A DAW doesn’t negate the need to become very familiar with your plugins, at every level possible. Especially if you plan to invest in the more expensive higher end libraries. This is something you’ll need to do regardless of the host you plan to use it in. The DAW just makes it easier to get at all your plugins bells and whistles, and to SEE what you’re doing…stretched out before you on the timeline.
Keep in mind that you can do alot of these things in Dorico by using multiple staves, channel bouncing around in plugin instances, and so forth, but it doesn’t look much like a score anymore…it gets cluttered FAST (a tracking DAW can get cluttered as well, but it has features to easily show/hide, swap focus, tuck things out of the way…shift it to folders/groups/etc…assign different colors to anything on the screen…store and swap between many visual or page modes at any time…spread it out over multiple screens, etc).
The main advantage to working with the tracking DAW in the final most stages of doing a realistic mock-up is that you can lay it all out in a way that makes visual sense. You aren’t ‘stuck’ in a single work flow either…you always have several ways to attack an issue. Think of it like the play tab in Dorico, but many times more powerful, and much easier to control with pin point precision. It’s going to have all the tools to do micro bumps and slides on the timeline down to the millisecond if you need that. If not, then you get nice configurable timeline grids to ‘snap’ events up against. You can work in meters/measures/etc., or you can shift over to a time code (both come in handy).
You can start your score playing with the plugin open and shape up your downbow with the ADSR controls, key-switches, etc…provided in your VST plugin. Go to another channel in the plugin and shape up your sustained sound, etc…
In a serious mockup, it’s not unusual at all to have two or three instances with nothing but choices for the first violinist’s long bowing options! Sometimes they’re even based on the same sample, but you might do things with the attack/sustain…or simply use a comb filter to excite some frequencies to emulate a little more bow pressure for a given note, and so forth.
Changing sounds in the tracking DAW is as simple as snipping the part with a pair of scissors and dragging it to a track pointing to the proper plugin and channel. Rather than trying to teach your expression maps to send massive slates of events to ‘drive’ it all on a single channel (I.E. Before Dorico would let us channel bounce…my Garritan GPO expression maps for Dorico were sending something like 12 CCs, plus a key-switch for EVERY NOTE it played! Same for some of the HALion stuff I was working on before we got channel bounces)…you can spread it all out, try things in real time as the score is playing.
You can tweak the actual dials and sliders in your Plugin directly…with your mouse, or even via remote control on your MIDI controller.
You can keep up with many variations as you go…muting things in and out to see which works best for your ultimate mix. If sections repeat in your piece, you might even cycle the variations so it’s a little different on each repeat.
We haven’t even gotten into expression controller data yet…but again, you can spread it all out in front of you, at whatever resolution you want visually, and take very fine and efficient control of all this ‘data’. Again, conditional editors, or scripting tricks can help you automate redundant tasks.
Please understand. I’m not suggesting that every composer should become an audio engineer. Spending too much time trying to master the process of making mock-ups…well, you’re getting less music written then!
Which brings us back full circle to Note Performer.
It’s perfect to sit down and compose a piece of music from beginning to end. It’s good enough to test ideas, collaborate, and show off your skills as a COMPOSER/ARRANGER. Dorico will spit out beautiful scores and parts for printing, or electronic displays.
If one has time, and ENJOYS the processes involved, then pick up a DAW, a nice library or two, and learn a little as you go. If not…GET HELP. You can hire people to do mock-ups (or record real performances with the real instruments)…and there are also students and hobbyists out there that’ll help you for FREE. Universities, community groups, even local music stores/studios can usually help.
At this time…IF you have already invested in some higher end sample libraries, and don’t already have a DAW, I highly recommend picking one up. Even if you go for a scaled down version like Cubase Elements or Artist. Load your fancy library in the thing, and just play with it. Load some scores you are familiar with into the DAW, and spend a little time auditioning your library’s potential.
Why? Even if you intend to work the library into Dorico…using expression maps and whatnot…having it spread out in a tracking DAW should help you get to know the library much better. It can give you many good ideas on how to lay out a plan to get the types of sounds you require at your fingertips, and teach your staves to happily bounce around among the many options at you fingertips. It can help you get a visual in your imagination to go with all those ‘numbers/values/parameters/dials/etc.’ It’ll also help you find the annoying flaws inherent in the library…so you’ll know better what to avoid or work around those flaws.