I was appalled to hear that not only is Sibelius not designed to let you programme MIDI CCs, but worse (as I've just now discovered) it won't even let you alter individual note velocities! And then to make matters even worse, what if, like Create-Compose here, you dislike or even hate today's DAWs? Well, for starters that would appear to mean that your control of phrasing and expression in the piece you're writing would be ... erm ... pretty much absent, wouldn't it? Shame on the Sibelius app - Jean Sibelius must be turning in his grave!

But wait - all is not lost, thanks to Pieman. Hoorah for the "Graphical MIDI Tools" plugin that fills the unforgivable void in Sibelius. Now you CAN take control of phrasing, expression and other important stuff, directly from within Sibelius. Whoopee!

I'm using Dorico with various VSL libraries. This program is a blend between an advanced notation program and a DAW. What this means is that one can enter notes in the usual ways (by typing, or with a mix of piano keyboard and numeric keypad). Or can record parts by following the metronome.

Once the notes are there, the usual editing tools of a DAW can be used: piano roll, CC lines, sound maps. Notes exist in two parallel streams: precise and quantized notation, and free MIDI input. They can be adjusted separately.

I've been using NotePerformer from the first minute it was introduced, and I think it's great, but I prefer to do all the sound playback work, after entering the music, with better sounds. Being able to finely editing attacks, durations, dynamics, articulations, tempi, is what give life to the written score.

Paolo

What I do is usually to first enter notes, and in general do a first draft, with NotePerformer as a preview. If I need particular sounds that are not in NotePerformer while composing, I immediately recall them.

When the draft (or the copied music) is ready, I launch VSL Vienna Ensemble Pro to host the final sounds, as in an instrument's rack. In Dorico, I select a "playback template" I have prepared, and this automatically recalls all or most of the sounds and effects I need. If I need so, I do any further cabling to different/additional sounds in Vienna Ensemble.

Now, I’m ready to do what I would do in Logic or Cubase. With the Score page open, I also open the Play page, that is the equivalent to a DAW's piano roll. Here, I can see both the notated lengths, and the sounding durations. I can adjust these latter, maybe to make an attack smoother or a staccato softer.

I then draw any tempo change, in addition to those automatically added when writing a tempo indication in the score. I refine the dynamic curves or the velocities in the dedicated lanes under the notes. I enter any other data, like the MIDI CC controlling the attack speed or the portamento speed.

All this work is reflected on how the score sounds. I'm using the final sounds, so I can hear what I’m doing, and how the finished mockup will actually sound.

Paolo

Having read the sales blurb and listened to the demos of NotePerformer, I'm frankly amazed to find it has any place at all among the workflows and technical accoutrements of VSL library users today.

I'll put it bluntly: the quality of the provided sounds reflect NotePerformer's cheap price tag; overall, the 'best' demos sound to me like performances on a hypothetical slightly updated version of a Mighty Wurlitzer cinema organ. I simply cannot get past the day-and-night difference in quality between VSL collections and NotePerformer's sounds.

I get the main technical and monetary advantages of using a hybrid of sampled and synthesised instrument sounds, as used in NotePerformer: dynamic articulation and expression changes can be ostensibly achieved using way fewer recorded samples. Also, no doubt the Wallander Instruments devs have done something quite clever with their AI-based automatic phrasing. And so I do kind of get why this product still sells today.

Nevertheless I still remember the often ghastly results, a couple of decades ago, of my best efforts to produce decent-sounding orchestral music from the primitive sample sets of those days. NotePerformer just tends to drag me back towards those days, seeming to make a mockery of the good, steady progress that's been made in the world of virtual instruments since then.

Hope you'll forgive me if I just sound like a sound-snob, but that's the truth of how I feel about NotePerformer. In working with virtual instruments I happen to believe the saying "no pain, no gain" still holds true.

Thanks for the explanation Paul, to advanced for me but I do understand and congratulate you .  However I wonder, being that you understandably prefer the final sounds to be those  of VSL , why  not start with VSL, why bother with NotePerformer?

Macker, for me it is a little to soon to judge NotePerformer, undoubtedly many more expensive libraries have bettet sounds, unquestionably VSL has, many demos of NotePerformer are rather poor, but still, the one I mentioned before of Stravinsky's Rights of Spring  is quite amazing, if you have not heard it I do recommend it. I found myself actually enjoin listening to it. It is the only sampled piece of music  that I have honestly enjoyed listening to. As to my music I have mixed impressions, I used it on an old Symphony of mine where I could never get the violins to sound decent, that section sounded good for the first time, however some other parts of the same symphony  with delicate work sounded terrible. I must give it a chance.

Hello,

I used also Sibelius with VSL but for a few reasons I'm switching to Dorico as Expression Maps in Dorico 3.5 can lead to possibly better results than Sibelius (waiting for Andi's Dorico expression maps for Synchron-ized SE).

Macker, is a NotePerformer performance like the following one sounds still not very good to your ears?

Star Wars Suite-Note Performer 3

Best regards,

Gil.

Create-compose and GilP, sorry but I'm sure you understand that VSL's forum is not the place to invite or proffer critiques of any particular midistration pieces based solely on non-VSL sounds. I stand by my posted opinion on NotePerformer and I prefer to leave it at that.

@create-compose said:

However I wonder, being that you understandably prefer the final sounds to be those  of VSL , why  not start with VSL, why bother with NotePerformer?

When just entering notes, NP can be the quickest way to prelisten. It's light, requires no configuration, makes an expressive and musically meaningful playback. Immediately dealing with the final sounds sometimes forces you to lose time on the details, instead of completing the rough draft.

At the same time, lately I've been composing starting with VSL's BBO libraries. They are relatively light, very expressive, and inspiring. In that case, (when composing and not just transcribing), I find that having the right sounds under your fingers is mandatory.

Paolo

Paolo, your use of NP as a rapid-prototyping or rough-drafting tool makes sense to me. I've sometimes used synths for the same purpose - though not as a regular thing.

I guess you're not at all put off or distracted by NP's sounds, just as I'm not put off or distracted by synths. Alas, lol, I know I'd suddenly have to veer off-course to try to fix some weird-sounding articulation-change etc in NP, so it wouldn't serve me as it does you. But there we are, we each have our own ways. Oh and amen to your last sentence.

@Macker said:

Paolo, your use of NP as a rapid-prototyping or rough-drafting tool makes sense to me. I've sometimes used synths for the same purpose - though not as a regular thing.

Yes, these things are like the old "let's try it at the piano". They let you hear a wireframe of the actual composition.

Paolo

@create-compose said:

… I still can't Identify with you in respect to first doing the framework on an inferior sounding library . I must be honest.  I feel. Why compose on  a rickety old piano if you have a Grand Steinway right beside you? I would say the Steinway has the right sound under your fingers.

Create-Compose,

The BBO libraries are ensembles. The Free Basic, Andromeda and Black Eye are Tutti, the others are separate sections. The most recent Phoenix and Quasar are solo percussion instruments, as a bridge toward the full Synchron collection. They are a bit particular, and more than as main libraries they are intended both as sketching tools, and as an additional source of great sounds.

I can only speak for me, as for the chosen composing process, but I adapt my workflow depending on what I'm doing. If it's transcribing/composing a piece of classical music, NP is a perfect pre-listening tool to let me immediately catch errors in the harmony, and devote my attention to details at a later phase. If it's a more textural piece I'm composing, the actual sound can't be replaced, and I have to use the sounds that are nearest to the desired ones.

Advanced sound libraries are very heavy. With the computing power advancement, things are going to be easier year after year. But at the moment even a powerful computer can have issues with full libraries, and all their dynamic layers, articulations, microphone channels, and modulation data streams. So much that an external computer connected to the main one, and exclusively devoted to samples, is still very much used in a professional context.

Paolo

Does anyone know if the Sibelius - VSL soundset will work with the Synchronized SE 1 / 1+ library?

Hi, 

Yes, all SYNCHRON-ized Special Editions are fully supported with our Sibelius soundsets. 

Best, 
Paul

@Paul said:

Hi, 

Yes, all SYNCHRON-ized Special Editions are fully supported with our Sibelius soundsets. 

Best, 
Paul

Excellent news!

I've just downloaded Reaper trial version. Looks interesting. I see it is connected to Sibelius. Iv'e managed to make it open Sibelius with Rewire, but that's as far as I got. Is there a video that describes step by step how to import all tacks  from a Sibelius score in midi to be able to work on them in Reaper? By the looks of it is is not as complex as I expected. 

Thank you .