I posted this on another forum yesterday and it occurs to me there may be interested parties over here. Basically a list of things that could make my life easier wrt. my daily use of Sibelius 8.
-Chris
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I use notation as a DAW, so I need good playback capability. I've been using Sibelius 8 for years ... haven't upgraded because Avid has not added much playback improvement since then.
Wrt. Sibelius 8's DAW/playback shortcomings:
- not easy to import CC values from a MIDI file; not easy to edit CC curves/gestures
- doesn't display current value of CC's at any point in the score (CC1 and CC11 are a must)
- doesn't have graphical/piano-roll views to edit performance nuances (the GMT plug-in is no substitute, sorry)
- the playback Dictionary is a simplistic mechanism that falls far short of articulation maps (e.g. a user-defined marking cannot include multiple CC commands or keyswitches)
- the whole Instrument ID (with separately defined 'sub-instruments' for each articulation - strings.violin.pizzicato) and the soundset concept, wherein Sibelius hops between one instrument and another to implement articulations, is simply not the way the industry went.
- relatedly, soundsets are *silent* .. i.e. it is hard to know what CC will be generated for a particular instrumental marking. In addition, if you happen to have multiple flutes or violins, some mysterious logic within Sibelius hops to different instruments in a fashion that can trigger a laugh.
- setup and implementation of single-line percussion instruments viz. mapping them to popular percussion libraries, is hard.
- trill programming has bugs (perhaps fixed in later versions, who knows)
- in Sibelius you can use lines to guide the distribution of CC commands, but it is hard to tell the exact start/end point wrt. timing just by looking visually at a line. CC lanes in a DAW are much more precise.
Other than the quibbles above, I truly love Sibelius for playback. [I really do.]
Sib 8 playback challenges
BlackDorito wrote: ↑Thu Mar 18, 2021 5:00 pm
>I use notation as a DAW, so I need good playback capability. I've been using Sibelius 8 for years ... haven't upgraded
>because Avid has not added much playback improvement since then.
There's your first mistake. Sibelius is a typesetting and engraving program. That is its primary purpose. Playback has been treated as an add-on throughout the development of the program and despite Avid trying to bolt on more DAW features. If you want DAW features, use a DAW.
>Wrt. Sibelius 8's DAW/playback shortcomings:
>- not easy to import CC values from a MIDI file;
Yes it is >not easy to edit CC curves/gestures
Sibelius will happily imprt MIDI CC if you tell it to in the import dialog.
Why would you want to do this in an engraving program? Again, use a DAW. Curves and gestures are meaningless in an engraving program. Rather use dynamics and phrasing.
>- doesn't display current value of CC's at any point in the score (CC1 and CC11 are a must)
Yes it will if you have View-->Invisibles ticked. However, you can only see it if there is control change there.
>- doesn't have graphical/piano-roll views to edit performance nuances (the GMT plug-in is no substitute, sorry)
Why would you want this in an engraving program? Unless for musical/notation illiterates or children?
>- the playback Dictionary is a simplistic mechanism that falls far short of articulation maps (e.g. a user-defined marking
> cannot include multiple CC commands or keyswitches)
Why would you want this in an engraving program?
>- the whole Instrument ID (with separately defined 'sub-instruments' for each articulation - strings.violin.pizzicato) and
>the soundset concept, wherein Sibelius hops between one instrument and another to implement articulations, is simply
>not the way the industry went.
Actually, you need to read the manual. Sibelius can display the whole soundworld id if you tell it to in Preferences. >- relatedly, soundsets are *silent* .. i.e. it is hard to know what CC will be generated for a particular instrumental marking.
> In addition, if you happen to have multiple flutes or violins, some mysterious logic within Sibelius hops to different
>instruments in a fashion that can trigger a laugh.
I'm really not sure what you mean here. Sibelius has never done that to me and I've done some quite large scores with multiple choirs, multiple wind/brass and string sections. Soundsets are created, usually by 3rd parties, to map sample libraries to play in Sib. Creating a soundset is not Avid's responsibility. Again, you should have a go at reading the manual. Ch. 6.16 is what you need (in my 7.5 manual)
>- setup and implementation of single-line percussion instruments viz. mapping them to popular percussion libraries, is
> hard.
Yes, it is.
>- trill programming has bugs (perhaps fixed in later versions, who knows)
There have been improvements and disimprovements. There is a bug that was introduced in Sib 7.x which is still there in 2021.2.
>- in Sibelius you can use lines to guide the distribution of CC commands, but it is hard to tell the exact start/end point wrt.
> timing just by looking visually at a line. CC lanes in a DAW are much more precise.
Sibelius is an engraving and typesetting program. it is NOT a DAW. If you want DAW features, use a DAW.
Other than the quibbles above, I truly love Sibelius for playback. [I really do.]
Sib 6.2, 7.5 and 2024.3.1, Windows 11, 32GB RAM, 16TB 7200RPM Storage, 2TB SSD, Note Performer 4, EWQLSO, EWQLSC, Harmony Assistant and some others. mike@mike-lyons.co.uk