"These are not glitches or bugs. The score specifies instruments (Tin Whistle, Ocarina) which are not contained in the Sibelius 7 Sounds library, so when you try to play the score using Sibelius 7 Sounds, Sibelius find the next best fit to the instrument's SoundWorld ID available within the sample library."
And this is the problem for me here. You're technically right in the sense that they are not glitches or bugs; however, they are still development oversights in the sense that nobody thought to provide them with the proper sound samples, and so I do hope there are additions of proper sound samples for these instruments in the future. I commented on this particular problem of mine in IdeaScale under an idea entitled "New and Improved instruments" and I even pointed out where in IdeaScale you could find this idea during the course of this thread.
"On my trial, the Tin Whistle became a Flute, and Ocarina became Pan Pipes."
Correct, though I have to say, that on top of this, due to another oversight on the part of the developers, all of the current sound samples on the Panpipes utilize a playing technique known as vibrato, which, as you may (or may not have) noticed, can audibly obscure the boundaries between individual short notes of the same pitch. I don't know about you, but I have perfect pitch, so I can tell when an instrument varies its pitch too often or in the wrong spots, and believe me, that can be quite distracting, especially since such vibrato is not called for; hence the demonstrations of the Panpipes in this score.
To fix this, additional samples of this instrument playing stable notes must be added to the Sibelius Professional Sounds Library, and optional vibrato must be implemented. I'm not the only one who's mentioned the idea of implementing optional vibrato in future updates of Sibelius, although others mention it for a different reason than I do here. Don't believe me? Just search the recent ideas in IdeaScale. These other ideas, of course, are not going to be on the first page, try digging through that list thoroughly if you want to find them.
"Similarly, there are no Synth Strings in Sibelius 7 Sounds, and you get real strings instead."
Nice catch. Also, called for are a group of more recently developed *real* string instruments called the New Violin Family. The music for these is supposed to be located on the bottom ten staves on this score. For some of the details on the actual instruments, see http://www.nvfa.org/8tet.html .
"If you want to play these particular instruments, you would need to acquire a sample library which has those sounds within it."
I own a RadioShack MD-1700 Keyboard Synthesizer which has the Synth Strings sounds, but I have neither the right equipment nor the necessary knowhow to insert the sound samples into Sibelius.
As for the other affected instruments (there are more of these listed in my idea which I posted on IdeaScale), I won't be satisfied unless the developers take the kind of time to both add and program these in the way they have for other instruments. That said, I do know of instances of a number of these instruments being used professionally, and I also have videos as to what some of them sound like embedded in the idea. I hope you take the time to check it out (later of course, let's resolve this Live Tempo thing once and for all first).
I'm not going to approach a third party sound sampler and combine their library with that of Sibelius if I don't have to do so, both for the quality reasons which I mentioned in the previously unrelated thread "Garritan World sound set testers needed", as well as the fact that the cost of contacting and doing business with such third party sound samplers to get the samples I need is liable to be more expensive than simply purchasing an upgrade to a future version of Sibelius which has these instruments.
In addition, even if I were to become an expert at Lawyer-ese, memorizing and keeping track of the hard copies of all the relevant terms of use for all the different VSTs would just be a hassle, because, as you mentioned, each VST System has different terms of use, and it is difficult to generalize the terms the use for these varying products. This on top of the already laborious task of configuring the VSTs themselves...
"The Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth has a fixed maximum of 16 channels assignable to different instrument sounds, and can therefore only play scores with a few different instruments."
I know, but the problem of instrument parts going out randomly in Sibelius takes as few as seven active channels to trigger, and there are sixteen channels available, so this is a problem, even without a score as large and complex as this.
"This score has about 31 different instrument sounds. So if you try to play this score with the Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth, there is general mayhem with trying to squeeze 31 different instrument sounds into 16 MIDI channels: quite dissimilar instruments might have to share one MIDI sound, and the results are quite likely to be unpredictable, or even silent."
Even without the problem of a large and complex score, a somewhat similar issue still affects instruments such as the Ocarina, which once again uses the Panpipe samples whenever the two instruments get together, even if those two instruments are the only two instruments in the entire score and that's despite both instruments having their own distinct best fit sound. I'm serious about this, as I've tried it myself. Make a small and simple MIDI score for yourself that contains just Panpipes and Ocarina and attempt to play it back, and try the ocarina without the Panpipes in the score at all; you should see what I mean.
Oh, and I counted to see how many different sounds there are in this score, and there are really only 22. You must really be tired after staying up so late to reply to me. After all, it is a five hour time difference between here and the UK...
"So, to summarise, this score is far too complex to be played by Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth, and that cannot be worked around."
That's one of the reasons why I purchased Sibelius in the first place, and why a Professional Sound Library was such a factor in my decisions. Maybe this score isn't the best to exhibit some of the problems I'm having in their purist forms, but at least it's enough to give evidence that suggests the existence of problems. Basically, that means it's a start.
"More analysis will have to wait until I have more time later this week."
Fine by me, but please don't make me wait forever... |