Solo voice slurs

[randallshinn]

By playing passages in Sibelius that include slurs for solo voices while watching the master bus in Vienna Ensemble Pro, I discovered that the slurs trigger timbral shifts by somehow making shifting from the solo voice channel to the closest matching Vienna Choir channel. 

The easiest solution that I have found is to select the slur, open the Sibelius inspector, and turn off the playback of the slur. This stops the channel shifts from happening.

Thought you might like to know precisely why the timbre changes. Another possible way to deal with this might be to set up separate instances of VE Pro, one which contained the solo voices and one which contained the choir. I haven't tried that possibility yet.

Randall

[andi]

Hello Randall!

I can't reproduce such a behaviour here. Make sure that you are using the correct staves in Sibelius (Menu i). The Solo Voices will only switch articulations correctly, if you have the "Solo Soprano", "Solo Alto", ... instruments in your score. The "Soprano", "Alto", ... instruments are for choir.

Best regards,
Andi

[randallshinn]

Andi,

I have been working with some scores that were started long before the solo voices came out, so that is likely the problem. I'm working on an opera score that needs nine solo voices, so I will replace those one at a time with the now available solo voice staves. I'll get back to you tomorrow after seeing how it works.

Randall

[randallshinn]

Andi,

I am content working with the slur work-around that I found (turning off playback). It works, and will do for the moment.

I have the lastest VSL Soundset installed. I tried loading the solo voice instruments, but that didn't solve the problem, and there are discrepancies in the listings. First of all, the Solo Tenor instrument is set up an octave too low. It's completely unusable until that is fixed.

Second, the solo voices don't correspond with the Vienna Instruments solo voices. The VI solo voices use the classifications common with trained solo voices:

• Solo Coloratura Soprano
• Solo Soprano
• Solo Mezzo-Soprano
• Solo Alto (contralto)
• Solo Tenor
• Solo Baritone
• Solo Bass

Under all the singer voices listed in Sibelius you can find:

• Solo Treble
• Solo Soprano
• Solo Alto
• Solo Tenor
• Solo Baritone
• Solo Bass

As you can see, the Solo Coloratura Soprano and Mezzo-Soprano voices are missing. Two of first voices I needed were Mezzo-Soprano and Tenor. I wasn't sure whether I needed solo soprano or solo alto for the mezzo-soprano, and trying them did not solve the slur issue. And when I discovered the solo tenor was set up in the wrong octave, and that there was no coloratura soprano to be found at all, I decided that I probably wasn't dealing with voices setup by VSL. (The strings often include VSL so that you know that they have been specially setup.) So for the moment I will just use my work-around. I figure that a future update will have worked all this out.

Best,

Randall

[andi]

Hi Randall!

I can confirm that the Solo Tenor sounds one octave too high and will fix it for the next update of the "Vienna Symphonic Library" House Style. In the meantime you can also do that yourself in the Sibelius Edit instruments menu. Select the Solo Tenor, click on "Edit Instrument" and set "Written middle C sounds as" to C3 for transpsosing and non transposing scores.

The Solo Soprano instrument in Sibelius also works for Solo Coloratura Soprano and Solo Mezzo-Soprano. So you are not missing anything here.

If you are using the choir instruments for Solo Voices, this may bring up more articulation change problems. I recommend adding the Solo voice staves. Then cut the content of your choir staves and paste it to the solo voices staves.

Best,
Andi

[randallshinn]

Andi,

Thanks as always for your help. I will play around some more and see if I can figure out what I can get to work, and then I'll give you feedback. Hopefully this will prove helpful to you, and perhaps some other users.

Randall

[randallshinn]

Andi,

I fixed the Tenor Solo transposition as you suggested, and exported that VSL modified soundset so that I can import it back into other scores.

I have now tried using solo voice instruments in more than one score, and I am happy to report that this has completely solved my problems. For each solo voice in various scores I simply add a new instrument (such as Solo Tenor), then copy the entire previous solo voice part (that would have used "tenor" as the instrument) into the new solo voice stave. After that I delete the corresponding old voice instrument.

I also tried using the Soprano Solo for Mezzo Soprano Solo as you suggested, and that worked fine.

Now the slurs in solo voices work as expected with no cross channel switching to the choral voices. The solo voice slurs sound so great that I going back through the parts and turning the slur playback back on for each instance. Well worth the effort because of how good they sound.

Good to learn that I need to load these solo voice instruments (and use the Sibelius presets) in order for them to work their best. 

Randall

[randallshinn]

Andi,

Here is another soundset thing to check. I just noticed that in the Soprano solo voice, using the VSL soundset, that after a slur causes the voice to switch to pLeg, it does not switch back to Sus. The other voices switch fine. I don't know if this is an issue in the soundset, or something strange in my setup. I'll do more checking at my end tomorrow.

Randall

[andi]

Hello Randall!

I can't reproduce such a behaviour here. It is most likely something in your set up. The Troubleshooting section of the "Optimizing Sibelius Playback" manual might help.

Best regards,
Andi

[randallshinn]

Andi,

I have solved almost all of my issues with solo voices and slurs. However, I am creating demos of some opera scenes at the moment, and I've noticed that in the mezzo soprano voice that "she" does not switch back to sus after a slur. I've found that inserting "~sus." on the next note triggers a switch back, so I have a work-around.

I wondered if the automatic switching back to sustain after a slur ends is controlled by some simple choice in the preset or the voice sound set that I might have inadvertently changed. Is there a control choice for that somewhere?

By the way, after finding the right reverberation space, I am getting truly beautiful vocal sounds, and very effective demos.

Regards,

Randall

[andi]

Hello Randall!

I'm glad that things are working better for you now. Again I cannot reproduce the problem you are describing. At the end of a slur Sibelius removes the Sound ID ".legato". If no other Sound ID is present, this makes the sound set send keyswitches and MIDI CC data to Vienna Ensemble in order to make the instrument switch to the sustain articulation. If it doesn't work there might still be an error somewhere in your setup. If you can't find it with the help of the Troubleshooting section of the "Optimizing Sibelius Playback" manual, you can send your score and Playback Configuration (xml file and data folder with fxb files) to support@vsl.co.at and I will take a look at it.

Sibelius Playback Configurations can be found here:
Windows:
Users\your username\AppData\Roaming\Avid\Sibelius 7.5\Playback Configurations
Mac:
Users/your username/Library/Application Support/Avid/Sibelius 7.5/Playback Configurations
The Users/your username/Library folder is hidden by default. To get access go to the folder Users/your username. Then choose Go/Go to folder and enter “Library”

Best regards,
Andi

[randallshinn]

Andi,

I solved the problem before getting your response, but thanks for the useful info. I had combined several scenes into one act in order to edit them for a piano/vocal version, and I thought that this would correct any soundset issues. Then I had separated the scenes again to record them separately.

What I realized just now was that the slur problem was a symptom that my setup was wrong. The soundsets for each scene had remained as before. So I put in this problematic scene I put a new soprano solo voice and copied all the music into that. Problem fixed. Knowing that will prove handy because I can pull the window for an individual voice to the side during playback, and if the slurs don't switch automatically I will know that I haven't yet converted them to the solo voices.

Everything works fine when I make sure that I have changed every solo voice in every scene of older scores.

Randall