Of ticks, legato, optimize and more ...

[Oceanview]

Some help needed please. Easy questions first.

1. When using velocity x-fade what should the velocity on/off read as on the list of terms under map control. I have Expression set to 'none' and I have velocity cross-fade set to CC11 - but what about the function one up on the list - velocity on/off. At present it says 'none'. Is that correct?

2. How do I delete a matrix on the left hand side of an instance of VI if a preset is loaded? This is the way to customize presets by reducing their RAM size?

3. I have recently encountered many single notes not playing, usually the first note of a legato phrase. I fixed this by using the 'reduce by 30 tick' technique mentioned in the Vienna/Sibelius manual. But why does this happen anyway? It adds yet more work to get even a straightforward playback. I notice some of these can be fixed by deleting and replacing the slur mark.

4. I have a suspicion, from what has happened to some scores after optimizing, that the untriggered legato samples that lie behind the problem in the previous question drop out during optimizing even though they are actually needed. Is this correct? If so it means you have to doublecheck all those notes before optimizing. In other words if a sample isn't triggered, it gets dropped?

5. The more lines you have moving in parallel motion / same rhythm, the more noticeable are the elements in the samples which feature at the start of the note and its end. This is a problem with approximations of divisi strings where you might have four violin, two viola and two cello lines moving together. Anyone know how to minimize this artificial and harsh sound?

Has the Vienna House style version 2 sorted the problem of staccato not changing to arco until a few notes afterward? Or is this still a risk of using the same sounds for two staves (Violin I and II)? Is it still a matter of entering another new stave and pasting over?

Thought the answers to these questions might also be of interest to newbies.

Thanks.

[andi]

Hi Oceanview!

Here are the answers to your questions.

1.) With "Velocity on/off" you can define a controller to turn Velocity Crossfade on and off. That's useful for instruments where you have passages you want to play with Vel Xfade and other passages where you don't want to use it.

2.) Go to Matrix Assign. Then select the matrix you want to remove and doubleclick "(empty matrix)".

3.) I am not sure what you mean. Slurs will trigger the legato patch. Please be aware, that with the Vienna Instruments player legato patches cane only be played monophonic. VI Pro has a polyphonic legato mode. The "reduce by 30 ticks" trick helps to start new legato phrases.

4.) If a sample isn't triggered during the Optimize/Learn process, it is dropped from RAM. So after adding or changing notes to an optimized instruments, you will have to reset the instrument and optimize it again, unless you are adding only notes, that are already triggered elsewhere with this instrument.

5.) There are several ways to avoid instruments playing at the exact same time.
- Record the instruments with a MIDI keyboard instead of typing in the notes.
- Make adjustments to "Live start position" in the Sibelius/Properties/Playback window.
- Use the Humanize funtion of VI Pro.

6.) I am not sure what problem you are talking about. The latest House Style version (1.4) has no faults that I know of. Which articulation do you mean with arco? Staccato is also an arco articulation.
As far as I have seen, the latest Sibelius version 6.2 assigns MIDI channels correctly when the same instrument is used more than once.

I hope that was helpful.

Best regards,
Andi

[Oceanview]

 Andi,

With regard to your answer to 4/ could you comment on the difference between adjusting live start position and  changing Delay and Attack time in the edit cell of the samples in connection with reducing the sound I was describing. Would such an adjustment also have the useful effect of throwing the vibrato of different instruments out of sync so that the regularity of the vibrato is not emphasised when applied to several notes in different parts sounding at the same time?

Sorry I described 6/ inaccurately - I meant pizzicato not changing to arco until two or three notes have passed. Can I fix this with editing live duration?

[andi]

Changing the live start position affects only the selected note(s), changing the Attack and/or Delay value in the Edit Cell menu affects all notes that trigger this patch.´

The vibrato of different instruments shouldn't be in sync anyway, because they have never been recorded in sync. Sometimes they may vibrate in sync by coincindence.

It's news to me that pizzicato doesn't switch back to arco playing by adding the "arco" command. It always worked for me. Adding the live duration can't help in this matter. Have you tried it with the latest Sound Set and House Style versions? If the problem persists, please let me know with wich Sound Set it occurs and give me some more details about your Playback Configuration.

Best,
Andi