NotePerformer 4 is out. I’ve always enjoyed NotePerformer because it adds better sounding samples to my notation software without lots of fiddling and plug-in management.
NP4 supports Apple Silicon and now can integrate third party sample libraries to a notation app. David MacDonald has a great review over at Scoring Notes, complete with video comparisons of the sounds offered in NotePerformer compared to the ones that come prepackaged with some of the industry standard notation apps.
Sample libraries have been capable of producing realistic performances of orchestral music for over a decade, but the time, effort, and expense of creating a convincing digital performance with them is very high. For producing final audio for film and media, this cost is worth it, and specialists have gotten very good at leveraging these tools.
However, for many composers and orchestrators who simply need a good-enough demo to share with collaborators, the effort — transferring their work from scoring software to digital audio workstation (DAW), spending hours massaging MIDI data, and still more hours tweaking the mix — is simply not worth it.
That’s where NotePerformer shines. It is light-years ahead of the built-in sounds that ship with Sibelius, Dorico, and Finale, and it requires no additional effort beyond the initial installation. As I’ve said and written many times on Scoring Notes, the quality-to-effort ratio of NotePerformer is untouched by anything in its category. Keep reading here…