May I join in on this thread, please, having read every post carefully twice over the summer and autumn, during which time I've completed a string quartet using Sibelius 8 and the Solo Strings packs?

I can see that I have the same concerns as you, David; and that my work sounds uncannily similar to your files, Paul (thanks for posting!).

So much so that - just as, say, Janet Baker's voice or the Amadeus' string sound are recognized immediately for their timbres or textures - the VSL/Sibelius sound is unmistakable.

This isn't a bad thing. And I'd say we have to be realistic about what a notation program like Sibelius (and eventually Dorico) can do.

I think I'd settle for knowing that I can, though, consistently produce the best possible.

And both Andi and the documentation (especially v. 3.2 of the 'Optimizing Sibelius Playback with Vienna Ensemble' pdf) are both helpful, of course!

But there are indeed so many combinations of so many variables in the patches and presets etc that even something simple - perhaps in binary tree form to help make the necessary either/or decisions and eleminate wrong turnings - for, say, solo strings would be a great help. Also some way of knowing which tweaks are additive and which cancel one another out, and/or changing which settings achieves nothing without some other parameter's being altered first.

Similarly a list of changes to experiment with - but one that put each parameter in order of likely effectiveness… "x will make the biggest change because it does y" and "don't expect to hear greater realism with a until you've balanced b and c" etc!

For instance, I find the violins have a thinner - and often noticeably 'whinier' - sound than the cello (which is invariably excellent); and that the viola - because it's a quieter instrument, perhaps (?) - tends to sound growly in its lower register, and insipid above C.

I do believe all this is only a good starting point; and would really welcome specific/concrete guidance… I know the samples are capable of great sound.

Another data point: I use Sibelius and VSL, without a a DAW. I have considered using a DAW, but I don't have the patience. I would much rather write music than produce it. (Some of my music is here:  https://soundcloud.com/mhcoffin. The string stuff uses VSL solo strings full library.) I am completely certain that If I spent a lot of time messing with a DAW, the simulation would be better, but it isn't bad, and life is short. In any case, I doubt it would sound as good as it did last week when I heard the Acadia Suite played by real people. :-)

I agree, Mike!

(I started with Logic and quickly realised that I was more interested in notation; and that that was where I wanted to put my time and energy: not least because working that way (in my case, so far, Sibelius) taught me so much more about serious music and music theory.)

That's why I'll happily settle once I know that I've got the best I can - even though that may not be 'real' playing.

One has to realize that using samples involves bypassing everything that performers do.  

The sample user has to become a conductor, but even more - he has to become a player to a certain extent.   Conductors actually have it much easier than the sample user.  They can stand in front of a great orchestra, wave their arms, and beautiful sound comes out.  

With samples, you don't have that luxury - you have to work harder.    Because you are doing a lot of what the players do, with expression, and what the conductor does, with controlling all the elements of the perfomance. So there is no easy solution - it is pure musical work, figuring out what sounds best on each line of your composition.  

Thanks, William - that makes good sense.

Which types of work could those of us who want to 'conduct the samples' (for I think that's really what you're saying is necessary) undertake in order to get sounds approaching those - presumably - of the time when the players' own work was itself captured in samples?

I'm confident that, if I knew which variables to start with, given a simple (= controllable) (Sibelius) score, I could make headway.

Any specific suggestions, bearing in mind uour wise observations, please?

TIA!

VSL announced a new offer for solo strings today. It has two samples for cello only, so far… violin to follow.

And, aside from a certain roundness - and absence of reverberation - my own writing for VSL cello in the Solo Strings I pack is not that different… encouraging.

This does prompt me to ask: could the degree of wetness/dryness (I use MIR Pro), overuse in either direction, be responsible (in part) for any artificiality of tone… a sensation of synthesis?

I know this can be done 😊

My first forays into realism began with an experiment to slide up and down (actually left-right, of course, acorss) the wet-dry (reverberation) spectrum.

Although I have MIR Pro inline in all my VEPro 6 channels, I think that an easy mistake is to try and accentuate 'realism' by having too much 'atmosphere' in spurious echo.

For the moment, Dry is more real-sounding.

Anyone ese?

Two other parameters which make the Solo Strings Viola sound less realistic appear to be:

1. volume/dynamic:the softer the more pleasant, and
2. pitch: above C4 it sounds harsher (more like a saxophone!) than B3 and below

I wonder whether Andi and the wonderful VSL experts could help us here, please?

thanks, Mark, and  the others who have made recent contributions -- just spotted these now. I must say I'm coming back again, one year on, to my original question as to whether it's worth investing in the solo strings vol. 1 above the SE set for use in notation software and find I'm as confused as ever!

As the number and nature of articulations are (or from the list seem to be) much the same then any improvement must be down to 1. a far larger number of velocity steps and obvioulsy samples 2. smoother and more organic programming of the articulations. Is there anything else? I have made some headway in getting better sound from the SE.  Again, it would be very useful to trial the full package as that would answer my most important questions within hours. If this really isn't possible, has anyone here used both and can tell exactly in what way Solo strings vol. 1 is better than SE or would even be able to demo an example of both in a string quartet (or similar) using best practice in both cases?

The situation in notation software has now of course changed and Dorico is likely to become the programme of choice for many, especially when at least the initial playback features are fully implemented as this should make it easier to get the best out of VSL.

David

David,

Yes - and thanks for keeping this thread going! These are important matters, aren't they.

The solo strings have more articulations than the strings in the SE do (I have both), of course.

But I believe the ways of controlling and using them are essenmtially the same.

I too would welcome any and all guidance as to how to make the most of the various arrays of combinations of which they are capable.

another update after working quite intensively at creating new scores out of earlier string quartets which originally were simply recorded into Cubase. The patch which most often makes the ghastly screeching noises so often heard is the default "normal" or sostenuto one. "legato" should be used whenever possible for expressive music.  With the Special Edition, I 've found that provided there are no long notes then substititing "rep" can work for many figurations and tends to give a cooler less vibrato sound. In "detache" the vibrato is often too strong and "short" is simply too short unless the music is fast and metronomic in which case it often works well. "spiccato" has more character than "short" but only very short notes. Looking again at the full articulation list for the Solo Strings 1, the control of vibrato, among other things would surely give more scope for improvement without much extra effort.

Vel XFade mostly doesn't work for slow music with solo strings in SE becuase there is simply too much vibrato and other oddities (though I might try yet again combining with Expression in different ways to see if there is something I might have missed -- again any suggestions welcome). What I somehow missed earlier from Andi's guide and is potentially very useful is the ability to write Vel XFade on/off commands directly into the score in Sibelius. Fast music can get a wilder, more spontaneous rendering and there are probably also individual passages in more meansured sections as well which might work. It is starting to add up! Here is an example of one of my recent endeavours -- still much to be done but I feel it's really coming along now.

https://app.box.com/s/pnopcvxml3cjg5v6a6cv34i55g47m0i5

David

Thanks so much, David; this is extremely helpful.

I have a growing 'Help' file of my own. I have added all your comments to it.

I'll try them out.

How exactly do you get 'rep' to work, please?

Are we approaching a stage when we might even venture a (collaborative) FAQ somewhere - perhaps text, explanations and sound samples?

I'd be keen to help/participate.

Would Andi jump in to support?

Hi Mark -- glad you found my observations of some interest. "rep" is just an abbreviation for repeat and like all the other articulations mentioned is just called up as a Sibelius technique (CTRL+T). "rep", which is basically short for legato repitions is supposed to adapt itself to the speed of the music being played thought the finer points elude me so far. I expect you've already seen Andi's helpful "Optimising Sibelius Playback  in Vienna Ensemble"? However, it could do with a more detailed explanation on the thorny question of velocity XFade. For instance which setting change what and how best to combine, if at all, Expression with XFade. The manual is little use as it does barely more than just list the options.

It's possible that we might together have something to contribute in terms of a help file but I suspect most of it must have been covered elsewhere though not always easy to find. I find I am too uncertain in many areas and often opinions vary considerably as to which are the best techniques with someone like Beat clearly knowing exactly what he's doing.

David

Hello David!

Expression is nothing more than an additional volume fader. In most cases I would leave this fader in the same position. For making volume changes during a project, you can automate it with CC12, if you have loaded one of the VI presets for Sibelius.

Best regards,
Andi

David,

Thanks!

I tried the addition of legato; but it didn't seem to me to make a lot of difference.

I suspect that this is because any single setting has to be changed/activated alongside all the others and the various combinations thereof.

This leads me to suggest that the most useful way to build a document or guide - rather than describe the effects of the many settings, sliders and articulation marks individually - would be to show how they operate in tandem.

Especially since some must be cancelling one another out?

And - presumably - because various parts of the range of others will have different effects depending on which others are accentuated/diminished etc.

One approach would be to describe which settings to change first and which should follow.

And in which order.

@andi said:

Hello David!

Expression is nothing more than an additional volume fader. In most cases I would leave this fader in the same position. For making volume changes during a project, you can automate it with CC12, if you have loaded one of the VI presets for Sibelius.

Best regards,
Andi

that's right, though it's only relatively recently that I fully understood this. Volume is designed as a main volume and Expression responds to the marked dynamics in Sibelius. Or rather I should say that CC11 responds to the marked dynamics in Sibelius and it is up to the user to decide whether to allocate Expression or Velocity XF to CC11. Indeed you can do both but that can lead to some pretty weird effects and I (in common with others I have read) don't reccommend this approach.

So --which to use? They are most certainly not the same in the way they scale dynamics and i'm not sure how often this point has been made clearly. Using the VSL House Style and CC11 for Expression, the dynamic range is too great leading to pp or quieter being almost inaudible. Reducing dynamic range can help but I haven't found an entirely satisfactory setting. On the other hand, if you allocate CC11 to Velocity Crossfade, the dynamic range is far less --indeed I would boost it to around 115 for a string quartet (but not all the way to the top). I assume that this house style assumes control through VelX, otherwise the dictionary will have to be slightly customised which is exactly what I've been doing for years to reign in the extremes but now think it's perhaps the wrong approach. The Expression slider should then have a fixed volume around the 90+ mark becuase even though Sibelius dynamic markings no longer control it, it still acts as a volume control. As you say, you can allocate a channel to Expression to allow direct control through a Sibelius command but this shouldn't often be necessary.

In addition to using the VelX for CC11, you then have to decide whether to activate Velocity X fade which is completely different but confusingly (well it certainly confused me for ages) has effectively the same abbreviation. This, as previously pointed out, changes the nature of the sound quite considerably and is best suited to more volatile writing --either fast and a bit wild or vibrato-rich and "romantic" for slow passages. It simply asks to be tried out and you can put a ~C28 (or whatever channel you allocate), 127 or 0 in the score to change between them as desired.

David

@MarkSealey said:

David,

Thanks!

I tried the addition of legato; but it didn't seem to me to make a lot of difference.

I suspect that this is because any single setting has to be changed/activated alongside all the others and the various combinations thereof.

This leads me to suggest that the most useful way to build a document or guide - rather than describe the effects of the many settings, sliders and articulation marks individually - would be to show how they operate in tandem.

Especially since some must be cancelling one another out?

And - presumably - because various parts of the range of others will have different effects depending on which others are accentuated/diminished etc.

One approach would be to describe which settings to change first and which should follow.

And in which order.

Not quite clear what you did here, Mark. "Legato" simply means drawing a slur in Sibelius which calls up the specific "legato" patch and is generally independent of other settings and normally you wouldn't want to combine it with anything.  The change is sound is generally obvious so I don't get why you don't seem to be hearing it. In some case you may indeed wish to mix articulations such as tenuto with accent but there are only certain situations where they make musical sense and can be easily tested out. Andi's guide gives a few pointers here.

You need to be careful not to confuse the articulation markings in Sibelius with the more global settings in Vienna Ensemble. As mentioned the Velocity XFade can change the overall nature of the sound and I tried to give an indication for further exploration as to how. Most other settings which have been discussed relate to overall volume and dynamic range, not to the actual sound itself.

Actual editing the sound at individual cell level is something else again but I'm not going down that road --things are already complicated enough as they are!

David,

My apologies if I have confused/conflated two things.

Yes, I added 'Legato' as a Technique (Cmnd+T) and saw that the cell in VEP6 switched to 'Leg', as I expected.

Thanks for pointing out that such an articulation as Legato should act independently of others.

When I allude to the complexity of settings, I'm referring to the relationship between (changing/resetting/ignoring/fine-tuning/discounting) Matrices, cells, sliders, Patches for any one VI.

And which to try changing first; and then which others and in which order. There must litrerally be hundreds of thousands of potential combinations.

There are many parameters - so comprehensive and rich are the controls provided - that simply changing something to see what happens without really understanding the relationships between them all is a long and potentially futile process.

Like you, I think, my main (only?) goal is to emulate string (in this case) sound as accurately and convincingly as possible. But I remain confused by the multiplicity of options.

Yet just as determined to make the most of this :-)

sounds like you're quite ambitious, Mark! There must indeed be hundreds of thousands of combinations and frankly, I know that I'll never master all the intricacies (and just imagine if I had the full solo strings and Vienna Ensemble Pro as well). And if we switch to Dorico at some stage then there'll be more to learn again!

I feel that even the work put in just since the weekend has made a lot of things clearer which really I ought to have looked at in more depth years ago.

David,

Actually, it's the exact opposite of ambition:-)

I want to know which settings and - more importantly - which combinations to rule in and which to rule out.

It's the multiplicity of 'competing' settings/combinations that's so confusing.

A linear guide which cuts through them all and makes it clear how to use (each of) them so that they're not working against one another is what I'm hoping for.