EWQLSO on Sibelius 7 - Manual Sound Set to get Realistic Playback

[Poradicus]

I'm curious what the name of this song is or who the composer is. This sounds really good.

[ElliotWrightMusic]

@Poradicus They're both by Tchaikovsky - the example at the beginning of the video is from his ballet 'Swan Lake', and the example that closes off the video is the 'Apotheosis' from his ballet 'Sleeping Beauty', i believe.

[JTeelen]

Beautiful,

I noticed that the key-switching notes you used in your score are repeating for almost every note. In my opinion that's not necessary because they can bee seen as switching signals or am i missing something here?

I also noticed that I can have some timing problems on the key-switch-notes, so I started to make them pre-sounding or is there an alternative (I have a 16-proc. Mac-pro with 16 Gigs and 4-way-raid HD, so the system is fast enough I would think).

Rgds,

Jeroen Teelen

[ElliotWrightMusic]

@JTeelen yup, it's a good idea to hit the keyswitches as early as possible before the sounding note, and have it release before the note-on signal. In my example, I use repeated keyswitch notes just because it's easier to input. So if I'm dealing with a series of eighth notes for example, which need KSWs triggered in between them, I just click-in a 16th note and hit 'R' to repeat it and move it up or down with the arrow keys. Just saves hand movements really.

[TerenceJonesMusic]

This is great stuff Elliot. I've only just recently acquired the EWQSO Gold edition myself, and decided to buy Jonathan Loving's soundset to go along with it, in the hope that it might make my composing in Sibelius 6 a little less frustrating.

having looked at your video however, I might just reconsider that and maybe look into designing my own soundset along these lines, along with some custom score layouts.

Good job, keep up the good work!

[ElliotWrightMusic]

@TerenceJonesMusic Thank you!  I do like John Loving's sound set, but this approach just felt better for my personal style of control. Once I've got a few templates up and running smoothly enough I think I may make some of them publicly available. Glad you liked it! :)

[TerenceJonesMusic]

@ElliotWrightMusic I can certainly see the advantages of this approach, especially when producing midi-mockups for clients. It would make editing a whole lot simpler when I finally export the midi files into a DAW for instance.

When I'm writing large scale orchestral pieces myself, I tend to work in Sibelius first, as notation is what I'm comfortable with. and then export to Cubase for expression editing and final polish. For smaller projects I tend to work directly in Cubase from the start.

[ElliotWrightMusic]

@TerenceJonesMusic yeah, that's the kind of system I was looking at using too - scoring in Sib7 and mock-up work in a sequencer program - but unfortunately I'm absolutely useless at sequencer work :P so I decided to try making the score and mock-up in one go if possible. I'll see about getting some more examples up in the next month or so and maybe go into more detail about the system. :)

[TerenceJonesMusic]

@ElliotWrightMusic Cool, I look forward to that. :)

[Matty11611]

Great Video mate, really inspired me to want to use these sounds for my alevel coursework. Currently the Sibelius 7 sounds are very flakey in my view. if i didnt do any of the key switching would it sound better than the sibelius 7 sounds, if not im sure you have done a tutorial video on how to make things better in more detail.

Cheers

Matty11611

[ManolitoMystiq]

Dear Elliot,

I was looking for something like this in Sibelius. I actually did something similar with MOR drums. Is my PC: i7 Q720@1.60Ghz, 8.00 GB RAM, 64-bit with 7200 rpm drive solid for a steady playback? I have Sibelius 6, but the playback is not steady (then again, Sib6 is 32-bit). I bought Hollywood Strings, too, and notes are dropping in Reaper 64-bit. Either I'm doing something wrong or I need a separate HD on my laptop for the samples (now it's on the main drive). Thanks!

[UrsaBorealis]

Excellent video, Elliot.

[ShaofanQi]

Thax a lot!! BTW, Is there any way to use sound id to control all the effect?

[ElliotWrightMusic]

@ShaofanQi sort of, but not quite. You're limited to what articulations are provided by SoundWorld, and on some instruments, that's not a lot. You can construct a manual sound set by loading one patch per articulation, and assigning the appropriate SoundIDs to each patch - Sibelius will handle the rest; but in my case, I need greater control over the sounds, which can only be achieved (I think) by using the Keyswitcher model I demonstrate here. Hope this helps!

[ShaofanQi]

@ElliotWrightMusic Thank U (>^_^)> #<(^_^<) Very much. I did not find out much about this issue!!

[ElliotWrightMusic]

@ShaofanQi You can also read up on Sound IDs, Manual Sound Sets and Playback Configurations in Sibelius Reference; they've got a lot of good info there. Plus check out the Help Forum on Sibelius.com, I've found it to be a very reliable resource whenever I'm stumped on something! :)

[JamesGilbertMusic]

Nice video. I'd be interested in seeing more of the nuts & bolts of the actual soundset creation process. I don't have EWQLSO but I do have other VST's for which soundsets don't exist.

When you played the brass section with the Tubas, my first reaction was how much it sounded like the pedal stops on an organ I once played.

[ElliotWrightMusic]

@JamesGilbertMusic Thank you, I'm glad you liked it! And I agree, a more technical overview would be good - I'm planning on releasing a more in-depth look at the construction process in the next little bit.

[ReneIsSoCool101Yes]

Hey ElliotWrightMusic, this is really amazing how you created your own soundset files, and I wanted to ask if you are planning on releasing the soundset folder or if you can at least give us some tutorial videos on how to put EWQLSO into Sibelius 7! I know there's the Jon Loving sound set files but you said that you could do things that the soundsets can't do. I'm really struggling trying to put EWQLSO into Sibelius and any help will be appreciated =]

P.S. will this work with Silver Edition?

[ElliotWrightMusic]

@ReneIsSoCool101Yes Thanks, I'm glad you liked the videos - my version here uses Platinum to get the most articulations, but you could do sometihng like it with Silver, I think. I do intend to put out a video or two about how to make your own version of what I'm making, as well as posting my files for sale once the whole thing is complete. I do like the Jon Loving SoundSet though, and would encourage you to get it and play around with it in the meantime to see what you can do.

[ElliotWrightMusic]

@ElliotWrightMusic also, take a look in Sibelius Reference under Manual Sound Sets and Working With VST Instruments; very helpful stuff!

[ReneIsSoCool101Yes]

@ElliotWrightMusic Ok thank you! I had already bought the Jon Loving soundset but I'm just having some difficulty trying to install it properlly, but when I saw this video and you were saying that the stuff you were doing makes it sound more realistic, I started to question the Jon Loving soundset lol. I'm all about trying to get the most realistic playback so I understood why you went through all this trouble haha. Ok I'll look into the Reference manual thank you!

[ReneIsSoCool101Yes]

@ElliotWrightMusic Ok thanks dude! I already have EWQLSO Silver Edition and I'm planning on getting Sibelius 7 very soon, I thought that it was possible to put Symphonic Orchestra into Sibelius 6 First, but Jon Loving messaged me saying its not officially supported, so I think I'll be better off getting Sibelius 7, oh and another question if you don't mind, am I supposed to install the 32bit or the 64bit version of Symphonic Orchestra for Sibelius 7 or does it not matter?

[ElliotWrightMusic]

@ReneIsSoCool101Yes 64-bit, definitely. To do what I'm doing, you need a 64-bit operating system (like Windows 7 64-bit or Mac OS X Snow Leopard or Lion); a 64-bit notation program / host (like Sibelius 7) and the 64-bit PLAY plugin. The reason is, 32-bit programs and plugins can only address maybe 3-4GB of RAM, and you'll need more than that to load all the samples you need. Helps to have a VERY good sound card and processor too.

[ReneIsSoCool101Yes]

@ElliotWrightMusic Ok good cus I installed the 64bit version of the Sibelius 7 demo and when I get Sibelius 7 I'll install it on 64bit. So to do it the way you did it I need the 64 bit version of Sibelius 7 AND Symphonic Orchestra or just Sibelius 7?? And the Jon Loving soundset files, do I need the 32bit version of Symphonic Orchestra or can I install the 64bit?

[ElliotWrightMusic]

@ReneIsSoCool101Yes go with 64-bit on everything, that way you're guaranteed not to have a RAM bottleneck. :)

[ReneIsSoCool101Yes]

@ElliotWrightMusic Oh ok that helps out a lot! Thank you ElliotWrightMusic! If I can ask you this, on the Soundsonline website, when you go to the Symphonic Orchestra section, on the Tech Specs tab, there's a section that has Sibelius on Windows Vista/7, 32 bit - yes, and then for 64 bit theres a blank square, what does that mean exactly?? Does that means Symphonic Orchestra only works for 32bit on Sibelius or that it also supports 64 bit? I'm sorry to bother you I'm just trying to understand...

[ElliotWrightMusic]

@ReneIsSoCool101Yes that is because, when that table was made, Sibelius 6 was the only current version of Sibelius, and it is 32-bit. It can run on WIndows 7 64-bit, but it makes no difference in its ability to handle RAM, because the program itself is 32-bit. Sibelius 7, I can definitely assure you, will work on WIndows 7 64-bit, and can use PLAY 64-bit. :)

[ReneIsSoCool101Yes]

@ElliotWrightMusic Ahh thank you!! That was my main concern and thank you so much for clearing that up for me! Now I feel more confident in figuring out how to put Symphonic Orchestra into Sibelius 7 =]

[Dudizmi]

I figured out myself, thanks anyway!

[Dudizmi]

Thank you Elliot, can you send me this template with the soundset??? It would be grate, please!

[ElliotWrightMusic]

@Dudizmi it's still under construction really, but once it's done I'll probably look into posting it on my website. Still gotta sort out percussion though, and then I plan on making a few templates for Full Orchestra, Baroque Orchestra, String Quintet, Brass Quintet and Woodwind Quintet. Once all that's done I'll post some examples and maybe release the Multis, Playback configuration files and score templates with house styles. Could be a few months though.

[Dudizmi]

@ElliotWrightMusic Thank you, but how about the extra score and the key switch? How do you create the connections between the two? The other part is familiar to me, this will help me with my orchestral template!

[ElliotWrightMusic]

@Dudizmi I'd rather not give anything away until the project is done, but I'll be going into greater detail in my next few videos, regarding how to connect them; essentially, I'm using PLAY to move certain keyswitches on all instruments to the same few notes - then I'm using a fake staff below the main staff of each instrument (routed via the mixer into the same MIDI channel as the instrument it applies to) in order to push the keyswitch notes when I need them. Stay tuned, more info on the way!