The Sibelius Forum

Hi All!

I'm trying to figure out how to create a few artificial sounds using Sibelius. I've messed around with the reverb and chorus on the mixer, but was wondering:

a) if anyone has advice on how to better write in a way that sounds more artificial (such as using certain instruments out of their normal register, or putting all of the drum line together (examples of things I've tried, but still aren't quite what I'm looking for), or

b) if there is a way to import and/or create some more "authentic" artificial sounds using the software. A good example of this would be a deeper beat/percussion (like what you hear in movie trailers), or instruments you might hear in something that has a "sci-fi" sort of vibe to it.

I haven't messed around with DAW's yet, but if that's the route I should go, definitely let me know. Ideally I'd be able to alter existing or import new instrument sounds into Sibelius to handle this (I have Sibelius 7 First w/ Note Performer).

Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks!

What you need is an appropriate sound library with a set of such sounds. They are all relatively expensive and will require a load of work to make them work in Sib. These kinds of things are far better handled by a DAW.

Thanks Mike!

Any idea how well DAW's integrate with Sibelius? Or where a good starting place would be for easily understanding DAW's/how they work with Sibelius? I'm not very tech savy, so learning new software is sometimes difficult for me, I just enjoy writing music and recognize I have a deficiency on the technical side.

Thank you for your help!

I think you should do some reading on DAWs and electronic music/sound engineering before you start messing around. It's important to understand why you use them and how they work.

As I understand it, integration can be problematic as Sibelius' only route to integration is via a technology called Rewire. Again, as I understand it, this can be flaky.

Good DAWs are expensive. The best (IMO) is probably Cubase Pro, followed by Logicx (Mac only) and ProTools They are the only ones with which I have any familiarity at all.

There is are vast numbers of sound libraries out there, to suit all pockets and needs. Go and do some research. See what others are using.

Mike,

Thank you for such a detailed and thoughtful reply! This is incredibly helpful, and gives me a great direction to head in!