questions over in "Playback Issues" that have no responses so far:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=20942
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=20908

[dtoub]

As with anything (including GPO5), one may at times have to do some tweaks to get NP to behave as desired. But overall I've found it often much easier to work with than GPO5, which often introduces weird accents and balance issues. NP also has some balance issues, and yes, their string notes are much more "aggressive" than GPO5's. Sometimes that is really great, sometimes it is not. The main things about NP that are very appealing to me are their string harmonics are just way better than those of GPO5, and the overall sound is fuller and more realistic. That said, NP has one piano and it's not great in my opinion, whereas the pianos in GPO5 are quite good and I often use those over Reason's Radical Piano samples (which are also good, and have mechanical sounds that can be tweaked to sound very realistic). And sometimes the string sounds in NP are crappy compared with those of GPO5. Sometimes I do mix and match; no reason you can't use NP and GPO5 in the same score, just by adding staves for NP and others for GPO5.

[mmike]

Regarding the problem with eveything being (too) staccato - there exists a workaround, as suggested by NotePerfomer Tech Support, which works quite well. Alas, as for the choices of instrument sounds in general I'm not really impressed (I actually find GPO5 quite sufficient, and often better).

Anyway, here's the fix:

Unfortunately, it's not possible to get legato without using a slur.
Classical musicians won't play notes legato unless there's a slur, so
it's necessary to specify.

A suggestion would be to try adding CC108 and a value of 1, which
will set the staff to play the notes as tenuto, this works on a per
staff basis. To stop the tenuto you change the CC108 value to 0.

You can add custom MIDI CC events in the Expression Designer.

1. Select the Expression Tool.

2. Double-click on the staff you would like it to affect.

3. Click on "Create Technique Text...". In the Main dialog, you can
type a name for the technique or leave it blank. Then switch to the
Playback dialog.

4. In the Playback dialog, please set Type to "Controller" and enter
the CC number: 108.

5. "Effect:" Set to Value 1, click ok, and assign.

[dtoub]

You can add custom MIDI CC events in the Expression Designer.

That is true and I think I mentioned that specific CC change in another thread about NotePerformer. But as mentioned there, I've not found that this CC change works well in that the resultant sounds are not great either.

[konradh]

This is interesting. I have talked to some well-known symphonic composers who swear by Note Performer. Keep in mind, though, that the ones I know do not plan to publish the audio output: they just use NP to work on pieces they will give to actual orchestras. In my case, the audio output has to be good because the work may never get past the mock-up stage.

By the way, Vienna Symphonic is my usual choice for sounds, although I have other VIs I use sometimes.

Thank you, --Konrad