I'm looking for suggestions, has anyone found a way to have a decent sounds during a Jazz Big Band chart play back?
I tried Note Performer 3, JABB 3 but is not really big difference between Sibelius sounds, is really a competition of what sounds worst here.
Any suggestion is welcome!
And on a ranting note to Avid:
Seriously still Sib 7 sounds from 2011 in Sibelius 2021??
No Midi editor or some type of VST integration?
Avid have a look at Dorico pls, oh you say sounds sets.. really this clumpsy and overly complicated interface? (still from 2010)
I keep paying my subscription here and is quite some time that i don't see anything useful in the releases.. color coding, script programming, command searches, imports, review mode...
I'm my workflow nothing worthy an upgrade but yet forced to pay 2 years of subscription.
N.B I have already bought Dorico 3.5 out of curiosity and at the end of this subscirption cycle (2022) i will seriously consider if is still worth to waste my money here or put the effort to migrate my files somewhere else.
I currently use NP for making my big band demo's and so far none of my clients have told me how rubbishy they are. Have you tried using any of the NP plugins (Tenuto always, Reset mixer &c.), killing Espressivo and Rubato and choosing Medium room vibrato? Failing that, I can only suggest getting a live band to play them.
Your 'rant' sounds like the oft made requests that would make Sibelius into more of a DAW. It's still primarily a notation app and I for one hope it stays that way. The more time and effort invested in DAW like features means less time developing and improving engraving features - and sorting out the darned bugs!
Like Adrian, I have got some good mock-ups and demos done, I used a combination of JABB3 and Sibelius sounds. But that's all they are, just mock ups to give me a flavour of what I've done and to check for errors.
If you really want lifelike playback, print out your score and play every single note live into a DAW, then spend hours editing it with features that Sibelius will never have. I do this, but I do chicken out with the drum parts, which is done via MIDI, then much tweaking! And I have a lot more VSTi's available to me in Cubase.
A DAW will have the full VST integration that you desire and much more besides. Worth the effort (and the expense if it's part of your work.)
Or hire the real band! :)
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PC and Laptop: Windows 7. 8GB RAM. Sib 6.2 and 7.13
> A DAW will have the full VST integration that you desire and much more besides. Worth the effort (and the expense if it's part of your work.)
Dorico isn't there yet, but it's getting there. In the current version, if you want a violin part played with legato sounds from one VST sample library, staccato from another, and pizzicato from a third one, you can just do it (even if the libraries need three different sample players). No messing about with three different staves in the notation program, combining three tracks in a DAW into one notation staff, remembering to keep hidden MIDI messages in sync with the notation, or whatever.
And the equivalent of the Sound Set Editor is built in, not a separate app that doesn't work since Adobe stopped supporting the software library it used.
The Dorico playback engine is already "a DAW" and has been since version 1.0. It's exactly the same code as in Cubase. The only difference is the user interface to it.
For sounds, I use Glory Days by Orchestral Tools extensively, the saxes are especially lovely and silky and what I think sets it apart from other libraries is that there are 4 separately recorded trumpets, 4 separately recorded trombones and 5 saxes, all with falls, doits, shakes etc… so there is a good variety of sounds, each player definitely sounds unique and so adds to the realism of it sounding like a real ensemble. It’s not perfect, has some bugs and I don’t get the impression that OT are particularly committed to updating it or expanding it but they certainly did a great job on recording it. I since tried VSL saxes but am ultimately unhappy with their sound though I do use their excellent Bb clarinet, jazz drums and muted C trumpet in the same template. Amplesound's lovely and hefty upright for bass as well as their various acoustic guitars. Then vibes, piano, strings etc.. from various other libs.
Set up wise, there are no sound sets I am aware of, so have to use a manual soundset and use accaciaturas for key switches.
I now use Sibelius wholly as my go to DAW since I prefer notation to a piano roll and to be honest I feel I can get the same level of realism as using a dedicated DAW though it is probably trickier and more long winded, but not far off. I can load up any VST's I want, use substantial amounts of continuous controller midi messages to achieve convincing hairpins and cross fades, dedicated soundsets or manual ones with either accaciaturas or CC messages to trigger keyswitches, and with Sibelius using all CPU cores for playback and generally being very stable, things can sound really great and it’s not an unpleasant experience to work with it like that. Obviously, features are lacking, like automation but I hardly would use that for the type of music I write.
I really only use a dedicated DAW (Reaper) for mastering now.
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Sibelius Ultimate | Windows 10 Pro | Intel i7 8 Core CPU | 64 GB RAM
Mind you? Sibelius HAS a VST integration thru mapping ID crap interface... is utterly obsolete and not being updated since ages, and no one use it anyway.
An people revert to an additional paying product (Noteperformer) to fill the awful Sibelius sounds, now more than 11 years old, so please don't tell me that there is no need from end users to have better sounds during playback.
Therefore the conclusion is that Avid has not updated any critical functionalities to satisfy their customer base, they not even care or try to, they just rely to an external company to provide a fix for their crappy sounds.
You might be happy to buy Noteperformer as a fix or use standard Sibelius sounds, I'm not anymore, i just tried Dorico and that's how you do an elegant and nice VST integration.
We are in 2021 and a little midi editing to make more realistic your playback will also be welcome as i don't have the time nor the inclination to double my work to score in Sib and do a mock up in a DAW.
I agree with you that Sib has so many other issues to be fixed but this does not absolve Avid to fulfill your request AND mine and the excuse that is not a DAW is no longer valid for me in these days (that's exacly what Avid want you to think), especially when a competitor like Dorico (or even Notion) has raised the bar and show us that is quite doable and can produce nice playback and save us time spent in a DAW.
Ahh but hey, now i can color code, or i search the command bar, or can waste my time code plugins to fill missing native functionalities and still happily pay a ransom yearly to Avid for that stuff.
that was the solution produced by the old Sib team at that time (how many years ago we talking? 15 or more i guess), it was ok at the time but now that the same team had access to the Cubase VST engine they did produced something quite innovative in the notation arena in 8 years starting from scratch.
Why the Sib team (is there one in the first place?) didn't leverage Pro Tools VST engine then? After all they had 8 years of time as well to do it with a well developed product in their hands, and yet is in not even remotely on their radar.
"We are in 2021 and a little midi editing to make more realistic your playback will also be welcome..."
But you can do this, why are you saying you can't? It's just not in a piano roll form, instead you use (copious amounts of) cc midi messages, adjust live start positions and velocities (plugins such as the humanise plugin will really help here), better VST instruments such as I mentioned before, (honestly why would you use Sibelius' own sounds if realistic sounding mock ups are important to you?). There are many plugins to help achieve more realistic playback in no time at all.
"i don't have the time nor the inclination to double my work to score in Sib and do a mock up in a DAW." This is exactly why I use Sibelius as both DAW and engraving tool. I write the mockup and record the whole thing first in Sibelius, then duplicate the file and tidy it up and save to PDF for printing, sending etc.. I'm sure it saves me a lot of time that way.
As I say I feel Sibelius is more than adequate as a DAW for the majority of operations, you just have to get used to it and potentially put up with a bit more fiddly work than you may be used to in a DAW, but then you don't have to worry about doing two lots of work in two different programs.
Going forward, I do wish Sibelius would offer the ability of automating faders and adding more FX slots than the current 4. And editing and navigation can get very laggy when you have lots of staves and VST's loaded. And yes I agree the Sibelius Sound ID system can be a pain and would love that to be overhauled. I often have to use a different instrument staff to the instrument that's actually loaded on it if it's too similar in name to another existing staff in the score as Sibelius will sometimes confuse the two; so I'll have to use a synth staff or hurdy gurdy staff for a 2nd piano or another 1st strings staff for instance!, but this is fine for a mockup score and gets corrected in the printed one.
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Sibelius Ultimate | Windows 10 Pro | Intel i7 8 Core CPU | 64 GB RAM
I had a look to the graphical midi editor tool (external payed plugin) some time ago, I applaud the effort but rather clumsy.
I don't like piano roll at all, like you I'm used to a score and even though you can use the Transform function is not the same as having a graphical view of your velocities and midi data. Every time you need to re open the tool for the selected group of notes etc.. and if you have a big score... maybe i'm missing something but i find this quite tedious work.
Besides these two i'm not sure what other plugin you use to compensate for a basic graphical midi editor.
Glad for you it works and also you had the patience to key in all the IDs.
Maybe that's my problem, i don't want to get used to workarounds in a professional notation software, damn even Finale sounds better out of the box!
I don't use a graphical midi editor tool as I don't feel I need one. I make substantial use of plugins such as Human Playback, Randomise Velocites and Add Continuous Controller Data for the playback side of things. Granted, in a DAW, you can freehand midi curves very easily to better mimic a player's evolving volumes or vibrato for example, but you can still achieve this in Sibelius using multiple lines of CC data over a passage. Just takes a bit longer.
To be honest, the biggest way to achieve realism is the quality of the actual VST instruments you use. If the VST instrument you use doesn't have (well) recorded legatos, loads of articulations, ample round robins, multiple dynamic layers, cross fades etc.. plugins wont get you very far. A well recorded and programmed VST instrument will do far more than any DAW will ever be able to to achieve realism.
Just as an example in case it's at all helpful, attached is a screenshot of a page of one of my scores along with how the manual soundset and sound ID's are set up. Once set up, I can reuse or amend this playback configuration for other projects so takes less time to set up going forward. The red highlighted box on the score illustrates some of the ways of using grace notes for keyswitching and hidden cc data to achieve better hairpins and cross fades etc and to control volumes.
And when all done, I simply duplicate the file and tidy up, all within Sibelius.
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Sibelius Ultimate | Windows 10 Pro | Intel i7 8 Core CPU | 64 GB RAM
Thanks for taking the time to share your set up and how you manage it to do it, really appreciate.
Not sure if i'll do the same though as if i look around i see other solutions that have a much better VST/midi editor integrations/interface and I'm expecting this 'leading in notation software' company to catch up with the competitors.
Maybe is time to try something new, luckily we have some choices these days.
I agree that Sibelius needs to start playing catch up in this area, because it isn't particularly intuitive or pretty and very outdated now. Let's hope they are listening to us and have some substantial updates in the pipeline.
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Sibelius Ultimate | Windows 10 Pro | Intel i7 8 Core CPU | 64 GB RAM
Sib score example.jpg