Harmonic Mapping and Range in Dimension Strings Question

[zentrumsounds]

I'm just wondering if the rationale behind some of the Sibelius presets for Dimension Strings Violin/Viola could be explained. Harmonics for instance are already mapped at patch level one octave up. However the Vienna Instruments Preset maps these a further octave up. Surely it would make sense to have these mapped an octave down so that harmonics entered at score level play back as sounding? Perhaps i have my rationale mixed up?! 

Also, Violas appear to have an extended range below to Ab whilst the other presets stop at their usual lowest pitches. Again, if there is a reason for this (violas being used for scordatura) I'd love to know it. 

Finally, thanks for providing harmonic tremolos, something which I missed from the Solo Strings!

[andi]

Hello zentrumsounds!

The artificial harmonics we recorded (and which are the most common ones) were produced by holding down a note with one finger and slightly touching the string a fourth above. This way a harmonic is produced that sounds two octaves above the fundamental tone. The transposition has been applied to the presets in order to also play the pitch that one would get from a human player when writing harmonics in the score.

If you have loaded the Vienna Symphonic Library House Style for Sibelius 7, it is even possible to use the typical notation for this kind of harmonics and getting the correct pitch without hearing two notes played.

Anyway, I have seen that I forgot to add the transposition to the Dimension Viola and Dimension Cello presets. This will be corrected with the next update.

Thanks for pointing out the extended range for the Viola presets. This will also be corrected with the next update.

Best regards,
Andi

[zentrumsounds]

Hi Andi,

Okay great to have that clarification. Yes the violas and cellos currently only transpose down an octave not two... I guess this would mean rewriting anything written so far if it's updated... three minutes for a chamber orchestra film score :)

Perhaps the only issue for someone who is initially composing is that they are less likely to fully notate the touch fourth harmonic until the later stages of the compositional process.

I wonder would a changelog be possible with such updates? I for one have already extensively customized my Dimension String Siblius presets to include a few of the sul tasto sul ponticello articulations as well extending the viola ranges in some of the articulations. Ideally I might find that fixing the presets is better than overwriting them. For that matter, it would be nice to still make the .xml Soundsets available seperately since the new method of updating simply overwrites these. Would you consider this?

By the way, the upper range limits in Viola are a little lower than say the Solo Strings. Of course this can now be changed via VIPro (which is brilliant!) but perhaps these ranges might also be the same? It can be a little strange to have a musical passage suddenly mute when a legato marking is added.

Thanks again!

Jurgen

[andi]

Hello Jurgen!

It's also possible to trigger the harmonics with the Harmonic/Open mark from the keypad.

If you want to keep your old sound sets, please make a copy yourself. We won't go back to making all sound sets available as single downloads without auto-installation.

The Viola Range will be corrected also on the upper end.

Best,
Andi