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  4. I love composing music on Sibelius and VSL. I hate all DAWs.
  • MackerM
    MackerM

    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.
  • C
    C

    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?
  • C
    C

    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.
  • G
    G
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    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.
  • MackerM
    MackerM

    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.
  • PaoloTP
    PaoloTP
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    @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
  • MackerM
    MackerM

    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.
  • PaoloTP
    PaoloTP
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    @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
  • C
    C
    Hallo again.. I've been looking at the VSL's BBO libraries, are they all Tutti? Meaning all instruments sound simultaneously always?I saw no instrument lists. Just reference to groups of instruments. I understand the mock up idea, it probably stems from an academic and structured method of composition, I compose in a naive uneducated way, letting the thing grow out of it's own accord as I go along getting new ideas. Which is probably why I still can't Identify with Paolo or Macker 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. Also I feel that it is hearing good sound as Paolo puts it "under your fingers", that sparks my composition ideas. So as a very personal thing. No point in me starting with anything but the best sounds I can afford. l do agree with Paolos comment of trying it on the piano first. I find that the piano sound and the fact that the piano can play 10 or more notes simultaneously and sound good makes this instrument an excellent starting point. I often first play it on the piano, write it down, and then disect it into different voices testing which Intrument fits each voice best. If it was not for modern technology, to do this I would have to enslave a thousand musitians, preferably from all over the world, so I could make them play my melodies on their instruments when ever I liked, even at 3.00 am in the morning. I would even have to enslave a few ghost musicians to play on instruments that produce imaginary sounds.
  • PaoloTP
    PaoloTP
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    @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
  • C
    C

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

    Hi, 

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

    Best, 
    Paul

    Paul Kopf Product Manager VSL
  • C
    C
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    @Paul said:

    Hi, 

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

    Best, 
    Paul

    Excellent news!
  • C
    C

    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 .
  • I
    I

    Hi Paul

    thanks for your suggestion re. plugin, I am looking into this now. Couldn't open your youtube link

    as it said it was private. Possible to get the link that works?

    regards

    Dan
  • P
    P
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    Hi Dan

    The video link I posted is now out of date, as the plugin has been updated to version 1.2, and as such I've hidden it as some of the functionality in that video has been improved.

    You'll find some info on the developer's website Here,

    Fair disclosure moment!

    I'm a huge fan of this plugin, and since my original post, I have become a reseller for this plugin through my website

    To avoid any forum rule-breaking the link above is to Santiago Barx's website not my own.

    Have fun with it mate, as it's brilliant!

    Kindest regards

    Paul
  • civilization 3C
    civilization 3C
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    @create-compose said:

    Hallo again..
    I've been looking at the VSL's BBO libraries, are they all Tutti?

    No. see image below, Ganymede (Choir); take eg, bass out of the picture, there's no bass voices.

    The thing about notation is, notation is a shorthand to give to performers. What we do in a DAW is literally the duration we specify, not a suggestion to someone that's going to handle that in performance. Notion is a kind of hybrid of where there is the bars visual to stretch or shrink for actual durations. I don't know about this other thing, afaik it's Notion under a new name, but Notion did not have the sounds for what I wish to do and it's not a thing for me anyway for some time.