Sibelius 7 sounds don't sound right

Discussion of playback and midi issues go here.
plural
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2015 5:51 am
Sibelius Version: 7
Operating System: Mac

Post by plural » Fri Aug 21, 2015 5:56 am

I've recently upgraded to Sibelius 7 on my macbook and when I import MIDI from previous Sibelius versions or other MIDI programs the sounds I have on playback sound similar to the MIDI playback on my mac (and different from previous versions of Sibelius).

The playback device which is default is the "DLSMusicDevice", with soundset General MIDI. Has anyone else experienced a difference in audio playback between Sibelius 6 and Sib 7?
Last edited by plural on Fri Aug 21, 2015 6:00 am, edited 1 time in total.


plural
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2015 5:51 am
Sibelius Version: 7
Operating System: Mac

Post by plural » Fri Aug 21, 2015 5:59 am

Even when I use the free online MuseScore the playback sounds as I expect (the same as previous versions of Sibelius).

bobp
Posts: 1182
Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2012 12:53 am

Post by bobp » Sat Aug 22, 2015 2:50 pm

If you downloaded Sibelius, You also need to download Sibelius sounds. About 36 GBs of sounds.
Bob Porter
Sibelius 7.5, W10,i5,16 GB ram,desktop

carlw
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Oct 24, 2015 11:07 pm
Sibelius Version: 7.5
Operating System: Windows

Post by carlw » Sun Oct 25, 2015 5:06 pm

My sounds are off too. I have Sibelius 7.5 and Sibelius 7 sounds and they sound like crap. Switching to Midi format is fine. With Sounds on there's tons of crackling, very disconcerting for a ~$600 program ???!!!

I assumed it was because I was using the motherboard sound controller and old PC speakers. So what I did was go out and spend $300 on a Asus Essence SX II sound card and $300 on Harman Kardon Soundsticks. Once installed, to my surprise................now there are no sounds!!!! PC sounds are fine, ITunes is fine, Sibelius? Nada. No splash screen startup sound, no sounds in charts. Excellent. Best thing ever. Given its almost 2016, in the time between version 6 and current, we've sent spacecraft to asteroids, Mars, and Pluto.

After wasting a day trying to make it work, somehow the sounds started coming through. How did they sound? You'll never guess: like crap. Still major crackling and a new bonus; the program stalls during play like a never ending snare roll. The only way to stop it is to log off. Excellent eh?

Oh and by the way (1) yes I'm using the supplied ASIO drivers and (2) I also have Musescore and that sounds the way the score is supposed to.

Moral of the story; you don't necessarily get what you pay for.

I'm in IM and IT and I find Sibelius is still back in the 90's. The app's design is far from intuitive, and seems still designed for people that only use this one app. Everything I do I have to research on the net to figure out how to accomplish something.

Avid hasn't by chance downsized and gotten rid of their programmers have they?

Oh yes, I forgot, Avid Scorch for iPad religiously crashes too.

At the end of the day, I'm 0 for 2 and Musescore is looking more and more appealing. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but if the bells and whistles that I've paid for don't work then..........

For completeness sake I use quad core, Windows 10 Enterprise and nothing but solid state drives. The sound card (which in this case is moot) is PCI EXPRESS 1X. That setup should be more than enough.

andyg
Posts: 1727
Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2006 8:55 pm
Sibelius Version: 7.1.3 and 6.2
Operating System: Windows

Post by andyg » Sun Oct 25, 2015 9:40 pm

carlw wrote:Avid hasn't by chance downsized and gotten rid of their programmers have they?
As it happens, yes. A black day for Sibelius. :(

But they were there when your version of Sib came out. This is an issue specific to your setup, or the way that Sibelius is set up. Are you sure that the drivers for the Asus are OK for Win 10? See this, for example. http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insi ... f43?auth=1

You also need to check and correctly set up Playback Configurations and Audio Engine Settings in Sibelius.

You'll probably get more detailed answers if you ask this on the official Sibelius chat pages, here: http://www.sibelius.com/cgi-bin/helpcen ... ?groupid=3

carlw
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Oct 24, 2015 11:07 pm
Sibelius Version: 7.5
Operating System: Windows

Post by carlw » Sun Oct 25, 2015 11:27 pm

Hey Andyg, thanks for the post.

Yes, in my previous post I indicated that the sound issue was a major PITA even before purchasing the speakers and sound
card. In fact, I also mentioned this was the reason I went out and purchased a high end sound card.

So the only common demoninator is Sibelius.

Don't get me wrong, I really like it and it is powerful, however, for the price I expect superiority. Now if a free player sounds better than a $600 program? Well, there's definitely something wrong.

CW

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