Setting up a new system - Sibelius and VE Pro

[northpond]

So.. I'm setting up a system for a composer and have some questions as I'm not all that familiar with the software(s). He is using both the included sounds from Sibelius and the Vienna Instruments that he's purchased. I would like to be 'summing' all of the audio within the Vienna Mixer but that doesn't seem to be possible. Can anyone give me some idea of what the ideal signal flow situation would be for this setup? Are there any plugins included with the Vienna packages? (maybe I just haven't installed them yet, but so far I only see Apple AU plugs in VE Pro) Is there any automation possible (other than using midi sent from Sibeius) within VE Pro, sort of in the vein of Pro Tools...? If I was doing a mix in VE Pro, where / how would I be printing it (as there are no audio tracks)??? Finally, could I use a controller, specifically a Euphonix Artist series unit with VE Pro to control mixing functions? Much Thanks in advance

[andi]

Hello Northpond!

VE or VE Pro are no DAWs and neither is Sibelius. For a professional mix I would recommend using a DAW as host for VE or VE Pro.

VE Pro can be automated by a DAW.

VE Pro can host third party plugins, but the internal sounds from Sibelius can not be routed to VE Pro.

We offer a plugin package called Vienna Suite. You can find all the details at the following location.
http://vsl.co.at/en/211/497/1686/1673/115.htm
Please notice, that this is a standalone product and these plugins are not included in any of our sample collections.

For a system with Sibelius and VE or VE Pro a controller in the vein of a Euphonix Artist series unit doesn't make much sense to me. A small MIDI controller or a master keyboard with some controllers would do.

If you don't want to change to a DAW, I guess the ideal signal flow would be to activate VE (Pro) in Sibelius and mix all Vienna Instruments and 3rd Party instruments there. You also can include plugins, and sub-mixes to busses there. If you want to automate the volume of tracks, I recommend using CC7 from Sibelius. The startup value for CC7 of every track can be set in the Sibelius mixer. I would reserve CC11 for Vel Xfade and therefore dynamic changes. You can also use plugins in the Sibelius Playback Devices for the internal Sibelius instruments.

I hope this was helpful.

Best regards,
Andi

[northpond]

Hi Andi, and Thank You for that very informative reply. So now that I've been delving deeper into how to integrate everything and get the work done I indeed do see that I need a DAW in this setup and am incorporating Pro Tools as well. This leads me to wonder the following... If Pro Tools is then my Host for Vienna Ensemble (Pro, as I'm running Pro Tools HD on another CPU), is it still possible to play the Vienna Instruments with Midi coming from Sibelius? It seems not! as Midi can only come from the host, as far as I can tell. I wanted to set up an IAC bus for the Midi, but Ensemble (Pro) warns me that it's not a good idea. So far, as the composer is working in Sibelius with VE on the same machine, I have to first change over all his VE Instances to Pro, so that I can network to the Pro Tools machine and also, export all the Midi to Pro Tools as well in order to play and print it (hope I'm being clear here). This is not a bad workflow but it would be nice to be able to leave the Midi in Sibelius as it makes it easier for him to edit at the last minute. Also... re: performance. What I've noticed... when we are just playing back or printing / mixing, I have tried turning the buffer way up (4096) thinking that this would be the smoothest and most glitch-free playback but for some reason this doesn't work out too well. For some reason 512 seems to be the magic number. Can you elaborate a bit more on what yields the best performance results and how to go about determining that with any given system? Again... many thanks, Bill Also... one more question. I am starting to fully 'get' the VEP idea and along with the amazing & wonderful VSL Library, it's quite excellent. So, I'm fairly sure that I can't do this, but is there any way using this LAN solution technology to stream channels out of Logic on one Machine into Pro Tools on another? or anything like that... basically host to host audio streaming without interfaces. ;–)

[andi]

Hello Bill!

I would recommend the following workflow:
Bring the project as far as possible with Sibelius and VE (Pro). Then export the MIDI file based on the playback copnfiguration. This way you will keep all the MIDI controll data like key switches and MIDI CC. In VE save the Viframe(s) or in VE Pro just preserve the opened instance(s).
Then you can move the project to ProTools and do all the mixing there. Some last changes or MIDI finetuning can also be done there.

If buffer size 512 works fine, I'd stay with that. For the smoothest playback, I recommend leaving the buffer setting of the VE server interface at 2 buffers.

Sorry, but I don't know  if there's a software that can do host to host audio streaming over LAN. VE Pro only streams audio that comes out of VE Pro.

Best,
Andi