Sibelius 7 Sounds - 4. Strings

Fourth in a series of reviews of the new sound set from Sibelius 7. Please watch full-screen with high fidelity sound.

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[lorancamusic]

So..

How do you resolve a Diminish Chord?

[OrchestrationOnline]

@lorancamusic One way is to add a root note to the chord a major third below the bottom note. The chord then becomes a V7-9 chord, which you can resolve by going to the I of your root V.

[platmosic]

To a string player these sounds are a joke. Still composers shouldn't rely on these.

[OrchestrationOnline]

@platmosic I played violin and viola in orchestras as a teen. And I'm a working orchestral composer with over 20 hours of music having been premiered by professional orchestras. I'm well aware of the deficiencies of these sounds. Still, I'm also cogent of the fact that they also represent a tool that is very useful to young composers, with caveats. You want jokes, try out the sounds from the first few versions of Sibelius - that's comedy. These sounds are at least an attempt to get it better.

[stigomaster]

These reviews are very well made, but some of the textures make the scores a little hard to read, like the one at 5:20. Still an entertaining series, even when I never have used Sibelius.

[OrchestrationOnline]

@stigomaster You'll find that the score most artistically rendered are generally those which are the most well-known, i.e. that everyone should be score-reading anyway. Original scores and lesser-known scores are easier to read. And in all ways, boredom is averted!

[OrchestrationOnline]

Let's not forget that Sibelius is not and never will be a pro-level DAW. By its very nature, Sibelius will play things back mechanically no matter how good the sound. The question is, how can we use or alter the existing architecture of the program to make things more realistic for the composer-in-progress? That's ultimately what these reviews are really asking.

[towardstheshadows]

i just did mars the bringer of war in class with sibelius and logic

[platmosic]

@OrchestrationOnline Well I think the keyboard sounds are always going to be better than that of strings (albeit mechanical). There is yet a software that can change dynamics of a note in one bow, the orchestral strings are actually ok for moderatos, but it can fail at allegro/presto. Too much swelling as always.

[platmosic]

Too much swelling, poor repeated notes and slurs. But of course that just shows how demanding the strings are.

[dupre55]

Thank you!