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Dorico playback: samples vs noteperformer

ptram said:
Since you named it, here is my NotePerformer version of the Firebird's Finale:

Stravinsky, Firebird - Finale (NP)

Paolo
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This is pretty nice! I don't hate NP- on the contrary, I feel it is more accurate as far as balancing in the orchestra. StaffPad sounds nicer to the ears of course but most of us are composing in Dorico or other notation apps with the idea of getting real musicians to perform their work so sonic realism isn't paramount.

I do hope that Arne continues to develop NotePerformer and it becomes even more realistic sounding. For me, it's a no brainer to use with Dorico. No worries about mapping or anything. it gets out of the way so I can compose.
 
Even as late as five years ago, I would have never imagined that developers would be venturing very far into the "make notated music play back as realistically as possible with sample libraries" realm. Noteperformer and Staffpad are two powerful counterfactuals to that pessimistic and phlegmatic prediction. I am STUNNED, (stunned I say) with what I can do with Dorico, NP and other playback templates with a notation-based workflow. It's like a fever/pipe/composer wet dream come true. We are truly blessed to have these tools at our fingertips, and moreover to hope (expect, even DEMAND?) that they should be IMPROVED. Boggles the mind.
 
sinkd said:
Even as late as five years ago, I would have never imagined that developers would be venturing very far into the "make notated music play back as realistically as possible with sample libraries" realm. Noteperformer and Staffpad are two powerful counterfactuals to that pessimistic and phlegmatic prediction. I am STUNNED, (stunned I say) with what I can do with Dorico, NP and other playback templates with a notation-based workflow. It's like a fever/pipe/composer wet dream come true. We are truly blessed to have these tools at our fingertips, and moreover to hope (expect, even DEMAND?) that they should be IMPROVED. Boggles the mind.
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I agree. I jumped on Notion in 2005 because it had the roots of what we see today as far as composing with notation and instant playback without futzing around assigning different arts to keyswitches or notated indications. When StaffPad debuted in 2020 in iOS with all of those expansion libraries, I was floored. For the first time, I could hear music realized closest to the way I heard it in my head.
 
AND, I have delivered stems to directors/editors right out of NP (synched in Dorico) that got approved as final. Then I'm like wait--what? No. I need to re-sequence this stuff to give you the "better"version...
 
sinkd said:
I have better libraries, to be sure, but NP in Dorico sounds much better than GPO. Let's not get carried away.
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You can't listen to that example next to the one from StaffPad and think that they are even remotely close.
 
Jett Hitt said:
You're missing the bigger picture here. This started out as a comparison between StaffPad and Noteperformer.
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And my reply, that seems to have triggered you, lauds them both for doing amazing things that I never imagined. I did not realize that I was required (in order to properly contribute to the thread) to trash one in order to praise the other. I will demur, apologize to you now good sir, and withdraw.
 
I've said this earlier but I do think composers can get the benefits of both for different purposes. I wrote a crazy ass Don Davis-styled brass piece a year ago and StaffPad could NOT keep up. NotePerformer did. I mentioned it to David William Hearn and sent him both recordings. Quick repeated notes in Berlin Brass on StaffPad are a challenge. But lovely lyrical chorale writing is sumptuous.
 
NP's strength is not the sound of the samples, certainly. But instead, it is their interpretation logic of the notation. If they can get higher quality samples, I think they can easily sound as good if not better than Staffpad (which is relying on the best sample libraries out there to sound good).
 
ALittleNightMusic said:
NP's strength is not the sound of the samples, certainly. But instead, it is their interpretation logic of the notation. If they can get higher quality samples, I think they can easily sound as good if not better than Staffpad (which is relying on the best sample libraries out there to sound good).
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I would love nothing more than to be able to make a notation program sound like StaffPad. The interpretation behind Noteperformer is indeed its strong point. If they could just harness better samples with it, it might be amazing. As I struggle with expression maps in Dorico, this seems very appealing.
 
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ALittleNightMusic said:
NP's strength is not the sound of the samples, certainly. But instead, it is their interpretation logic of the notation. If they can get higher quality samples, I think they can easily sound as good if not better than Staffpad (which is relying on the best sample libraries out there to sound good).
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I think the brass is already pretty bloody good. The strings and winds could use a little improvement but generally it’s pretty impressive for a 1 gig library that loads instantly
 
I’ve found NP has worked very well for many of my scores, but especially with regard to brass and winds. Less so for strings; YMMV.
Here are a few examples if I might:

days of rage (string orchestra)
(broken link removed) (piano, violin, cello)
air waves (brass + electronic organ)
(broken link removed) (soprano, mezzo-soprano, flute, bass clarinet, marimba, electric bass, violin, cello, piano)

Some works do better with Garritan Personal Orchestra (the paid version, not the stripped-down version that comes with Finale), or Reason, but NotePerformer is quite good overall.
 
dcoscina said:
I do hope that Arne continues to develop NotePerformer and it becomes even more realistic sounding.
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Hello,
Arne seems to continue to develop NotePerformer, next version should provide better sounds:

BBCSO (Core) vs NotePerformer in Dorico?

Noteperformer allows you to concentrate on the composing without all the distraction of sample lib configuration and loading times, and the price is right. If I'm writing, I want to focus on the writing ( not getting bogged down in technical/sample minutiae ) and NP is fast and decent sounding...
vi-control.net vi-control.net
Regards,
Gil.
 
Speaking as someone with 25 years of experience with the real thing (i.e. real musicians) and having an almost allergic reaction to computer generated music, I have to say these comparisons are silly.

I have Staffpad and have used it a lot. A few years ago I did all my drafts and sketches on it, then I would do the full fledge composition in Sibelius/later Dorico. As my music has developed more and more complex tuplets I have moved away from it and now do 99% of my work in Dorico.

In comparing playback between the two there are only two possibilities that count for something: 1.- how good is the performance out-of-the-box without ANY tweaking and 2.- how realistic a performance can you get out of them. For no. 1 the examples provided above I can hear Staffpad has been manually tweaked—there are swells that no AI to date would apply contextually correct. It also soaked in reverb, hence hiding a lot of imperfections. The Dorico example on the other hand is quite dry, almost a classical recording, thus exposing imperfections much more. We also know that NP requires no tweaking and we don't know if this file has been or not, and if so how much? How much time spent tweaking between the Staffpad version and the Dorico one. Finally, NP is modelling not samples (I think).
For no. 2 there is no discussion, since Staffpad does not let you use external libraries and in Dorico you have to do everything manually which takes a huge amount of time. If you rely on Expression Maps you will get a robotic and unnatural performance...
 
Bollen said:
Speaking as someone with 25 years of experience with the real thing (i.e. real musicians) and having an almost allergic reaction to computer generated music, I have to say these comparisons are silly.

I have Staffpad and have used it a lot. A few years ago I did all my drafts and sketches on it, then I would do the full fledge composition in Sibelius/later Dorico. As my music has developed more and more complex tuplets I have moved away from it and now do 99% of my work in Dorico.

In comparing playback between the two there are only two possibilities that count for something: 1.- how good is the performance out-of-the-box without ANY tweaking and 2.- how realistic a performance can you get out of them. For no. 1 the examples provided above I can hear Staffpad has been manually tweaked—there are swells that no AI to date would apply contextually correct. It also soaked in reverb, hence hiding a lot of imperfections. The Dorico example on the other hand is quite dry, almost a classical recording, thus exposing imperfections much more. We also know that NP requires no tweaking and we don't know if this file has been or not, and if so how much? How much time spent tweaking between the Staffpad version and the Dorico one. Finally, NP is modelling not samples (I think).
For no. 2 there is no discussion, since Staffpad does not let you use external libraries and in Dorico you have to do everything manually which takes a huge amount of time. If you rely on Expression Maps you will get a robotic and unnatural performance...
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Staffpad for me is instant gratification. Its playback is much nicer than anything I'd used up until it- at least without spending hours refining lines in my DAWs. I love its portability too. I can sketch ideas anywhere. but for any finished works I need to submit to orchestras, I move it into Dorico and I find NP quite good in encompassing what I'm after.

If Arne is indeed working on a new version with better sounds, I'm super excited about it.
 
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