Did you load the Special Edition matrices yet? They can be found in the Vienna Instruments player under MATRIX. If you load one of these matrices, the samples should load. If you don't see any matrices there, you don't have the library content installed or assigned in the Directory Manager. The library content of the Special Edition volume 1 can be downloaded here:
http://www.vsl.co.at/en/68/2219/2231/1904.htm

We have lots of different Instrument collections, bundles and Single instruments. They all have different prices, so I can't answer your question about the cost in general. The prices can be found on the product pages.

Instrument collections:
http://www.vsl.co.at/en/211/442/607.vsl

Single instruments:
http://www.vsl.co.at/en/211/496/802/951.vsl

I hope this answers your questions.

Ok, great.  Just to confirm...

I use only the Special Edition and Epic Orch matrices.  None of the instructions in the last email have anything to do wtih the Sibelius presets, correct?  I.e., for my setup, ignore the Sibelius preset download.  And if I want to use those, I must buy the appropriate instruments in the 'full' version.

Correct?

Thanks for all the help, Andi!

Half correct. [;)]
For the Special Edition and Epic Orchestra you can ignore the VI presets in the folder "Sibelius". That's right. Anyway the VSL Soundset Installer also installed the "VE Special Edition" and "VE Epic Orchestra" sound sets, which you will need, as well as the "Vienna Symphonic Library" House Style, which is also recommended to use.

Best,
Andi

Thanks!

I wonder if this is an example of a confusion about the meaning of 'sound set', which I've seen before on the Sibelius forum. Some people think that a sound set is a set of sounds, when in fact it is only a set of tags for potential sounds/samples (if you have them). They think that if they have a sound set they have all the samples that go with that sound set.

Definitely, Oceanview.  It also was confusing when reading the "Optimize Sibelius" manual since none of the prerequisites and assumptions that Andi so kindly gave during this discussion were laid out.  The manual also uses the verb "set" ("Set the channels and load the matrices") in addition to the nouns "sound set" and "preset."

I think I might be having a similar problem to Mac.

I cannot get muted trumpet sounds to playback in Sibelius 8, even though I can play muted trumpet sounds within Vienna Ensemble.

I recently bought VSL Special Edition Bundle. None of the Sibelius Sound Sets in Vienna Ensemble Player work with Sibelius; the only samples that work in Sibelius are the Special Edition Presets.

Does this mean that I do not have the samples for the Sibelius presets that appear in Vienna Ensemble under the Special Edition presets? That can't be right because muted trumpet samples play back fine within Vienna Ensemble.

Moreover, when I load muted trumpet in a manual sound slot in Sibelius and test it, it plays back a major scale with the muted trumpet sounds from Vienna Ensemble.

Why, then, does no muted trumpet sound play back with a score of music in Sibelius?

Thomas Mac

Hello Thomas!

Our sound sets can only work correctly with the VI presets loaded that come with the VSL Soundset Installer. They can be loaded under PRESET/Sibelius. The preset for the muted Trumpet can be found under PRESET/Sibelius/Special Edition 5.2/SE Vol. 2/21 Brass/13S Trumpet C mute

More information on how to switch between sordino and senza sordino can be found in the "Optimizing Sibelius Playback" manual on page 20.
http://www.vsl.co.at/en/MyDownloads/Notation_Related

Best regards,
Andi

Hi Andi

Thanks for your quick reply.

I have the sound set installed with Vienna Ensemble. In Vienna Ensemble, I load the muted trumpet sounds and can play them without any trouble. The muted trumpet sounds are exactly where you say (PRESET/Sibelius/Special Edition 5.2/SE Vol. 2/21 Brass/13S Trumpet C mute)

However, this does not transfer to Sibelius. That is to say, I have the muted trumpet sound loaded in Vienna Ensemble, but no muted trumpet sound plays back in Sibelius.

This problem is especially confusing becuase I have the muted trumpet sound loaded in its own channel in a manual sound set in Sibelius. When I test the muted trumpet sound in Sibelius, it plays a major scale with the muted sound. However, no muted trumpet sound plays when I play the score in Sibelius.

I have another question: what is the difference between VSL SE PRESET and Sibelius PRESET? All of the VSL SE PRESET sounds work for me. However, none of the SIBELIUS PRESET sounds playback through Sibelius. Yet, the sounds will play back in Vienna Ensemble...

I have just looked at the Optimizing Sibelius Playback document (p.20). I have already done what it says there (have two separate MIDI channels for the open and muted sounds of the same instrument). As far as I can tell, I am doing everything right.

There seems to be a more basic problem of none of the Sibelius PRESETS sounds working with Sibelius from Vienna Ensebmle. Why is that? How can I fix it? Have I not installed something correctly? Does Vienna Ensemble have problems working with Sibelius 8 (Sibelius 8 is pretty new)...

Hello Thomas!

Our software and libraries are fully compatible with Sibelius 8 and I don't think that anything isn't installed correctly.

Please note that for the Special Editions, you will have to load the presets from the folder Sibelius/Special Edition 5.2. The presets in the other subfolders are for our bigger instrument collections and single instruments. If you see cells in red, you probably have loaded a preset for an instrument that you don't have.

In order to trigger the muted Trumpet from your score, please add "mute" or "con sordino" to the score. If you have already done that and it still doesn't work correctly, there's probably a mistake somewhere in your setup. Did you check the "Troubleshooting" chapter of the "Optimizing Sibelius Playback" manual? For most such problems, you should be able to find a solution there.

Best,
Andi

Hi Andi

I do not see any cells in red. I have the muted trumpet sounds; they playback in Vienna Ensemble.

I just tried resetting all the sounds to Sibelius PRESETS Special Edition 5.2 in Vienna Ensemble (this was a suggestion from the Troubleshooting section of Optimizing Playback). Now, at least Sibelius Presets will play back in Sibelius. However, the problem of no muted trumpet sound playback still occurs and there is another problem.

Using the Sibelius Special Edition 5.2 PRESETS instead of the Special Edition PRESETS sounds awful. The trumpet always plays super loud. The piano always plays super soft. Changing the expression and volume settings in Vienna Ensemble has no effect. Why is this happening? How could I fix it?

It seems to me that the Special Edition presets work better than the Sibelius 5.2 presets...

Also, the problem of not playing back muted trumpet sounds remains.

I will contiue to try different ways of setting up the sounds and resolving the problem, but would appreciate your assistance.

Thomas Mac

Hello Thomas!

Most of the VI presets that come with the Special Edition content include more than one instrument in different matrices. Otherwise they are similar to the VI presets that were made for Sibelius. One difference is that the presets for Sibelius include Velocity X-Fade controlled by CC11.

I'm not sure what's going wrong on your computer. If you want to, you can send your score and playback configuration (xml file and data folder) to support@vsl.co.at and I will take a look at them. On Mac playback configurations can be found in the following folder:
Users/your username/Library/Application Support/Avid/Sibelius/Playback Configurations

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”.

Best,
Andi