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  • Sibelius 2019.4 messes with a2, a3, etc. switches of VSL soundsets

    Hello!

    I have recently switched to the latest version of Sibelius Ultimate after decades of sticking to 7.1.3. We have many orchestral templates using VSL soundsets and custom soundsets for other libraries.

    When opening Sib7 templates with Sibelius Ultimate 2019.5, I found out that all a3/solo switches had stopped working properly. With woodwinds they stopped working entirely (e.g. adding "a3" to a flute staff has no effect), with brasses they switch randomly (e.g. adding "a4" to a horn staff may switch it to stopped).

    My assistant and I made custom soundsets for other instrument librairies as well based on VSL's method as far as solo/ensemble switching is concerned, as everything created by the VSL staff is always top notch. In Sib7 it worked like a breeze. But now they stopped working, too.

    I tried creating a small test score with only Vienna house style loaded and one flute switching to flutes a3, but could not make it work. I did various attempts to modify the sound IDs in the soundset (e.g. using "...flute.ensemble.3 players" instead of "...flute.ensemble" ; also removing the ".ensemble"), but to no avail.

    I did some research and found out that Sibelius team have implemented support for a2, a3, tutti and all in Sibelius 2019.4. I quote:

    Up until now, adding “a” numbers to a score, to denote the number of players needed for a passage of music, wouldn’t do anything in any sound library since Sibelius didn’t have a way to convert these to numbers of players. [...]

    In 2019.4, Sibelius can interpret the number of players needed by reading “a2”, “a4, “a8” etc. into “+n players” soundID changes that any sound library, including NotePerformer and Sibelius Sounds, can interpret into changes in sound. For example, writing “a1” or “a 1” (with a space) or “à 1” into a score, will change the sound playing back to a solo instrument. In the same way, writing “a 8” will change the sound so you hear 8 players, and so on. Of course, the limitations will be in the sound library, so don’t expect this to work with everything.

    For those interested, you can see how this works in the Playback Dictionary. Scroll down to the bottom and you’ll see this:

    ^[aAàÀ][ ]?([0-9]+)

    Those familiar with regular expressions will know exactly what this means, but those who aren’t, it essentially allows Sibelius to interpret any piece of staff text that starts with a, A, à or À that could have a space after it and then any number after that. It then triggers a sound ID change of +$1 players, where it takes the number entered in the staff text and forms the sound ID change to trigger the right number of players. Another change we’ve made is to reorder the sound IDs so the numbers of players have the same priority as .ensemble.

    All in all, this has allowed us to support the following, which shows the sound ID changes that Sibelius goes through when playing this example. As always, these changes in sound will only be audible if your sound library supports them. If not, it’ll fall back on the best next sound.

    URL to the sample image showing soundID changes : http://www.avidblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/n-players-with-sound-IDs.png

    Emphasis is mine. That's when I got scared and decided I'd turn to you. And I guess I'm not the only one facing this issue. I'm afraid it calls for a global change in the way soundsets work. Or maybe I'm missing something? Maybe a new way to switch to ensembles is possible now, but we are at a loss. As far as I know, all my software and supporting files are up to date.

    Thank you for your help with this!

    Esther

    My setup: PC with Windows 10, i7+64GB of RAM, VE Pro 7

    Update: downgrading to Sibelius 2019.1 does not solve the issue.

     

     

  • Hello Esther!

    I don't know about your sound set or dictionary entries, but the "a3" or other "a" commands work with the "Vienna Symphonic Library" House Style and our sound sets in Sibelius Ultimate 2019.4.

    Best regards,
    Andi


    Vienna Symphonic Library
  • The newest version of Sib is 2019.7.


    Dorico, Notion, Sibelius, StudioOne, Cubase, Staffpad VE Pro, Synchon, VI, Kontakt Win11 x64, 64GB RAM, Focusrite Scarlett 18i20, August Forster 190
  • Thank you this is very encouraging. I always prefer when the issue is on my side, at least I have some control over it.

    I'll start with an update to 2019.7 and continue investigating the problem.

    Thank you!

    Esther


  • last edited
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    Hi all,

    I am having a similar problem with VE Pro 7 and Sibelius Ultimate 2020.1. Woodwinds and Brass have stopped switching from solo instruments to ensembles in scores that used to work fine. Here is a section of a sibelius file and the playback configuration.

    I have tried updating and resinstalling all software and reinstalling the soundset.

    Any help would be appreciated.

    Best,

    Nick

    Post.zip-1696286204483-io5y2.zip

  • Hello Nick!

    Such a problem can have different reasons. Did you check out the Troubleshooting chapter of the "Optimizing SIbelius Playback" manual? I would go through this chapter point for point. If you can't find a solution there and want us to look at your file, please also include your Vienna Ensemble Pro Server project and let us know in which bar and instrument you have this problem.

    Best regards,
    Andi


    Vienna Symphonic Library
  • last edited
    last edited

    Hi Andi,

    Thanks for your speedy response as always. Yes I've checked the guide and rebuilt an instance from scratch. Tried just a single flute line, tried reimporting a variety of house style (including of course the latest Vienna). No dice. Here is the server project. I posted an extract of the compostion in the previous post. The a2, I. and solo switches in the woodwind are not changing the channels.

    Best,

    Nick

    Rebuilt.vesp64.zip-1696286204812-4b8v1.zip

  • Hello Nick!

    I can reproduce that the "a2" command is not working correctly for the woodwinds in your project. This may have something to do with your playback configuration which includes different sound sets that include the same instruments (like VE Woodwinds+Brass and VE Special Edition). In your case I would edit the Sibelius Playback Dictionary entry Staff Text/a2: Remove "+2 players" from the Sound ID field. This should resolve the problem.

    Best regards,
    Andi


    Vienna Symphonic Library
  • Hi Andi,

    Unfortunately this time your helpful workaround has not solved the problem. :-(

    I tried : 

    Editing a2 in playback definition as suggested. No change with "+ensemble -divisi" or "+ensemble"

    Editing I. in playback definition. No change with "-ensemble +1 players" or "-ensemble +player1"

    Swapping VE Special Edition Plus. No change with "VE Special Edition" or "General Midi" or "VE Percussion" to avoid conflicts. No change.

    Any other ideas?

    I have the same problem when I rebuild an instance from scratch with only the Flute solo ansd Flute Ensemble.

    Best,

    Nick


  • Hello Nick!

    That's odd. I tried the solution I suggested here, before I have answered your post. It solved the problem with your project here.

    Did you now try it with a different project?

    Best,
    Andi


    Vienna Symphonic Library
  • Thanks Andi. No, same project. I am also having problems with the horns, trumpets and trombones not switching. And I discovered yesterday that if I use div. with dimension strings, then unis. does not switch them back. All very weird. I tried updating all the software. Then I tried downgrading to VE Pro 6. No change. Before I rebuilt it, my server project was crashing whenever I tried to delete a channel. I tried various workarounds (from this forum) disactivating MIR Pro, resetting channel output etc and finally discovered that if I duplicated the channel I could then delete any channel. But when I deleted them my project (which had 176 channels) jumped first to 250 then 350 channels with duplicates of various parts of the orchestra. I patiently deleted them all and it seems to have stabilised, but maybe the vienna server instance is corrupt? But then again an new empty project with only 2 channels for flute solo and ensemble wouldn't switch either. I'm about to try manually replacing the Vienna House Style and soundset...

    Probably a fresh reinstall of everything might help but I'm on a deadline for a project...

    Best,

    Nick

     

    P.S. Happy Easter. Hope you and family are safe and well.


  • Hello Nick!

    If Vienna Ensemble Pro crashes and a crash report is generated, please send us this crash report. Then we can take a look at what might have gone wrong.

    The keyword "unis" doesn't generate any sound ID with the "Vienna Symphonic Library" House Style loaded. If you want to switch back to unison playing after a divisi passage with Dimension Strings, please use "ord." and "tutti" (or "a2", "a3", "a4", ...).

    A complex setup like yours that uses sound sets that include the same instruments (like VE Woodwinds+Brass and VE Special Edition or VE Strings and VE Special Edition) can sometimes bring up seemingly erratic behaviour. I didn't anylyse your playback configuration in every detail. Maybe you can make a playback configuration that only uses the sound sets VE Strings, VE Woodwinds+Brass and VE Percussion.

    Best regards and happy Easter,
    Andi


    Vienna Symphonic Library
  • I've just noticed Nicholas' reply and to further tell our side of the story here: the files that used to work in Sibelius 7 no longer were switching correctly to "a3", "a4" (depending on the instruments), but the commands "tutti" and "solo" still were working fine, so we used those instead. Nonetheless, this is a less elegant solution than the proper a3 or a4 traditional scores require.

    After minute investigations the majority of instruments were still working properly, only some of the brass and (maybe?) woodwinds were problematic, I think. The lockdown makes it hard for us to check the files right now.

    The template in question is also rather large: 3-3-3-3, 4-3-3-1, with many percussions, harp, piano, dimension + chamber + solo strings, with a chamber ensemble playing alongside a larger one. I must also add that we were using the "VE Woodwinds & Brass", "VE Percussions" and "VE Strings" soundsets with the full versions of the instruments, not the Special Editions soundsets, and we took care to avoid having two identical instruments in the same instance (flute 1 and flute 2, violin 1 and 2, and even strings of different VSL librairies are each on their own separate instance).

    I hope this helps!

    Esther


  • Hi Esther,

    Thanks for your reply. I couldn't get this workling. Similar problem with a file that used to work fine. I noticed other problems and rebuilt the Server Project and the score (cut n pasted into an empty doc). This solved some of the problems but not all. Finally I upgraded everything to Synchron and stopped worrying about it.

    Best,

    Nick


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