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MIDI playback, instrument changes gone wrong, lines/symbols

Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 7:50 pm
by jefmyers
I am using Sib 6.1 (PC), with the sounds it comes with.

For some reason when I change instruments in my version of Sibelius, I don't get the right MIDI patches. For example, changing a violin staff to horn gives me clarinet, or choosing solo violin gives me violin ensemble, etc etc. I can't figure this out. Other times, changing something will effect a different staff and make it unplayable (i.e. there is no sound even when mute is off and solo is on etc.). It is playing some kind of shell game with my sounds basically, and I end up realizing that there are missing sounds in random instruments when I am playing back.
I spoke to a Sibelius person on the phone and they said to get more RAM, which I did, and it didn't fix anything. I am so irritated because I have to keep guessing which sounds will work, and trying other less optimal sounds because the better choice will not play back. Kontakt was way better, I wish I could go back to Sib 4, which sounded great.

Is it possible to remove the reminder feature that automatically puts a "to Vln." or whatever when you make an instrument change? Sometimes I hide the change (I use it for character changes in my opera) and I go back see a bunch of those reminders piled up that I didn't know about.

A couple other odd things:

My piano sound is really loud compared to the other sounds. If I play the file back with piano (in an ensemble) it is like 10x louder or FFF. This is when the levels are at 50%. Then if I just click on the level bar (not moving it, just clicking), it will go down to a lower level. But it still sounds like the velocities are high.

If you put a dynamic in the middle of grand staff, does it play back for both staves or just one? I am never sure about this.

When is it going to be possible to have cresc/dim that play back for held notes? This seems like a no-brainer.

It should be possible to control the amount of rit or accel within the Line category (Edit lines). I am having to put a series of (hidden) metronome marks sometimes to get it right, or else (in long gradual accels and rits) putting a series of hidden "rit" or "accel" Line tools.

Also, why isn't there a proper "poco a poco rit" or accel? I made one by retyping the text (Edit Lines) and instead of being able to drag a dashed line like in the "rit ....." Line tool, I get an underline that expands in both directions as I drag it. When I look for it on the Line tools, it is blank. And there is no dashed line.

Why can't we make our own symbols or fonts? If I want to make special microtonal flats or sharps, I have to basically draw arrows from the Lines tools every time I need it and that is very fussy and it doesn't work when respacing, so I have to keep fussing with it. BTW, the up and down arrows in the symbols kit are too small for that.

Where is the tuplet plug in? I used to use Encore back in the day and you could select any group of notes and make them whatever tuplet you wanted. That was awesome! And that was 15 years ago. Instead if I decide a figure should be tuplets instead of 8ths, I have to reenter the whole damn thing.

The next version of Sibelius should focus on fixing these basic issues (not to mention all the other stuff on this forum--like making your key sig etc.) instead of adding more frilly features.

Re: MIDI playback, instrument changes gone wrong, lines/symb

Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 4:45 pm
by Sebasian
jefmyers wrote:. . . when I change instruments in my version of Sibelius, I don't get the right MIDI patches. . . . I wish I could go back to Sib 4, which sounded great.
You may need more than one instance of the playback device you are using. If you are using Kontakt Player 2, there are 16 MIDI channels, and Sibelius tries to allocate thiese to cover all the instruments in the score. Add another Kontakt Player 2 to your Configuration.

Or maybe there are MIDI messages to change instrument left over from Sibelius 4. The numbers for the Sibelius 4 Kontakt Player aren't the right ones for Kontakt Player 2.

Perhaps you could attach a score so someone could trouble shoot this.

. . . the reminder feature that automatically puts a "to Vln." or whatever can be suppressed from within the Instrument Change Dialog (look bottom left for tick boxes).

There is a setting in Preferences to control dynamics in the middle of grand staff,.

For almost any playback device other than the simplest GM device (such as GM Basic) hairpins for crescendo and diminuendo work on sustained notes. If you want to use the word cresc you'll have to have a hidden hairpin to make it work.

Its is possible to control the amount of rit or accel and "poco a poco rit" in the Properties Window. You can select different lines for accel and rit — they can be dashed or invisible (though you can see the invisble ones when editing or when they are selected).

You can make your own symbols and use your own fonts. Details are in the Reference. If you want more help than you find there, ask again.

And, finalyl, the tuplet plug in is in Plugins > Tuplets.

Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 6:43 pm
by jefmyers
Thanks for the info!!!

I still can't find the grand staff dynamics thing in Preferences

I didn't see anything in the Reference about designing my own symbol, only the same stuff about reassembling the given symbols and making them the old way (versus importing a graphic designed in Illustrator or something). Do I have to make a font in a separate program and import that font?

I don't have Kontakt player on the drop down list, I have Sibelius Essentials. I have Kontakt player in Sib 4--can I somehow import it into Sib 6.2? I still can't figure out why my MIDI is goofy. For instance, I have a viola staff that needs to go to horn (I'm making a MIDI reduction of an orchestration, so staves can be anything). When I put the instrument change it goes to violin instead. (?) It was initially a viola staff when I created the instrument.

And what is the deal with glisses? They play back like portamentos, instead of gradually rising, they rise really fast. Plus the keypad gliss tool is graphically hard to manage, it seems to only want to go where it wants to go and it usually creates collisions over accidentals.

The tuplet plugin is great and so is the accel/rit tempo thing in Properties. I guess I never noticed them before.

The cresc will not play back on sustained notes in Sib Essentials.

Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2010 11:35 am
by frunee
wrong section. can some admin move this pls?

MIDI playback instrument changes gone wrong lines/symbols

Posted: Mon May 20, 2019 4:51 pm
by MikaVap
Everything is working perfectly for me since the speed issue was fixed.

Is anyone else experiencing problems like this?