Waltz of the Flowers: NotePerformer 3 vs Spitfire Pro comparison
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 24 июл 2024
- The purpose of this video is to demonstrate what NotePerformer 3 is capable of; comparing it to the Berlin Philharmonic and to the Spitfire Professional sound library.
0:00 - NotePerformer demo
2:19 - Comparisons
5:44 - Conclusion
Berlin Philharmonic source:
• Tchaikovsky: Waltz of ...
Spitfire Professional source:
• Tchaikovsky's 'Waltz o...
Note: Despite appearances of live playback in this video, this is not NotePerformer's "stock" sound as you would hear in Finale; I have remastered each instrument individually, applying EQ corrections and multilayer 3D reverb. While NotePerformer has its own output stage that does a relatively decent job, this process increases sound quality to maximum potential and allows NotePerformer to be used in a DAW environment. Additionally, various visible music notation tweaks have been used as needed to effect the most realistic playback both with Finale Human Playback and NotePerformer 3.
I challenge any skilled musical instrument library operator to beat what NotePerformer 3 did here! If you can, comment below-as a composer, I truly want to know what the next level is. But, I have yet to find an instrument library or demo that can consistently approach what NotePerformer simply does best-playing orchestral music and rendering it naturally. 
Наука
You should make a mixing tutorial video. This is the best NP work I've ever heard.
I agree with this. Everybody upvote this comment
"Berlin Philharmonic: Still a bit mechanical" Ooooh, burrrrn!!! Haha
Yes, the BBCSO rendition was adding extra unevenness and randomness to try to avoid sounding mechanical--but went a bit over what even real musicians did! 🙂
Poor clarinet player getting called out
Thank you very much for this demo. I also was experimenting in february with the capabilities of NotePerformer 3... and I wasn't able to believe that with 1 GB it can beat so easily big, expensive and "industry standard" libraries... Always thinking "I am hearing well?". I started to do my orchestral mockups only with Noteperformer 3. I think for many people that don't have a "classical" music background, it's kind of a wall to do music with a notation software without knowing about orchestration or orchestral composition at all. To do well at Noteperformer you have to know your notation software well, to. I use a lot the offsets, a lot of tempo markers to do convincing rubatos, for example. And I totally love to work like this, never was a DAW person. Thank you again for this comparison!
I think I know you what you mean, If I am correct in my interpretation of your writing, then we agree. There is perhaps a magic to writing music in the traditional way, with a score , notes on a pentagram and slurs and crescendo and ff etcétera that because it is the method that real live musicians of all times use to read the music they are playing and composers of the classical era used to compose, this traditional method sounds familiar and a dab less contrived. Perhaps simply because notation based composers, and NOTEPERFOMER utilize this traditional language it sounds more pleasing to our ears.😅
Thank you! Now I don't even want to bother doing the mockup of my next track ... 😅 Very informative!
Fantastic demo! Thank you for taking the time to do this.
Thank you so much for all this information! You are so generous
Outstanding video. Took a lot of time, and I appreciate you doing it! Heheh...that clarinet player had another gig to get to , apparently!
Very educational and altogether great comparison , Thank you.
Could you go over how you remastered the stock Noteperformer sounds?
Thank you! I've been using NotePerformer more or less as a plug- and-play and getting alternately delighted and frustrated. Obviously, I need to go more deeply into its abilities.
"I challenge any skilled musical instrument library operator to beat what NotePerformer 3 did here!" I also think like you. It is difficult for bulky, resource-consuming, space-wasting libraries to achieve this agility, dynamism and naturalness. The real future is here.
This is an amazing video, thank you!
Brilliant comparison. It helps to make right decision to buy NotePerformer3. Thank you!
I mean, the spitfire audio sounds ok in some places but Noteperformer is still better. The Berlin Philharmonic is my favorite I'd say though the Noteperformer rendition had some nice punch in the trumpets as you mentioned in the video.
I'll be honest the little triplet trill things in all of the audio sound amazing, definitely my favorite thing in the whole piece!
I love NotePerformer, so little storage and great sound and performance with little editing.
This is great. Thank you.
Very good video. Thanks for the overview. Noteperformer is the best. Because it is affordable compared to other programs. It will simply do everything for you.
The issue with BBC portato sounding like col legno has an explanation. The demo uses the spiccato of V2, which recording was untimed. Like the section wasn't playing at the same time when they were recording the samples. This comment is not an excuse, rather an explanation. When I need to use a spiccato for V2, I use the staccato if it can sound better. If I need something more thight, I use the thigth control... or much better, I use another library :P
noteperformer 4 is coming soon! I can't wait.
incredible, thanks!
WELL DONE, MY FRIEND!!!!!
Amazing ! Can you give the EQ and reverb parameters you used (for noteperfomer, >>> all) ? Thx :)
Haha you do realise thats a crazy amount of data to type out as a comment
Would you consider selling your mixing template? I know that a lot of work went into this and that you work with sound professionaly. Would appreciate it!
Great job ! Would be interesting to see your mixing/mastering process as well. Is Finale able to export single Tracks in an easy way ? Sibelius isn't so far
Not sure what exactly counts as "easy"-I had to go to the instrument list, mute all the instruments, and then solo each one by one, exporting to an audio track each time. Finale outputted WAV files that I loaded directly into the DAW.
@@shalemloritsch9382 Oh, it's the same with Sibelius... I really want to have some kind of plug-in to do this task alone...
@@shalemloritsch9382 In future you can just open Finale as a ReWire instrument in the DAW. Also lets you use a much more powerful / effective audio engine while still composing / hearing Finale's output.
@@alkaiosmusic On the "Home" tab in Sibelius, go to the "Plug-ins" on the far right, click "Export Each Staff As Audio". Choose your staff naming convention and specify a folder. It exports all staves as you described. Cheers :)
As far as lacking in-section vibrato for strings in not performer, do you think we can just add vibrato manually?
you can, noteperformer comes with plugins for a2, a3, etc vibrato amount and speed
Impressive
any custom changes on noteperformer? do you have the xml file so I can see the mix, panning and that stuff? It sounds fantastic honestly. The main problem with noteperformer is that it's not that strong in terms of volume(?)
No custom changes to NotePerformer in this video. I don't have any XML files, all my pans are dead centered, and my mix levels are very subjective because the reverb engine I'm using drastically changes the volume levels based on virtual instrument and mic positioning, so I have to counteract that. The two biggest problems with NotePerformer is that its samples are tinny (lacking strength at the fundamental/1st harmonic) and fuzzy (lacking strength in the 7-20kHz range), while being too strong in the mid-harmonics (2-5kHz), and needing a better reverb engine to glue it all together. I wouldn't say it's lacking in volume--they've done a good job to avoid clipping, and you can adjust the volume as needed in their built-in mixer if it's too soft for you.
@@shalemloritsch9382 Oh I see, thank you so much!
Thanks, that was very interesting! So do I get it right, that with Berlin Philharmonic library version you mean a demo made by the company? You mentioned in another comment to make a version with VSL, that would be very interesting. I bought the SYNCHOnized bundle and fiddled around a week to try to make sound an existing 7 min. score realistic and was very disappointed.
Berlin Philharmonic is a sample from an actual orchestra performance--so it is the "reference", if you will. Spitfire Pro was pulled from a demo video of theirs, and I did the Note Performer demo. You can find my original sources in the video description. Spitfire Pro does a lot better than VSL IMHO.
@@shalemloritsch9382 Thanks!
Thank you.
Congratulations to take your time for this interesting video , what Notation software are you using? for both libraries ?
Finale is quite visible in the video above during NotePerformer playback. I don't know what all software or processes Spitfire used in the BBCSO demo.
@@shalemloritsch9382 I use NOTION 6 as a notation software and BBCSO has its own interfase , and for the articulations and techniques i have to use "customs rules" , and also for all VST i even with KONTACT
I'd like to hear your version compared to MuseScore 4
In all fairness I have seen amazing mock-ups with BBCSO pro, the Batman 1980 theme mock up by George soulas was beyond god tier. All mock ups using notation software with BBCSO I have felt are all inferior compared to noteperformer.
Hey, how did you do the mastering? Do you have a special program or which daw Do you use? And what exactly did you do to get the quality so good because this is a really good performance for a computer.
Thank you-and it could be better! I used:
--Finale 26.3 and NotePerformer 3.3.2 for the music production
--Adobe Audition 3 with no extra plugins for audio processing and mixing
--LibreOffice 7.0 for graphics
--OBS Studio 26.1.1 to record the video
--MKVToolNix, MyMP4Box and libOpus for video production
The basic workflow went like this:
1. Input the music into Finale.
2. Make adjustments to the score (adjust dynamics, add tenutos/mezzo staccatos/staccatos) to influence Human Playback and NP's AI to produce a reasonably natural musical interpretation. These score alterations are visible in the video above (compare with an official score to see).
3. Disable NP3's reverb and pan all instruments to the center.
4. Solo each instrument one by one and use Finale to export them to individual WAV files.
5. Load each instrument into an Audition Multitrack session as individual tracks.
6. Spend hours carefully evaluating and correcting NP3's equalization errors (its sounds tend to be tinny, having too little fundamental, too much mid harmonics, and too little brilliance) and adjusting each track's Parametric EQ accordingly.
7. Spend hours toying around with Audition's Echo Chamber calculated convolution reverb effect on each track to stage the instruments in a virtual room.
8. Apply Audition's Full Reverb effect to the Master channel to put the staged instruments into a concert hall.
9. Spend hours going back and forth between this mixdown and various real performances, redoing all the above as needed to narrow the sonic and musical differences.
10. Export and upload, and within weeks recognize that I could've done an even better job, but RUclips doesn't allow for updating of videos!
Being a professional classical musician helps with step 2, having spent countless hours of ear training and having "golden/diamond ears" helps with steps 6-7, and being a longtime classical music connoisseur helps with steps 8-9.
I am very interested in trying this process with AltiVerb 7, a modern and very powerful reverb plugin; I think it could probably paint an even better sonic picture than what I managed with Audition. But it's expensive and I'd like to try it before investing the money. If someone has AltiVerb on PC and wants to see how I did this, I am offering to do a remote session where I would recreate this and then explore what we can do with AltiVerb for mutual educational purposes.
@@shalemloritsch9382 Hahah loved the LibreOffice for graphics.
You're not wrong, but I chuckled a little. Awesome video!
@@shalemloritsch9382 Incredible work, thank you for it!
Did you mean Berlin Symphonic Strings instead of the Berlin Philharmonic? I couldn't find a sound library originating from the Berlin Philharmonic itself.
No, I mean the Berlin Philharmonic, as in the actual orchestra. Please check the source videos linked in the description!
@@shalemloritsch9382 got it! Thanks.
I subed like a few days ago and i also like noteperformer
Call me crazy, but I listen to the original bbcsco comparison, and in the discovery version (the free version) the horns sounded much more natural xd. The woodwind instruments unfortunately seem to be hopeless. It really was a bad arrangement that spitfire used for their advertising (I guess the producer did it in a hurry).That doesn't take away from the fact that the naturalness of noteproducer has left me pleasantly surprised. I'm still an amateur composer and producer, and I don't think I can use either of them to their full potential, but this have certainly made me want to learn and use noteperformer in the future. I still have some faith in BBCSO, but I must admit that the versatility and naturalness of NotePerformer has blown me away. Thank you very much for the comparison, it was very didactic.
You're not crazy, I thought the same thing about the horns! Problem is, their Discovery horns can't pipe up or down, but always make that mezzoforte sound.
Interesting comparison. Form me Note Performer is the best for quick mock-ups and definitely enough for rough demos of the score. If you have enough time to play with VST samples, go for them... Still it is possible to manually improve NP3 if you play with the Plugins in Sibelius or other score editor.
noteperformer 4 incoming! vst' mockups will be history.
I'm always sceptical with this kind of demos, because the sound of the demo really depends on the skills of the musician/midi programmer in making midi mockups and mixing. To be honest, yes, I dont really like the brass of the BBC SO Pro (that I own). I prefer the Berlin Brass. Did you used BBC SO on Finale ? I really think it sounds better when using the full power of a DAW. Anyway, I'm really impressed by NotePerformer. It sounds way better than the Halion Symphonic Orchestra provided with my DORICO Pro...
The BBCSO audio used here was pulled from Spitfire's own demo (linked in the description), so any quality (or the lack thereof) is on them. I figured that would keep it fair as possible, eliminating any biases or lack of skill I might bring to the comparison...
@@shalemloritsch9382 ok.
Great work, which reverbs are you using?
Two built-in Adobe Audition reverbs; Echo Chamber (for 3D staging) and Full Reverb (to put the staged instruments into a hall). Would love to do a remote session with someone having Altiverb to see if I could do even better than this (the 3D staging here with Audition isn't quite as clear as I think it could be).
@@shalemloritsch9382 Thank you for sharing all your hard work for free! I remember Alan Meyerson played with the Haas effect to achieve better 3d staging, let me know if it works in this case.
Did you find a way to batch export audios? I've contacted MakeMusic, but they won't, most likely, ever implement this feature. There are 3-4 people who have access to their SDK, who could do that. I'll try to ask them (JW, TGtools guys, etc.)
@@shalemloritsch9382 I wrote a shim to load NotePerformer inside VE Pro, and so I have access to the VE Pro mixer (and all the plugins you can add), and also MIR for staging / reverb. It can make quite a big difference. I still get nowhere near the clarity you do. I guess that's the EQ you use.
@@adriendecroy7254 Hey Adrien, what is a shim? Also, Finale seems to have a huge problem in exporting individual stems. If you managed to solve that problem developing the "shim" let me know. Thanks
@@yeleukenov in this case, it's a DLL that looks like a VST instrument to VE Pro, and loads NotePerformer and looks like SIbelius to NotePerformer. Normally a shim is a slim piece of wood or material that someone will place between 2 other pieces to make things fit, and interface between them.
So the shim DLL interfaces between VE Pro and NotePerformer and allows NotePerformer to function within VE Pro. It passes all the data back and forth.
As for stems, the issue is that in Sibelius with NotePerformer, it is NotePerformer doing the mixing of the audio, so it only passes a stereo mix back to Sibelius.
With using NP inside VE Pro however, you load a separate instance of NP for each instrument, so it is theoretically possible to do stems I guess. I wonder if there is a VST plugin you could put in VE Pro to dump the audio to a file.
Presently, you probably could make a superior sample library render, but the issue is that the time investment, specificity of samples required, balancing of different patches and layering, and general tedium makes it just not worth it. It's why I don't really compose purely-orchestral works anymore. I would estimate that if they continue to develop this tech, NP will eventually become the standard in the next 10 - 20 years.
The main problem with most sample libraries from companies like Spitfire is that, to be brutally-honest, they are produced by lowest-common-denominator film composers who just use legato patches for "melody" and staccatos to create synth-style pulses or long notes for pads and the instruments are all sampled according to these approach, with articulations often recorded having no context to each other as a result. That makes creating a convincing, homogenous-sounding mockup a labor intensive task that involves all kinds of library-specific workarounds. Back in the days of Romplers, no one would be fooled into thinking it was a real orchestra, but it arguably sounded better because it was easier to make it play actual music without sounding like a patchwork trainwreck.
I think if we had more Romantic-era sort of composers developing these libraries, the "out-of-the-box" quality and usability would be a lot higher.
It becomes even more shocking when you learn that only about half of NotePerformer's sounds are sampled--the other half are all synthesized! And of the sampled sounds, most of them only have one layer. The notable exception to this being the strings, which have three layers: arco, pizzacato, and col legno--there are no long, short, legato, staccato, forte, piano, sordino, molto vibrato, senza vibrato, or even section layers at all! All those effects are generated on the fly by manipulating the sounds from the base set of solo, mezzo forte, senza vibrato samples.
Would you still say Berlin tops Noteperformer now that Noteperformer 4 exists? Sorry if I’m late to the topic, but I just purchased Dorico and am looking for a software to compliment it and I’m torn on which to get!
Of course the Berlin Philharmonic (a real orchestra) still tops NotePerformer. Sadly, the improvements in NP4 are negligible; they have done practically nothing to improve their product besides bolting on support for inferior 3rd-party sample libraries, including the losing contender featured in this video. Predictably, the results are underwhelming.
@@shalemloritsch9382 so if you were to recommend one for film score projects, you would recommend Berlin? It seems like the strongest option, I agree. But the aspect of Noteperformer’s AI balancing seems cool, although Dorico already does something similar with its balancing.
@@UncaDunca I'm not sure how else to get this point across-it's frustrating because it keeps coming up and not being understood despite me spelling it out repeatedly and including my source videos in the description: The Berlin Philharmonic example here is a real orchestra, not a sample library. Unless you have $$,$$$, the right contacts, and a lot of patience, "Berlin" will not be an option for you. I included it in this video as the "ideal example"/yardstick by which to measure the TWO sample libraries being compared here. The point of this video is to demonstrate that NP3 can easily hold its own against a popular sample library costing several times as much, while also comparing both of them to a real orchestra.
@@shalemloritsch9382 If Arne Wallander didn't think the 3rd party libraries could improve on NotePerformer in terms of a realistic and agreeable tone, he surely wouldn't have developed NPPE. Now it happens that you've invested a lot of time in trying to get the native NP to sound better and in this particular work, it does quite well. In my own music, I get far better results with both the BBC SO and Cinematic Studio NPPE plug-ins in terms of both tonal realism and expressiveness than using NP natively with its horrible fizzy strings (Arne has been perfectly frank about the limitations in that department in particular). The same applies to 95% of the NP demos I've heard. Your results -- in only one work in which it's reasonably well suited -- are not really representative of what a typical user will achieve and one might as well say that the effort should be put into mock-ups which have better samples to begin with. The fact that commercial music renderings don't use NP (at least none I'm aware of) surely speaks volumes.
1:42
Very good and interesting: of course the Berlin Phil has more breathing and musically but sometimes out of tune😅
musescore and vst3's say hi
both are fine I guess... note performer is free just with some limitations though
I listened this thinking I should look into that Berlin software for the beautiful string sound, so guess my disappointment! NP3 will remain...
I know! NP3 is such a basic sample library (only 1GB of samples), yet these expensive libraries with far more samples can't even touch it. That is why I am making these videos--as a composer and sound engineer, I too am shocked at the lack of quality many of these expensive sound libraries possess.
works well for piano too:
ruclips.net/video/--QoQePOr3o/видео.html
(I didn't trust myself to play the whole fugue perfectly, so I left it to the comp)
lmaooo "the clarinet player is rushing"
Somebody's contract isn't getting renewed at the end of the season
NP is pretty dang good but double reed instruments on NotePerformer are kinda funky. The tone and vibrato are off
Those instruments (and all vibrato) are entirely synthesized in NP3, so not even audio samples of real instruments. Here's to hoping for significant improvements in NP4!
@@shalemloritsch9382 yeah that's exactly why I'm impressed with the majority of NP3. Can't wait for NP4
according with this demo you should get away from spitfire... but the fact is a sound set is completely different from playing samples, where nothing compares to spitfire, and I'd love to see them releasing a notation software sound set. Mean time there's nothing like Note performer 3
Although this is impressive, it is not really totally objective. Why? Well, all AI (artificial intelligence) is trained on some data, and therefore it will excel particularly well on the data it was trained. NotePerfomer was, among other composers, trained on compositions by Tchaikowsky, and therefore it is expected that it will render it as good as it can.
On the other hand, orchestral libraries are by default "mechanical" in their interpretation, and to get the best results, you should play each part separately on the keyboard, paying attention to all the dynamics and phrasing in general, while also knowing which settings to use in that library.
So, if I'm professional movie composer who doesn't have the budget for the orchestra but needs orchestral part, would I rather use good library or NotePerformer? Definitely I would use the library and then spend a lot of time playing and adjusting each instrument.
But, during just the process of composing, I would definitely use NotePerfomer.
The notion of NotePerformer's "training" is highly overrated. It simply reads ahead and uses certain preprogrammed parameters to quantize note-lengths. That's it. While significantly better than nothing, I still have to make (quite predictable) score alterations to truly humanize unmarked notes. If Wallander upgraded their reverb process, EQ corrected their samples, and made NotePerformer work in a traditional DAW, it would eat all sample libraries under $1000 for lunch right out of the box as far as orchestral work and realism is concerned.
@@shalemloritsch9382 Training is not overrated, that is computer science fact regarding how the AI software is developed. So, technically speaking, training and the data on which the software is trained is basically how you build it's core functionality.
So, saying that training is overrated, is like saying that everything that classicaly trained musicians get through their very long education process is overrated.
To better understand that, I don't have time to explain, who is more interested can find many videos explaining the details how AI works.
@@fortissimoX I guess you think you know... 😂🤣 I have done extensive comparisons and analysis and know what I'm talking about. 🤷♂️
@@fortissimoX We're not talking about what AI is, rather that calling what NotePerformer does AI is a bit extreme. Heck I'm not even sure how you would train an AI for this lol. Train it on scores for what? The scores don't have an audio pair. It's probably the same process that libs such as The Birth of the Trumpet does, or stuff like Adaptive legato that other libraries have
@@-Meric- Yes, I think the AI claim is a little bit far-fetched by my understanding of AI. There's no machine learning going on, it's just someone trains it based on a bunch of scores. As for reading ahead, it can't, as the notation software doesn't allow it. Therefore there's the 1s delay, which is incidentally why it's not available for DAWs (although most DAWs can apply a negative time offset). NP relies heavily on the programming of the soundsets etc to send appropriate CC commands to select patches etc. I wonder if I can fool NP with a shim DLL into loading into cubase.
I don't know what people have with BBCSO. It's imo a big failure for spitfire. Of course this demo isn't perfectly programmed, but the demo on their websites ain't very good either...
But seriously, note performer is really dope when it comes to mock-ups before real production.
Spitfire fans tend to be those who want sensational sounds and low-skill orchestrations so they can crash-bang-wallop their way through cliched "film music" with tons of loud brass, permanent overkill percussion and spiccato strings. Well crafted orchestrations by skilled professionals and decent samples can do far better than Note Performer but for sketching ideas and out-of-the-box Sibelius quick scoring Note Performer does better than unskilled MIDI editing by 90% of amateur orchestrators.
Honestly, the BBCSO free version is pretty good considering its price ( 0€ )
But the lack of legato makes it pretty much unusable
@@reetrol I agree, almost any free vst is a good vst. But the paid versions are imo unusable as well, because the programming is way behind his competitor.
to be fair, you need to know how to use each library correctly with things like dynamics, settings, touch ups etc. for it to sound the way you want it to. I'm pretty sure you just slapped it on so it might not have given the best result as each library doesn't all go for the same approach.
"Just slapped on" what? The BBCSO demo was worked up by Spitfire themselves, with the sound lifted from their video, linked in the description. If their library is capable of doing better than this, that's their problem. I did the NP3 mock-up, and yes, this render is definitely "better than stock" sound for NP3.
this isn't really fair. The BBC SO is core...very basic. Also the programing in the Spitfire vid is fairly atrocious. He is using 16 horns for fucks sake !!! . The solo Horn Marcato patch is perfect for this and TBH blows noteperformer away !
In that video, Spitfire was actually comparing Discover, Core, and Pro. The audio I used here was from the Pro part of their demo. I heard that after this video came out Spitfire also improved their legato violins patch (which was particularly mushy in this video). Perhaps you should offer to redo this demo for them with proper programming to help them better showcase their library? May the best library win!
@@shalemloritsch9382 As much as I love Noteperformer , and I do !...it just can NOT come close to a well produced midi score with top notch sample Libraries. I do this for a living and yes Noteperformer is very very useful in getting it to the stage of DAW production. But if you actually want to fool people into thinking your using an orchestra you are going to need good samples. Spitfire make loads of em !
@@edbuller4435 Well, how about you produce a superior render of this waltz so we can really see what a good job Spitfire's libraries can do? I mean, they created the audio I used in the demo above as an advertisement for their product. I believe they were pretty proud of it, and yet NP3 beat it easily... You keep saying that NP3 "cannot come close" to a well produced MIDI score. Please show us what a "well produced MIDI score" sounds like for this piece. I will then redo my video and compare again. May the best sample library win!
@@footballfactory2574 I just disagree
why ?..
you are doing the BBCSO wrong...
the strings from BBCSO are still one the best VSTs avaible at the moment!
If you had read the description, you would have seen that this was Spitfire's own demo--and they were pretty proud of it--I didn't do anything wrong; this was literally pulled from the vendor's demo of their own product. The entire reason I chose this piece was because there was a vendor's demo available, and I was looking for that specifically to avoid being accused of doing something wrong that could result in an inferior sound for the comparison.