Page 1 of 1

Orchestral playback to accompany choir

Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2019 3:24 am
by Sams57
Hi all- I am inputting scores to accompany a choral piece for Christmas. The score calls for 7 first violins, 7 second violins, etc. For proper playback balance, should I score the first violin on 7 separate lines, and so forth?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts- my first big project!

Re: Orchestral playback to accompany choir

Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2019 8:43 am
by andyg
No, you don't want to do it that way. Score 1st violins on one staff, 2nd violins on a separate staff and so on. You'll have to use a violin section sound for these ensembles. You won't be able to specify seven 1st violins, seven 2nds and so on but the results should be OK.

Just don't expect it to sound like a real group of musicians - it will only be an approximation. If I were doing this, I would score the piece in Sibelius, print it out and then play the parts live into a DAW, where I have much better instruments to call on and far better control over everything. Then I could get it more realistic.

And given how fussy I can be, I'd have started in August! :D

Re: Orchestral playback to accompany choir

Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2019 9:13 am
by MikeLyons
Some sound libraries (eg Noteperformer/EWQLSO etc) can specify how many players/desks by using CC messages.

Re: Orchestral playback to accompany choir

Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2019 4:19 pm
by bobp
Also, you you can use the chamber orchestra setting in Sibelius if you want the sound of a smaller group. It's very true that the best results will be with a DAW. But not all of us can justify the expense. Or the time it take to figure it out.
You'd be surprised at what can be done with Sibelius if you dig into the software. Read through the manual about how to use the Mixer. There you can, for example, change the default violin sound to legato, and adjust the release of notes so that they flow together better. Some judicious work with dynamics and hairpins goes along way. You can define just how hairpins work in the Inspector. You're spending a lot of money on Sibelius. It might be worth digging into it to find out what it can do. If you just want to put notes on a page, heck MuseScore can do that for free. And, by the way, the latest version of MuseScore has a much better playback font than older versions.

Re: Orchestral playback to accompany choir

Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2019 7:01 pm
by Sams57
Thanks to each of you. Your suggestions will help going forward. Follow up: now I guess I need to learn what is a DAW and how to make use of it. I have Pro-Tools- is that a DAW? Or I have a Korg M50 keyboard...🤷🏼‍♀️
And...since this is a Sibelius forum...how to write a suspended cymbal roll??

Re: Orchestral playback to accompany choir

Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2019 12:33 am
by bobp
Pro-Tools is a DAW.

For real players you probably want to use the Buzz Roll sign from the keypad.

For playback only, it depends on the tempo of the piece. Buzz roll doesn't always sound good. I use the tremolo slashes over the note. Different number of tremolos for different tempos. Here are two possibilities.

Re: Orchestral playback to accompany choir

Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 7:41 pm
by laurencepayne
Playback of a suspended cymbal roll really needs a dedicated sample, not just the single hit repeated rapidly.

The Sibelius Playback Dictionary assigns the Sound ID '+tremolo.unmeasured' to the 16 or 32 tremolo slash notations.

If there IS a cymbal roll sample available in the soundset being used, this should switch it in. If there isn't, you'll get unmeasured repetitions of single notes.

Neither Sibelius 6 or Sibelius 7 Sounds handle this very well, on either Ride or Crash Cymbal. Note Performer does rather better, but a suspended cymbal with soft beaters may still prove elusive.

Annotation 2019-10-30 192624.png

Re: Orchestral playback to accompany choir

Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 9:37 pm
by bobp
Actually, my examples above, again depending on the tempo, sound like a roll and not individual hits.