No Midi latency with "Sibelius 7 Sounds" recording live??

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avidummy
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Jan 15, 2020 9:06 pm
Sibelius Version: new trial V
Operating System: Windows

Post by avidummy » Sun Feb 02, 2020 11:30 pm

So frustrating - I'm using the Ultimate Trial right now to find out whether it's worth buying Sibelius. The MAIN THING I need to be able to do is to play a song through a midi keyboard "live" to record the performance into Sibelius. The "general midi" sounds that I have with the trial version have almost a 1-second delay, unacceptable.

I have a Babyface Pro external sound card that does great with latency with other software-generated sounds, and I THINK that after installing the "Sibelius 7 Sounds" after buying the Ultimate version that by tweaking buffer size there should be virtually no latency - Right?

How am I supposed to commit to paying $599 (I wanted to buy it outright) without knowing 100% whether I can do that? The trial version doesn't include the sounds for me to find out and there are no refunds if it doesn't work well enough.

So frustrating. Please advise, thank you.


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 » Mon Feb 03, 2020 10:25 am

The latency isn't due to Sibelius, of course, but the fact that the trial version is set use an audio engine that has latency - the amount is dependent on your system, figures of 750ms using MME are normal, but do look to see if you can set things to Direct Sound (DS) which should make things better.

And yes, when you use the full version, Sibelius Sounds will be able to use the same sound card you use for your other apps, and as it's the card that determines the latency, it will be the same.

Recording live into any notation app, including Sibelius, is not the simple matter you might imagine. Your playing has to be very accurate, of course, and even after adjusting the settings in Sibelius, there will always be a fair amount of tidying up to be done to get a good readable result. Google "taming the Flexitime beast" for an excellent video on how to go about things.

avidummy
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Jan 15, 2020 9:06 pm
Sibelius Version: new trial V
Operating System: Windows

Post by avidummy » Mon Feb 03, 2020 3:53 pm

Thank you very much for your response Andy, that's reassuring.

I will add for anyone reading this later that I was just successful recording with the trial version without latency by using an external GM Soundmodule and setting that as the playback device. For anyone wanting to try that here's the details:

- Midiplus S-Engine USB GM Soundmodule is what I got (from amazon), and after connecting it by USB to my PC it becomes recognized by Sibelius as an alternate playback device.

- After opening up any score in Sibelius, click on Play tab, then the tiny arrow under Setup to open up the Playback Devices tab.

- The default configuration there is "General MIDI (basic) and any available devices WILL BE GRAYED OUT. The way to get around that is to create your own second configuration. Click on "NEW" Tab and give it a name. I then click on "S-Engine" under Available Devices to move it to to the right under "Active Devices" and click close. USE THAT for your Playback Device.

- Your MIDI keyboard will connect by USB directly to your PC (not through the Midiplus Soundmodule).

- The only way to hear the sound playback is by connecting headphones to the Midiplus S-Engine external soundcard box. Once I did that I was able to record in Flex-Time without significant latency .

Assuming that the free "Sibelius First" version allows you to make the same playback setup selections in Sibelius, this solution should work for the free version also, but I haven't tried to do that.

Hope that helps somebody. Other versions/brands of this Midiplus piano box I tried may work as well, I was only able to test it with this particular device.

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