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  4. Configuring Sibelius 7 to work with Vienna Ensemble Pro and Vienna Instruments Pro

  • Configuring Sibelius 7 to work with Vienna Ensemble Pro and Vienna Instruments Pro

    M
    M
    last edited
    last edited

    With the help of Andi (though neither he nor VSL is in any way responsible for any errors or inaccuracies in this document) I have refined my setup guide for Vienna Ensemble Pro (5), Vienna Instruments Pro (2), Sibelius 7 and - optionally - Mir Pro.

    The wording assumes a Mac; the keystrokes and procedures are similar on Windows, though.

    Any comments and corrections gratefully received.

    And once again - many thanks to Andi and the team here [:D].

    1. Launch Vienna Ensemble Pro Server (64-bit)
    2. In the Vienna Ensemble Pro Server floating window:
    3. Add a Vienna Ensemble Pro Instance. Note that this can also be added later from the VEP Server Interface window from Sibelius by using an analogous sequence: start Vienna Ensemble Pro Server > start Sibelius; create new Playback Configuration; activate Vienna Ensemble Pro; connect to the new Vienna Ensemble Pro instance
    4. Name this Instance - e.g. 'String4tet'; a Vienna Ensemble PRO Instance is represented by one 'plug' icon (connected or disconnected)
    5. Click 'Preserve'
    6. The main Vienna Ensemble Pro window opens
    7. If you are using MIR Pro, ensure that 'Auto Add MIR Pro' is activated (top red icon)
    8. Add as many new instrument channels using the VI Pro icon (bottom left hexagon) in the main Vienna Ensemble Pro window as are needed for the composition. Then load the VI presets that came with the sound sets. Special Edition (Plus) users load the matrices that are included with the preinstalled content
    9. If you are using MIR Pro, Right-click in the Channels section (left hand side) of Vienna Ensemble Pro to add 'MIR Pro Room Tone' if desired
    10. If you are using MIR Pro, in MIR Pro load a venue, instrument definitions and place the instruments in the venue
    11. toggle between 'Mixer' and 'VI Pro' tabs (bottom); the Instrument window has the option to unsnap individual instruments. The big 'unsnap' button in that window lifts that particular instrument's User Interface out of the shared area and makes it a free floating window. Bus channels are green. Vienna Instruments channels are blue. VSTi/AU plug-in channels are brown. Audio Input Channels are purple
    12. Assign each instrument to a different MIDI channel. All instruments are routed to the same Vienna Ensemble Pro instance now. MIDI ports have to be set up in Vienna Ensemble Pro for every instrument (not necessary for Sibelius previously b/c there simply was only one available port). Sound sets and the settings in Sibelius 7 > Play > Setup > Manual Sound Sets have to be configured in the same way as previously. With only one Vienna Ensemble Pro device activated in Sibelius, use Omni for the MIDI Port; otherwise specify the MIDI ports: 1-1, 1-2, 1-3 because defining the MIDI port is only necessary when additionally routing Vienna Ensemble Pro Event Inputs to the same Vienna Ensemble Pro instance.
    13. Launch Sibelius
    14. Create a New Playback configuration in Sibelius > Play > Setup > Active Devices; name it, e.g. 'VEProString4tet'; load the corresponding SoundSet
    15. For Special Edition users: the 'VE Special Edition' sound set is the one downloaded from VSL, and recommended; the 'VSL Ensemble Special Edition' sound set is the one that comes with Sibelius
    16. Deactivate (usually) 'Sibelius Player' <<
    17. Activate 'Vienna Ensemble Pro' AU or VST >>
    18. Click once on 'Show'
    19. The Vienna Ensemble Pro Server Interface floating window appears
    20. Initially the Status line may read "Not Connected"
    21. Click once on Connect (bottom) of the Vienna Ensemble Pro Server Interface itself
    22. Lower down but still within the Vienna Ensemble Pro Server Interface window all available Vienna Ensemble Pro Instances will be displayed
    23. Single click on the (name of the) Instance which you added in Steps 3,4
    24. Click the Connect button at the bottom of the Vienna Ensemble Pro Server Interface
    25. The Vienna Ensemble Pro Server Interface Status line will change to Connected
    26. The Vienna Ensemble Pro Server floating window will show just the name of the Instance created in Step 3,4 + '(64-bit) (connected localhost)'
    27. Now build the Channels in Sibelius > Play > Setup > Manual Sound Sets
    28. the Sound Set will be one of those located in ~/Library/Application Support/Avid/Sibelius 7/Sounds
    29. Use manual sound set = ticked/On
    30. Number of channels = number of instruments required for composition, which = number of channels defined in the Vienna Ensemble Pro Instance (Step 10)
    31. Set Channel n to the instrument defined for Channel n in the Vienna Ensemble Pro Instance (Step 10); 'Program name: ' = the instrument from the Dropdown. Single click 'Apply'; instrument appears in rhs with dot notation… e.g. 'strings.violin'
    32. Activate >> one Vienna Ensemble Pro device for the first sound set
    33. Double Click on its name in right hand side of 'Active Devices' to give it a meaningful name… e.g. 'VE Strings' etc
    34. Activate >> a Vienna Ensemble Pro Event Input for the second sound set… this allows aggregation of all channels inside one Vienna Ensemble Pro instance
    35. Click on 'Show' (in Sibelius) for that Vienna Ensemble Pro Event Input if you are using more than 16 instruments or two (or more) different sound sets
    36. In the floating Event Input window, Assign the (newly-created) Sibelius Device to the existing Vienna Ensemble Pro Instance
    37. Assign Channels to all instruments sequentially; use Channels sequentially (starting from '1') for each MIDI port and VE Pro Event Input
    38. Leave everything below 'Program name: ' at/as default, blank, unaltered… e.g. 'Send program change' unticked/unchecked etc; 'Program number': always '0'
    39. Save the Sibelius Playback Configuration
    40. It's necessary always to save the Playback Configuration after making changes in Vienna Ensemble Pro. Settings in Vienna Ensemble Pro are not saved in the Sibelius file
    41. If you want to additionally backup the VE Pro setup or exchange it with another host or Sibelius Playback Configuration, also save the VIFrame with Vienna Ensemble Pro: File > Save Project (as) saves a '.viframe' file

    More details about configuring Vienna Instruments with Sibelius can be found in the "Optimizing Sibelius Playback" manual
  • M
    M

    Cool! Thanks for that. Is anyone else experience massive playabck lag with Sib 7 and VEP Event Input? My template has 100's of channels requiring around 9 Event Inputs. But playback takes forever to start up. Sometimes just clicking on a notehead I have to wait 20 seconds for sound. 
  • M
    M
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    mohurwitzmusic

    No - fortunately I don't have your experience; I'm sorry to hear that. I have all my VI's loaded from the 250GB SSD of my iMac.

    Have you considered experimenting with the 'Time Stretch Cache Folder' in Directory Manager?
  • M
    M

    Well I'm also using a ton of custom soundsets. I'm not quite sure what is happening. Avid tech support hasn't helped much yet either. It seems that Sibelius is taking a long time to find the right sound I.D. even though mine are standard and verified. The worst is when I have an x notehead and the following notehead is solid, and then I press R (for repeat) to overwrite the solid with the x. It can spin for half a minute. It seems that if I manually go into the mixer and assign channels things speed up a bit. But what I'm trying to achieve is to be able to start with a blank score every time, and be able to go into my custom instruments (which have their Sound I.D.s predefined) and add them one by one and have playback come out the correct channel. This is possible because each Sound I.D. is unique to a particular channel, i.e. wind.clarinets.clarinet.1 is always assigned to Port 2 Channel 3. When I add the clarinet, Sibelius recognizes wind.clarinets.clarinet.1 and sends that staff to Port 2 channel 3.
  • M
    M

    But what's also strange is that if I do a lot of editing on one staff Sibelius seems to "wake up" and things are fluid again. But performing certain tasks seems to put the plugin "to sleep" again. Anything where I have to actually hear a sound can cause a slowdown (ie. clicking on a notehead, press R to overwrite a notehead), but if I just grab measures and copy/paste whole sections it's fine. I tried disabling "Play Sound as you Edit" and this doesn't help when playing back the full score is involved.
  • M
    M

    But other than that, playabck is perfect and glitch free. It's editing that is the problem. 
  • M
    M

    mohurwitzmusic

    What happens if you assign as many as you can to the same MIDI port?

    How much RAM, disk space?

    Have you tried VSL technical support… they're very good, you know?
  • M
    M

    What do you mean assign as many as I can to the same MIDI port? You mean in the mixer? Or in the Manual Soundset setup (Playback Devices dialogue)? Wouldn't that preclude the ability to have more than 16 channels? Do you mean I should test to see if it's a particular MIDI port that is causing the problem? 

    I have 48 GB of RAM on my slave, 24 on my master. Everything is SSDs.

    VSL tech is the best!
  • M
    M

    mohurwitzmusic,

    You could certainly try eliminating one particular MIDI Port or Ports to see if there's a fault there - though I'd be surprised if that were the source of the problem.

    No, what I meant was allocate all 16 Channels on Port 1 before allocating the 17th instrument (and Channel) to MIDI Port 2, Channel 1 etc. From your earlier post (maybe I misunderstood?) it seemed as though you were distributing instrument (Channels) across Ports more widely.

    I'd avoid the Mixer if you can. Sibelius works best when its Channel allocation is left at 'Auto'.

    Have you tried starting from scratch (keep a copy!) with a poece that's behaves in the way you describe; and alloacting instruments to Channels, Yes, in the PlayBack Devices dialogue one at a time? And see when - if - there is a slowdown?

    With that much RAM, it shouldn't be a hardware malfunction, I wouldn't have thought. Though, one last question - if on a PC have you tried restarting… there's no memory leak or runaway/zombie process, is there?
  • M
    M

    On Win 7. No definitely no zombie process. Restarted. Cubase works like a boss, it's just Sibelius. And it's only when I use my manual soundsets, because the Sibelius Sounds are fine. 

    My channels are distributed sequentially, with no gaps in between. I suppose I could try to build it up again one by one, however I even ported my playback setup back to Sibelius 6 and the problem persists. Unless there is some kind of problem with this playback config being corrupted.
  • M
    M

    I may have to try reinstalling Sibelius. I did disable some file...some Plogue fil...because it was crashing Cubase when the two were open at the same time. Sibelius just never got along well with my audio drivers (MOTU 2408 Mk3 PCIe).
  • M
    M

    Although it's painful, classic troubleshooting steps begin with elimination, don't they?

    That's where I'd start. Re-installing Sib. isn't too onerous. Yes, I'd do a full install - even with the .dll that's a nuisance

    Then I'd intoduce manual soundsets one at a time and see if:

    • either, one particular instrument/Channel causes it
    • or, the latency grows one channel at a time - incrememntally

    You're sure there are no duplicated Channels; and this is all using only VSL VI's - so not a Preferred Sounds issue?

    Good luck!
  • M
    M

    Well, I am using my custom VIPro presets, not the ones that VSL created. 

    No duplicate channels. All my channels are numbered and named from Piccolo to Doublebass.

    Reinstall isn't too bad. 

    Ugh! Thanks, though. I'll post again after I try reinstalling.
  • M
    M

    Now that I think of it though, I don't think reinstalling will do anything since it happens to a fresh install of Sib 6.
  • M
    M

    I still think that your best bet at this stage is to see whether you get the phenomenon as you introduce channels one at a time. If you do, is it incremental (which supposes one cause); or any one instrument/channel (which supposes another).

    I'd also try different presets. Experiment with a variety of variables (after backing up) and see if you can isolate it that way.

    Good luck!
  • M
    M
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    last edited

    That's very unfortunate and painful in Sib7. I also run a huge playback setup and the only chance to edit fluidly is to disable the instant playback of the note you enter or select. I forgot where to disable that, look in the playback preferences.

    @mohurwitzmusic said:

    But what's also strange is that if I do a lot of editing on one staff Sibelius seems to "wake up" and things are fluid again. But performing certain tasks seems to put the plugin "to sleep" again. Anything where I have to actually hear a sound can cause a slowdown (ie. clicking on a notehead, press R to overwrite a notehead), but if I just grab measures and copy/paste whole sections it's fine. I tried disabling "Play Sound as you Edit" and this doesn't help when playing back the full score is involved.
  • M
    M

    Ah, so you are having the same issue. Are you using manual soundsets that you created? Do you think it's just poor audio plugin handling of Sibelius? What about playback...does it take a while to initiate? Have you tried talking with Avid about this?
  • M
    M

    Yes, I run a huge setup with lots of custom modified manual soundsets. The guys at Sibelius (back then when they were still in charge) weren't able to replicate my problems due to the sheer size of my setup. It's not poor audio handling. It seems that Sibelius first crawls through the complete soundsets and plans the playback, those are my naive words. I used to be a beta tester. Don't expect any change in this behaviour anytime soon, you basically have to live with it. So follow my advice and disable playback upon note select, then there is solely the lag before playback.
  • M
    M

    Interesting. The funny thing is my soundset is SUPER simple. All my keyswitches are almost exactly the same for all my instruments, so I only really have 3 switch maps (one for low keyswitches, one for high, and one for percussion). And there's no way I have more instruments than the Sibelius Default Sounds. Yes, I have 130 or so tracks, but Sibelius has profiles for what must be 200+ instruments. So it must be the number of channels assigned in the Manual Sound Set, then? I guess I'd have to manually assign the channels then for each new composition. That sucks. What really sucks about it was how nice it was to do Instrument Changes that automatically assigned to new channels.
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