Watch Before You Buy NotePerformer 4

NotePerformer 4 is FINALLY here, I walk you through the update, and compare it with NotePerformer 3. Which sounds better, my own take in Logic Pro X or Noteperformer 4 using Spitfire BBCSO? If you want the summary of the video watch 17:10

00:00 Intro
00:49 NotePerformer 3 vs 4 (Without third-party VST3)
02:26 NotePerformer 4
06:40 WARNING
07:59 They let you know how it is
08:59 The Application
12:19 NotePerformer 4 with Spitfire BBCSO PRO VS Logic Pro X vs Note 3
14:02 My thoughts
17:10 WATCH THIS BEFORE BUYING

[rwalterrust]

Considering that this is the first version of the playback engine, I think future is bright for NotePerformer.

[DirkTomandl]

Some interesting info here but I think you are missing the key point of NotePerformer:
* its primary purpose is to create audio directly from your score without any finetuning of sound or individual notes. If you want the flexibility of a DAW then by all means use a DAW but why criticize NP for taking away the flexibility of a DAW when this is exactly its purpose?
* NP is not intended to render the final audio for, say, a movie but a high-quality mockup that gives your client a good idea about your music.
* NP4's primary value proposition is that it allows you to use your already purchased expensive library without any time consuming finetuning. Comparing NP4's output with your optimized DAW version makes no sense - how many hours/days did it take you at what cost given your hourly rate?
* $90 for an playback engine is expensive? Software developer hours are expensive and so are composer hours. This is a bargain for what additional value you can extract from your expensive libraries.
* NP3 sounds are already great for most fast-paced music with short notes. Its lower-quality samples (especially strings) become more obvious when slow legato notes are played.
* your example piece uses a lot of short notes which works already well with NP3. Try out a slow ballad with lots of long-held legato lines and you should see/hear a huge difference between NP3 and NP4.
* NP4 seems to create a more muddy, blurred sound for fast-played strings which I believe is related to the baked-in reverb of the library samples whereas the NP-default samples are dry. This leads unfortunately to weaker attacks in NP4. I hope that Arne will be able to fix these imperfections.

I think that we are perhaps a year or two away from when the next versions of NP are capable of generating movie-quality music audio. Dorico is gradually adding DAW functionalities and together with NP DAWs and large libraries may vanish at some point.

[conforzo]

Wasn't the whole point of NotePerformer to not have to deal with the 10, 000$ worth of orchestral libraries? They should have just focused on their niche.

[onearmedbandit]

Thanks for the video! Very helpful to see. As someone who loved NP3 for the revolutionary playback it provided, this update was a step in a different and rather disappointing direction for me. As you say, someone who's investing hundreds of pounds in sound libraries (which is not me!) is going to want to make the most of them in their DAW. I was hoping for improvements to the existing NP sounds and/or perhaps a more advanced control system control over the existing sounds.

I listened to the demos provided on the NotePerformer YouTube channel and can't honestly say they sounded any better to me than than the NP3 sounds (and some were, to my ears, markedly worse). I'd be interested in hearing more comparisons between the regular NP playback and 3rd party libraries to see if I could be convinced...

[adriendecroy]

If you think of NotePerformer Playback Engine having to effectively drive those VSTs, much in the same way as you drive a car, there's a ton of work for the individual playback engines to do to make it work. And each VST has to be driven differently, so each playback engine is a ton of work to develop. Which is why each is paid. Most of the cost goes to the sample library vendor. And I think the target market is people who learned to write scores, and don't want to be an audio engineer, or spend hours and hours and hours in a DAW massaging individual notes.

[IanKnowland]

I think the magic they've created at the moment is the ability to mix and match libraries with the click of a button. I still use the native NP3/4 brass and woodwinds for a lot of things, but I can now easily layer them with HOOPUS percussion and strings, as well as having one line of horns being HOOPUS and another being NP4. HOOPUS is a good middle-ground since they have a very affordable subscription model.

Ultimately, it's a bit more limiting than I would have liked but I enjoy being able to easily use the extra library I already have. Saves time and I don't mind writing idiomatically for this setup at the outset as opposed to spending more time tweaking it endlessly in a DAW.

[MichelBarbaro]

Oh man! Thank you so much for the video! You had a labor work in this indeed! I think with NP4 they loose their way, and the software loose its magic! Not to mention that native NP3 sounds almost as good as these libraries in this new player.

[leooo]

with this new update, it became clear that the audience Wallander wants to reach are soundtrack producers, and people who work in the area, and not those who really want to compose something, after all, notation software is for composition, not treatment and sound mixing, I even understand their intention to add more "detailed" sound libraries, but honestly, there won't be a future update that improves the lifeless timbres of those very expensive DAW libraries that they call "professional" simply for having thousands of sound samples from DAW use, there's no point in use notation software where you're limited to putting a staccato or an accent on a note, and expecting the best musical phrasing to come out of one of those sound libraries. thousands of samples, this is a service made for DAW's, not for software where you are going to edit scores for a real orchestra. Finally, I just wanted to improve Noteperformer's original sound library, which by far sounds much better than any of those sound libraries, it's a matter of fixing some details and timbres, like the woodwinds, which have practically the same dynamics thing throughout its dynamics range (0-127), and those strings that actually sound like they go from a ppp to an fff, seem to just turn up in volume without any extra dynamics or aggressiveness beyond the brass, which I could get all day talking details about them (please improve the trombone and horn, a "real orchestra" mezzo-piano has to use a fortissimo in the NP playback)

[abagatelle]

Very informative, thank you. I have BBC SO Core, Dorico Pro 4 and NP3, so I think I'll give it a go as I prefer score writing with Dorico rather than Logic/Cubase (I'm not very good with DAWs). I'm confident NP will improve rapidly with this playback engine idea, so all in all, well done NP. Really enjoyed your video too.

[JmlMusicNorway]

Logic Pro x is for production. Finale, Dorico and Sibelius is for notating music or writing scores. If you write music for the live stage it's a great bonus if Note performer makes it sound great. If you write for orchestra and not mockups for films and you're after printed scores for live performant, go for it. So the key question is if BBC orchestra playback option for Note performer 4 sounds better than Note Performer without 3rd party sample libraries. Nobody has to buy all these 3rd party libraries, many already have some of them, and you can buy one. Recording live orchestra cost a lot of money, so if you pay 70-90 bucks for the BBC third party option for Note Performer it's a great deal I should think. Traditionally the Sibelius, Finale and Dorico doesn't sound great in itself, all these new options are more than welcome to the musical table. Writing music without to many technical hacks in notation software is the future for live orchestra or other ensembles. I agree if you are less concerned about notation and score writing and the emphasise is mockups in your your DAW that's also a great option. This is the future of score-writing with much greater sounds and notation software performances.
Question 1.
Does BBC option with note performer 4 sound better then note performer 4 without 3rd party BBC?
Question 2.
What sounded better? Your Logic DAW or the BBC 3rd party with Note Performer 4?
Thank you for your great video, all the best!

[stevemartinalmonds]

I really enjoyed your score with Spitfire BBCSO Pro. Sounds great 🙂

[Musixme-Clarinet]

I am a *Sibelius* user. This *NotePerformer 4* release is underwhelming at best. Could they not give their core users the same controls over their engine? 9:59

If anyone knows of a list of changes to their core engine/sounds (outside of integrating third-party engines and sounds), I'd very much appreciate a link.

[RobKennedyEditor]

I got a say, that with everything I've heard, I'm sticking with the NP orchestral sounds over every other VST. Many other VST companies make much better solo VST instruments, but for orchestral work, my tick goes to NP.

[CraigRodmellMusic]

I liked your composition that you used for the demo. Is there anywhere I could get to hear the whole thing?

[sullengirl]

Most composers I know are just waiting for NP to improve independent of any third-party libraries, especially to save space and RAM. Lots of software right now are getting upgrades due to AI and tech innovations, why is the music industry so behind?

[yintotheyang]

For me NP 3 sounded more like a live orchestra whereas NP4 sounded like I was at the movies, high quality surround sound and clear. I can’t fault either 😊

[damianbaczek]

Super ! Czekam na więcej saksofonu <3

[christopherbernhardt]

I appreciate the idea of what they're doing but they kind of threw their whole business model off. Maybe their last one was unsustainable, but we were promised updates with our license, things like sound and playback. It's incredibly frustrating because there are still huge holes in Noteperformer, the horns sound like crap, the strings sound like crap, percussion is missing a lot of instruments. Those things have been addressed in the past, that they were to be improved "shorty" pre covid, that never came, and now they're asking for us to buy stuff to improve playback. I respect that it's a business, but I think that this is kind of a disservice to what people initially invested in. You know?

[RobKennedyEditor]

I was speaking to a techie at East West and he told me that NP never consulted East West about intergrating their Opus Edition. East West found out when customers asked them about running Opus Edition in NP4.

[kkorkodeilos]

Hello Joe!

I saw your video and it is very interesting!

I just installed the note performer 4 yesterday and wanted to ask one thing. I am currently using Sibelius for notating music, Pro Tools for audio, and the Opus Hollywood orchestra as a VST in pro tools. So, if I wanted to play the Opus (VST) sounds in Sibelius I would first need to
1) Open Sibelius
2) Set note performer 4 in the playback engine options
3) And then separately open the note performer 4 application with an Opus Hollywood template (the same instruments like in my score in sibelius??

I guess I am asking if you have a template open in note performer 4, these sounds will go in Sibelius, or are they not related?


Thank you in advance.