How do I improve playback of Sibelius score in Vienna Instruments Pro?

[Phil Walton]

Everything is set up as instructed to link Sibelius 7 with Vienna Ensemble Pro 5, but I find that playback is not as expected. i did have a problem with violent staccato, but I solved that by altering the setting for staccato in the patch editor. the area which causes me most concern is to do with the Performance section in the Advanced Instrument window, the Vel.XF and Release Boxes, and when and how much to adjust the performance settings: Vol, Pitch, VelX, SlotX, DynR, Start, Atk, Rel, Exp and Filter. i wont even begin on the Humanize section!!!! What I need to know is, for each of those settings, what effect changes to those settings will have on playback. I see that when they open up they already have settings, which I presume are the default settings, but are those settings already a response to the Sibelius score? Bottom line, I am not entirely happy with the playback. A simple example, is cello pizzicato marked piano in Sibelius, but sounding too loud. If I then change it in Sibelius to pianissimo it is OK. If I uncheck the Vel.XF box the piano marking is better but pianissimo is inaudible. Another example would be legato or sustained strings. With Vel.XF on the volume is too high at times, yet with it off, the strings can be sometimes too quite and unstable in expression. The manuals and videos I have seen so far assume an understanding of midi controls and work with sequencers, but I am mostly a Sibelius user wh,o more often than no,t types in the notes from my laptop, as I am usually not near a midi keyboard. Regards Phil

[Phil Walton]

Another example would be accented staccato semi quavers. I have adjusted the Atk slider in the Envelope of the Patch editor to 35, so that staccato and non staccato are fairly even, dynamically, and nicely contrasted in length and articulation. But when I add an accent > to some of the staccatos, the result is too strong. How do I tone it down?

[andi]

Hello Phil!

In most cases a Sibelius score will not sound great out of the box, but you will have to finetune it. The most important steps in this finetuning process are choosing the articulation that fit best for a certain passage and editing MIDI parameters as Live velocity, Live start position and Live duration. How to trigger the various articulations is explained in the "Optimizing Sibelius Playback" manual. The MIDI parameters can be edited in the Sibelius Inspector.

What the VI Pro parameters that you have mentioned do, is explained in the VI Pro manual and the VI Pro tutorial videos.
http://www.vsl.co.at/en/68/428/1908/1548.htm
http://www.vsl.co.at/en/211/1343/1348/1970/1575.vsl

It may also be helpful to simply play some samples (with a MIDI keyboard or the virtual keyboard of the VI Pro interface) and try out the parameters.

Sibelius plays notes with accent 20% louder. If that is too much for your taste, you can edit this value in the Play/Dictionary/Articulations/Accent menu.

Best regards,
Andi

[Phil Walton]

Hi Andi I'll do that. Can you confirm for me: are the settings that I find when I open the instrument window in Vienna Instrument Pro, the default Vienna settings, or are they based on information coming from Sibelius? Thanks, Phil

[andi]

Hi Phil!

When you load a new VI Pro, it opens with its own default settings which are not influenced by Sibelius. As soon as you start playback settings may be altered by Sibelius or the commands you have entered in Sibelius.

Best,
Andi

[Timeline]

Same, almost exact Sibelius 7 issues Phil when accessing Vienea instruments via Digital Performer after Midi 2 transfer to DP. Very interesting that a written articulation change in a score is not universally compatible yet. If an articulation mark in a score is musicaly read compatibly, then why not notation software? Is this a midi issue or company to company issue?

[Phil Walton]

Hi Andi. I am getting happier now with playback. However I now think that many of my concerns may be addressed by purchasing Special Edition Volume 1 PLUS, as it appears that it is mainly fast repetitions of staccato and legato that concern me. The only thing that I can't solve fully is sostenuto playing without slurs, where there is a slight gap between notes, even as a professional string player (Viola) I know that there should not be a gap. How can I ensure that there will be no gap? Phil

[andi]

Hello Phil!

You can see the sus-patches as a "starting note" patch. That's why the notes start slow and why there are slight gaps between notes. If you want legato playing, you will have to write legato playing. Either with slurs or with the technique text command "legato". Another possibility would be to raise the playback duration of the notes, so that they overlap, but I would prefer to trigger legato when you want legato. If you don't want the slurs or the "legato" command to appear in your score, you can hide them.

Best,
Andi