Rendering string articulations (and various playing styles) from Sibelius

[jamcclure]

Hi- I am writing a number of light classical string arrangements using Sibelius and would like the sample player to render the string articulations and marks regarding playing styles (sustain, tremolo, etc.). I have purchased the VSL Appassionata Strings and the VSL Ensemble player and am very happy with the sampled sounds, but don't know how to make the written articulations in Sibelius translate to the various articulations that VSL has inside it. The Appassionata library has certain patches that choose articulations automatically, but it isn't choosing very well and I'd like to be able to control this directly using the music notation. Does anyone have any suggestions on what is best/easiest to get Sibelius to play written articulations for strings (and possibly for other instruments) using the VSL? I did note that the VSL Special Edition Library has a "soundset" for Sibelius, but I have a feeling that the string sounds from the Appassionata library are probably better and more varied than those included in the Special Edition library. However, I'll buy the VSL Special Edition if that's the only way to go. (By the way, I also have Kontakt 3, which includes some kind of VSL samples, I am not sure what those are and whether they could be useful? However, I like the Ensemble Player much better than Kontakt and would prefer to go that route if possible.) Thanks for any advice you can give!

Jim McClure

[stevetrumpet]

Jim

What I have is the SE and I have added the Appass strings to this and use it all in Sibelius with the SE soundset handling the keyswitches

With regards to using the appass strings with sibelius, I use the published soundset and then having loaded the relevant SE matrices, I have replaced the SE string patches with the "equivalent" Appass patches. I've also used this method to add cornet and Bass trumpet

This works nicely.

As you do not have the SE (and no real reason to splash out if all you need to use is the Appass strings) you will have to look at the SE soundset and "build" a matrix with the patches in the correct order (ie stacc, portato, sus, legato, sfz, trem, pizz if memory serves) and remember to turn the keyswitches "on" in the third tab of the VI.

Then the soundset will handle those basic articulations for you in sibelius - although you may have to mess around  with the sibelius playback dictionary with things like tenuto and sfz......

Of course you can then get clever and add more patches/articulations as you feel the urge  - ie edit the soundset in the soundset editor and add more to your matrix. I guess that depends on your RAM limits

Right, enough rambling from me - hope that makes some sense

Steve   

[andi]

Hi Jim!

There will be a sound set for the Appassionata Strings some time this autumn. In the meantime you can do as Steve mentioned in his post.

Best wishes,
Andi Olszewski
Vienna Symphonic Library

[kevjazz]

I also looked for an Appassionata sounset but found none.  Since I haven’t bought the SE, I don’t have access to the SE soundset for Sibelius in my User Area.  So, it looks like I can’t create a soundset based on another soundset that I don’t have.  Is that right?  In that case, I’ll wait for the Appassionata soundset when it arrives. 

            One other thing, I did notice that when I insert a technique like Bow Trem in a string quartet, my whole notes sound like four detached quarter notes with bow trem.  Could this be because I haven’t loaded a trem matrix?  I’ll keep trying. 

Thanks,

Kevin

[stevetrumpet]

Kevin, Jim

I'm happy to let you have my edited soundset and sib configurations (ie you can ask sib to set up that playback configuration and it should grab the correct artics and put them in the correct key switches as you have the appas library)

Two things though

1) The soundset is the sib/VSL one which I've just messed with a little so I don't want to distribute it if the original author doesn't want me to - Andi? I say this as it is only available to registered users of the SE so if there's a reason for VSl not to want to distribute it fully I don't want to tread on any toes. 

2) It is a very basic soundset as it is based on the SE so only has the basic artics  - sus, stacc, trem, leg, pizz, portamento, portato - so if you want to use the appas full potential then you might want to wait for the Authorised Appas soundset! And I suppose were you to start using this, when the appass soundset appears it might be a bit of pain to swap over all your scores.    

re tremelo - the trem keyswitch kicks in after 32nd division trems or something like that ie with the 2 lines trem it just plays the sus artic that many times. Have an experiment with the notation - my trem now works well with everything, snare drums included.

Steve