Newbie Questions

[EricNJ]

Newbie here, so please be gentle😊

I've been working with Sibelius for about a year now and was frustrated with the string sounds, so after some trepidation I jumped into the deep end of the pool and acquired the Solo Strings - I'm currently working on a string quartet.  I tried to follow the instruction video but somewhere along the line I must have done something wrong because all 4 instruments were playing the violin and the cello/viola would cut out as soon as they went below the range of the violin.   I'm not quite sure exactly what I was doing wrong or what I did to fix things but now it's working.

Anyway, here are a few things that are puzzling me.   BTW - I'm running Sibelius 7.5 on Mac Mini with latest OS

*  Where are the Soundsets?

After I installed the Soundsets, there was a folder under Applications -> VSL Sibelius Soundsets, however there were only 2 PDFs in this folder, no software.  I thought I was doing something wrong, but it seems like the actual Soundset files get buried somewhere deep within the Library folder.  Is this correct - and if so exactly where

* How does Sibelius know which VSL Project to use?

I created one VSL Project which sits in String Quartet Basic.viframe64   If you have multiple projects, how does SIbelius know which VSL Project to use?

* How do I get my Click track working?

Thanks!

Eric Heilner

[andi]

Hello Eric!

Welcome on board. I'll go straight to your questions.

1.) It's correct that you only see the two pdf files in the installation folder. The other files (sound sets, house style, VI presets) get copied to the folders where they belong. Normally you don't have to care on the exact location. Anyway, on Mac OS, the sound set files for Sibelius 7.5 get copied to the following folder:
Users/your username/Library/Application Support/Avid/Sibelius 7.5/Sounds

The Users/your username/Library folder is hidden by default. To get access, go to the folder Users/your username. Then choose Go/Go to folder and enter “Library”.

2.) Sibelius doesn't know by itself. The instruments and plugins that get used for playback are stored in the Sibelius Playback configuration.

3.) You will have to reserve a channel for the click track. As you don't have a percussive instrument by us, you will need a different device for that.

Best regards,
Andi

[EricNJ]

Andi -

Thanks for the prompt response.  I didn't quite understand your answer to #2, but if I understand the way things work, you can only have one Project open/active at any given time - so Sibelius will use the currently active Project.

Am I getting this correct? 

Eric

[andi]

Hello Eric!

It depends on what you mean with project.
You can have more than one Sibelius project opened at one time, but you can only have one Sibelius Playback Configuration loaded at any particular time. One Sibelius Playback Configuration can include several Vienna Ensemble instances.

Best,
Andi

[EricNJ]

Andi,

In the context of this discussion, the word "Project" refers to the Vienna Ensemble Project.  The settings for any Project are stored in a file with a file suffix viframe64 - the full name is <project-name>.viframe64

I am still puzzled by how everything wroks together.  I can fire up VIenna Ensemble by simply double clicking on the icon in finder.   However, when I start up Sibelius and open my score, a new Icon opens up in my dock - Vienna Ensemble Service.  SIbelius ignores the first instance of Vienna Ensemble that I opened and only talks to the second icon that opened up - I can closed the first icon and everything works just fine.

Now when I open up the Vienna Ensemble Service,  I do not see my last project, what I see is some sort of generic string quartet with 2 violins, viola, and cello.  Where this is coming from is a mystery.   However, at this point I can open up my Project and I have the specific settings that I saved.

So it seems like you can only have one Project open/active at any given time and SIbelius has no choice but to use that Project.  Am I getting this correct?

It would be very helpful if there was some diagram giving the flowchart of activity.  I've looked through the documentation and am not seeing anything.

At the risk of over loading this discussion, here's another question.  What is the distinction between start/stop Audio Engine versus start/stop Transport.

Thanks for being patient with me. 😊

Eric

[andi]

Hello Eric!

With Sibelius or any other instrument host, you will use the plugin version of Vienna Ensemble. So it's no use in opening a standalone version of Vienna Ensemble. The workflow of setting up Vienna Ensemble with Sibelius is described in the "Optimizing Sibelius Playback" manual on pages 3 and 4.

When you load a Sibelius score and you don't get the Playback Configuration that you have expected, you probably didn't save your Playback Configuration. Please note that Sibelius saves Playback Configurations separately from the Sibelius score. So always after making changes to the Playback Configuration like loading instruments in Vienna Ensemble, don't forget to save your Playback Configuration.

As mentioned in my last post, it is possible to have more than one Vienna Ensemble instance ("Project") in one Playback Configuration. This is also described in the aforementioned manual on page 4.

Start/stop audio engine of Vienna Ensemble is like turning Vienna Ensemble on and off.
Start/stop transport is for starting and stopping the playback.

Best regards,
Andi