Someone help me please!

[Jodie1171]

Hi,

I'm brand new to VSL. I use Sibelius 6 on a MacOS 10.12.6. I had a vision of simply replacing the awful Sibelius Saxophone sounds with the VSL Saxophone library, but I think I've done my money.

I have installed everything but for the life of me cannot get Sibelius to recognised anything other than 1 single saxophone voice (depending on which one is currently loaded in the Vienna Ensemble Service window) in one channel.

I've tried:

1. Manually assigning sound sets (but of course I can't do this because I only have the saxophone sounds from VSL and nothing else),
2. Creating a manually assigned instrument list using both VSL and Sibelius. With this I've tried every possible combination in the 'Manual Sound Sets' page (ie 'none' in sounds stes, Device set as either 'Sibelius player' or 'VSL' or "Vienna Ensemble') but nothing changes - I still only have access to one sound.
3. Changing between Vienna Ensemble and Vienna Instruments
4. Deactivating Vienna Ensemble
5. Assigning different instruments in the 'Mixer'
6. Assigning different midi channels
7. Shutting down and restarting
8. Rescanning for new sound sets
9. Importing the VSL House style
10. Selecting only 32-bit sound sets (As I read this was what worked in Sib 6)

Yet! Nothing changes the fact that it only wants to recognised whatever sound I have selected in the VES and the instruments only play through one channel (even though this isn't selected nor instructed).

HELP! ...or give me my money back please.

Thanks,

Jodie

[jasensmith]

I'm sorry to hear about your troubles but you might want to repost this in the "Notation Programs and Vienna" section of the forum since it sounds like some sort of MIDI routing issue with Sibelius.

You might get a faster reponse if you post there.

[andi]

Hello Jodie!

I'm sorry to read about your problems. As a general introduction on how to use our instruments with Sibelius, I recommend watching the "VSL and Sibelius" tutorial video and the reading the "Optimizing Sibelius Playback" manual.
https://www.vsl.co.at/en/Products/Software#!Video_Demos
https://www.vsl.co.at/en/MyDownloads/Notation_Related

For the Saxophones standard please use the sound set "VE Woodwinds+Brass" and the VI presets from the folder Sibelius/Woodwinds+Brass 2.5/Saxophones/Standard

Sibelius can only use one MIDI port. So leave the MIDI port in Vienna Ensemble for all loaded instruments at "Omni" ("All").

Generally it is recommended to leave the output device and channel settings in the Sibelius mixer alone. Making settings there can mess up the playback. If you have already made settings there or are not sure, reset all outputs in the Sibelius mixer to (Auto).

I hope this helps.

Best regards,
Andi

[Jodie1171]

Hi Andi,

Many thanks for your response. I was not loading the correct instrument presets in Vienna Ensemble and have managed to make it work in some kind of summation. That said, in order to hear more than one saxophone timbre I had to set midi channels in the VE mixer to 1-4 (aligning with manual sound sets) in order to hear the 4 different saxophone timbres in conjunction with sibelius sounds. I then had to adjust the mixer to blend them in (they were super loud!).

But I confess to being very disaapointed with the end result. The sounds are really harsh; not at all what I was expecting. I would have thought that a general "classical" sax sound (like the one featured in the demo online) would have been the standard configuration. I also cannot change instrument (in my piece all the saxes in the quartet play soprano) and the range is limited (no altissimo). 

Any suggestions?

Many thanks.

[bogdan]

Hi Jodie,

Are you using any kind of eq, hybrid reverb or convolution one?

Best,

Bogdan

[andi]

Hello Jodie!

Our saxophones are not harsh in general and of course it's possible to have four soprano saxophones in your arrangement. So I guess there still are some mistakes in your setup.

If you have four soprano saxes in your piece, please reserve four channels for them on the Sibelius Manual Sound Sets page and in Vienna Ensemble.

More help can be found in the Troubleshooting chapter of the "Optimizing Sibelius Playback" manual.

Best,
Andi