No reaction on hairpin

[Pekay]

Something has happened and I can't figure out what. Vienna does not react on a hairpin anymore. Either expression or velocity used to change when the playhead hit a hairpin, depending on my choice in the Map Control section. But now, nothing happens. But I think the problem doesn't necessarily have to do with the hairpins because Sibelius has started crashing all the time without any special reason. This never happened before. This is my configuration. OSX 10.6.2 2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 6 GB RAM I have downloaded the latest versions of Vienna Instruments and Vienna Ensemble from Vienna's homepage today Sibelius 5.4 I have re-installed Sibelius and recently installed Snow Leopard. Maybe I should "clean" everything, un-install and re-install all the involved programs, including Vienna. Any ideas? Regards Pekay

[andi]

Hello Pekay!

As you have written yourself, the behaviour of the notes with hairpins depends on the settings on your Map Control page. Sibelius sends CC11 data for hairpins. If you want to use Velocity XFade, don't forget to turn it on. Setting the control to CC11 is not enough.

Do the articulation changes work normally?

Best regards,
Andi

[Pekay]

Hi Andi, Yes, I have turned on Velocity XFade and everything has worked just fine before. Articulation changes seem to work. And also the hairpin and other dynamics work on some staves but not on others. Like trumpet 1 works, but not trumpet 2 and so on. Like I said, there seems to be some general instability in the system right now. For example, VI / VE crashes occasionally when I assign a matrix to an instrument. In other words, strange things happen here and there. The computer works nice with all other programs, so my guess is there's something wrong with the Sibelius/Vienna installation. How can I "reset" everything, i.e. clean upp everything that has to do with Vienna and reinstall? Do you think that could help? Best, Pekay

[andi]

If dynamics are working for trumpet 1, but not for trumpet 2, maybe trumpet 2 is also routed to trumpet 1. In this case please see the trouble shooting section of the "Optimizing Sibelius manual" for more details.

If VI/VE crashes occasionally, maybe it helps to uninstall and reinstall it.
Here is how you make a complete uninstall:

Delete all Vienna Instruments files with the help of the application ViennaUninstall and all Vienna Instruments and Vienna Ensemble receipts (.pkg files) from ...LibraryReceipts.

Trash also the Preferences files

-com.vsl.vsldirs1.plist
-com.vsl.vslfrontend.plist
-com.vsl.appPresets.plist (if this one is not there, please do not worry!) from Macintosh HDLibraryPreferences

Empty Trash and RESTART your computer. Then repair permissions with help of the tool disk utility.

Please note that normally a simple ViennaUninstall and restart, before the new installation would do, and all the other steps are only necessary, if you are facing trouble.

I hope this was helpful.

Best,
Andi

[Pekay]

Thanks a lot for your advice! I'll do as you suggest, begin with the simple uninstall and if that won't help go further to deleting files as you say. What happens if I do that? How much do I have to create again? Best regards Pekay

[andi]

You don't have to create anything again. A simple reinstallation will do.

Best,
Andi

[Pekay]

Okay, thanks again. Pekay

[Pekay]

Hi, I'm here again. I have used a lot of time to localizing the source of the two problems I have: 1. Either Sibelius or Vienna crashes every now and then. 2. The hairpins (and any kind of dynamics) occasionally stop working. I think I have solved the first one. I may have used an incorrect soundset. As to the other one, I think I've found the source of the problem but I can't come around it. If I create, say, two clarinets, Sibelius puts them on the same channel, for example channel 7. No problem, I think, I can manually move clarinet 2 to channel 8. But when I do that, the dynamics stop working. Articulations still work, though. Conclusion: If I let Sibelius assign the channels automatically, then the dynamics work. But if I change a channel manually, then they stop working. I have repeated this many times now. That's how it works. The problem is that Sibelius does not assign the channels correctly. Either clarinet 2 is assigned to the same channel as clarinet 1 or it is put on a totally wrong channel. In either case, I need to do something to get the channels right. But any manual change makes the dynamics freeze. Do you have a solution to this problem? My configuration once again: 2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon OSX 10.6.2 6 GB RAM The latest versions of Vienna Instruments and Vienna Ensemble Sibelius 6.1.1 Build 24 (I've upgraded from 5 to 6 since my last letter) Regards Pekay

[Pekay]

Oh, by the way, I have reinstalled VI and VE according to your instructions. Pekay

[andi]

Hello Pekay!

I also once came upon this problem. This seems to be a Sibelius bug and unfortunately I can't give you a solution that always works. Sometimes it helps creating the problematic staff once again and then cutting and pasting the content from the old staff to the new one. Sometimes it helps fiddling about in the Sibelius mixer.

Sorry that I can't give you any better solution. Maybe Sibelius support knows more about it.

Best,
Andi

[bmd-sound]

 Hey everybody,

I think I can help with this one. Indeed, Sibelius seems to get confused when more than one staff/instrument are supposed to play one and the same (real-world-type-of) instrument, e.g. trumpet 1 and trumpet 2 or yet more probable 1st and 2nd violins.

I believe Sibelius - even with manual sond sets correctly defined - tends to confuse the MIDI/articulation/dynamic infos for the different staves because both of them refer to the same old entry in the original VSL sound set.

This seems to hold true as long as the two (or more instruments of the same kind) are "run" on the same Virtual Instrument, e.g. the same instance of Vienna Ensemble.

In my case, I'm running VE apart from Sibelius via MIDI-Busses. And I'm running 1st violins on one MIDI-Bus and 2nd violins on the other. This way, Sibelius seems to "route" the interpretation/articulation data for both instruments really independently, and the confusion is dealt with. ;-)

Maybe this is a bit more elegant then "fiddling about" with Sibelius' mixer...

Hope my advice actually works with you guys. In my case, it does - and just fine. Cheers!

[Pekay]

Interesting! I don't really understand how you do that. Could you, please, explain it more in detail. You're only working with Sibelius and Vienna Ensemle, right? Not with a DAW. Best, Pekay

[bmd-sound]

Well, maybe that was too much in the way of telegraphic shortness ...

Yes, I'm using Cubase 5 - and VE Pro (3 instances, actually) is hosted by Cubase. BUT that doesn't matter much here because I'm getting the MIDI-data to VE via "external" MIDI busses, directly from Sibelius 6. (On my Mac, I can set up new MIDI busses in the Audio/Midi system application. They are provided for by the OS (some "IAC driver", to be more specific) and are offered to all applications. So of course they are really only virtual busses, but to the applications like Sibelius or VE they "look" like coming from the outside world, I guess. ;-)  )

• So in Sibelius you can't only just choose any Virtual Instrument as a plug-in, but you can choose to playback any instrument (any staff) e.g. on an "outside / real" instrument like some hardware-sampleplayer (Roland, Yamaha, Kurzweil, you name it) - and in order to do that, you have to send MIDI data to that instrument on some bus (or "port"). Well, it's not like you don't know that.
• Then again, Sibelius doesn't care where the MIDI data goes, outside the computer or to some virtual instrument just "outside of Sibelius". To make a long story short: Name a (virtual) MIDI bus as playback instance, call the appropriate sound set (VSL, of course) and get the MIDI data to any VE instance, be it as a standalone or - as in my case - as a plug-in to a different host.
• With VE PRO, you can choose those (IAC) MIDI busses directly as input. With VE (no-pay-version) I could route the MIDI data via Cubase, Bus 1 connected to VE instance 1, Bus 2 connected to VE instance 2 or whatever.

And - mind you - I'm speaking about MIDI busses, not MIDI channels. Don't get confused by that.

What I'm not sure about is whether my workaround (for e.g. 1st and 2nd violins using the same sound id) also works with two different instances of VE as plug-ins immediately within Sibelius. I'm not sure I tried that. But you may (try), maybe it will work just as well. That way. you wouldn't have to fiddle about with MIDI busses, standalones, extra DAWs or whatever.

(I'm using Cubase mainly because I need the effects - reverb most of all - and some neat recording and editing tools. For my taste the audio export capabilities of Sibelius are really a bit too basic and there is no reverb for plug-in VIs.)

Anyway, my guess is: You simply have to see to it that Sibelius doesn't have to play more than one actual instrument (staff) of the same kind whithin the same plug-in with the same instance of the VSL sound set. Provide for as much plug-ins as you have trumpets or violin sections or whatever.

Well, I hope this is not TOO explicit. ;-) Best, Bernd from Düsseldorf

[Pekay]

Thanks a lot! I'll try that when I get some time. Regards, Pekay

[Pekay]

Hi there, I found a way to make Sibelius assign the instruments right. Using Sibelius Soundset Editor, I created duplicates of the instruments, e.g Trumpet#2, Trumpet#3 and so on. I needed to give Sibelius some manual help but it worked. But... It turns out that this problem has been fixed in the latest dowloadable update of Sibelius 6. So, now Sibelius assigns the instruments absolutely correct. I can have as many trumpets or violins as I like. Not a single error. Great. Pekay