Fortepiano implies a note that is played loud and suddenly silenced, forced into a lower level, you can think that is played one dynamic level higher than the surrounding notes and then suddenly one dynamic level lower. Sforzando implies a note that is played in a higher velocity than the surrounding notes, but some brass players will use it as an excuse to blare the note, so watch it.

skram, did you get any reply from Avid? I'm getting the same issue, and I'm certain the culprit is not VE.

I'm sorry. I am impaired by paranoia? I don't know which forums you used to frequent, but this is outright disrespect, one that I would not expect from a fellow composer. It is clear from your style of posting that you just dissect everything people post to you and try to confront them, in this thread and in others. So believe what you will, composers here tried to share their insights on the problem and their experience, only to see you make the question more and more specific, so no one can answer. Farewell.

I do know the answer, but I know that whichever answer I provide, won't suffice. The velocity crossfade will take effect where the dynamic layers are split. The dynamic layers are described in the manual, as Paul stated. Go read it, I won't quote it here. 

Reality. The effect of phasing, akin to a comb filter, quires two identical waveforms displaced in time ever so slightly. If they are different you get the illusion of two instruments playing, which is called doubling in orchestral terms. Everyone that recorded two microphones pointing at the same source faced this, and it is the same principle of the phasing effect on guitars. I would suggest you to try it, but I suspect you are only asking to be confrontational.

Kontakt is analog to Vienna Ensemble, which hosts several Vienna Instruments one for each channel.

Nonsense, everyone here is well aware of the chorus problem and it is spoken freely. That is why it is not recommended to use velocity x-fade on solo passages. I can only guess about the reason no one answers your question about the cross-fades ranges, but I would suspect it is simply that no one cares.The information provided in the manual about the split points is clear enough and requires little divination.

 Just a note: the "chorus" effect is called "phasing" colloquially, but it is technically wrong. Phasing requires two identical samples and that does not occur in VSL at all. Civilization's "doubling" is a much better terminology.

Sorry for the late reply, Herb,

I've seen the video and it does demonstrate what I was looking for, however, I still hope for an audio file with that type of demonstration. Hopefully the community will put one up, like the South by Southwest comparison of the string orchestras. 

Thank you for the video.

Greetings,

I share Beat's position on DS, and would like to hear a demo which depicts clearly the aforementioned aspects of the product. Most demos I found worked in disservice for DS, because I believe they were made with the intention of showcasing its overall sound. However, more experienced users usually expect a technical demonstration, and I think that is lacking in sound form. 

I've used Notion with VSL in the past and manage to work with it well, but was never able to produce good scores for print. In the end, I always went back to Sibelius when I needed something printed. My opinion about this version is uncomplimentary, I see nothig but a pastiche, rushed to bring Notion into the Presonus domain. Time will tell if Notion will benefit anything out of this alliance, but I think not.

I share Sean's opinion, until Steinberg makes its move, I will remain deserted.

I once saw the keyboardist of a rock band using full string patches in a live concert. I watched from the stage and could see he was using two keyboards playing different articulations, very skillfully.

The audience enjoyed, but the overall sound didn't impress me. I guess the purpose is to be visually impressive, which it was.

Some notes on the subject:

1. One should not worry about reducing the dynamic range if there is not enough dynamic range in the part.

2. Compression sounds unnatural when it is used to make up for poor orchestration, that is, to make something sound louder than what it could possibly sound.

3. Compression is useful to compensate for sudden changes in loudness when the part moves between different velocity layers.

4. Compressors are not set on stone, one can (and should) automate them to engage the problematic points and release when more dynamic breadth is required.

5. Relative loudness of multiple parts is better handled by proper mixing, inadequacies of loudness in a single part can be handled by compression.

I use compressors regularly, sometimes just to compensante something I find odd with a particular patch.

On a separate note, Notion released an update, which means the program isn't dead!

Here are the release notes from their site.

NOTION 3.2 Update Release Notes:

3.2.9925
OSX Lion Compatiblity
Fixes and Enhancements to Sample Library
Support of New Sound Kits
Compatibility with Progression for iPad
Addition of iPad/Mobile Distortion VST
Guitar Pro File Import (versions 3-5)
UI Fixes and Updates
New Score Layout, Page Margin and Printing Options
Fixed lyrics tool to avoid collisions
Score rendering fixes including TAB notation improvements
Delete function fixed for TAB staffs
Fixed playback of muted open notes on fretted instruments
Arpeggio playback timing fixed
Note on/Note off message timing fixed for VSTi plugins
Fixed playback of Fermatas and Cesuras in NTempo Mode
NTempo Vamp issues resolved
Fixed false entrance after repeat bar
Fixed Gliss Note Off in NTempo
Made Sounds Update an optional process
Importing of Brass and Woodwind sections with XML

This does give hope for the future!

Sorry, I don't own VE PRO either and I'm waiting until I get a reasonable amount of free time before I demo it.

But, I don't understand why would you need to actually preserve the instances, won't saving and loading the viframes accomplish the same? Are you planning on working on the two programs concurrently? I'm having trouble understanding your pipeline.

iscorefilm, I believe you already understood what I'm going to explain. I used VI because the setup was simpler (one instance per staff), but Notion failed when handling a large number of instances. When switching to VE, setup becomes more work intensive, having to setup the extra staffs and assigning midi-channels for each, but the crashes went away.

Now what I'm failing to understand is why you are using the midi-outs to communicate with the VST. Are you opening VE as standalone and then routing the midi to it? This should not be necessary. In "Score Setup", instead of going to External MIDI, go to VST Instruments, and choose Vienna Ensemble.This will create a staff with a VE instance linked to it, then you can create the extra staffs and distribute the 16 midi-channels. Make sure that your ruleset is configure to "plugin" instead of "midi-out", the plugin ID for VE is 1448299589.

Hello!

I've been quite successful in developing a personal ruleset for notion, at least I managed to achieve all articulation changes I needed. Notion has a sheer advantage of Sibelius in handling its ruleset, because it can store a ruleset per document, or even have a set of documents share a single ruleset and be uploaded with it.

All you need to do is create a folder called Rules in the same folder with your document (or documents). Notion will reference this file before referencing its default files. One of the first things declared in the ruleset is to which VST it should apply, so it won't mess with other rulesets that may be in place. For instance, as I still don't own all VSL instruments that I would like, I use Miroslav as a replacement, with the rules being VST dedicated, I can fiddle with my VSL rules as much as I want without messing the rules for Miroslav, which, by the way, are quite decent from default. This dedicated ajdustment is not possible with Sibelius dictionary. For instance I can say that if Miroslav is the VST it should play sforzandos by increasing the velocity by 10, but if the VST is VSL it should look for the sforzando patch instead, in Sibelius is either one or the other.

Making my VSL presets consistently I also managed to have a good response from Notion for all instruments I have, so, it doesn't matter which VSL instrument I load, the rules are applied equally, so the articulations work. It should work with all instruments, but I cannot do anything more advanced as I don't own very much from VSL, only brass libraries. I'm afraid the complexity would rise if the ruleset had to deal with percussion.

Notion website has a set of videos explaining custom rules, I followed it and managed to build my own, articulation by articulation, copying and pasting the instructions from the provided pdf. I don't think I should share the ruleset, as it's very specific and quirky, I think you would be better off building your own or actually improving from the VSL SE ruleset, which already handles percussion. Still, I plan to improve my own ruleset after I actually BUY Notion, all this experimentation I was doing happened while I was demoing it, and sadly the demo expired!

About handling heavy loads, I found that Notion is a crashfest when handling Vienna Instruments instances. At first, when I was doing simple tests with few articulations, I decided to use VI directly because it's simpler, each staff is linked to an instance. With my VSL brass section in place (10 staffs), Notion would crash everytime I attempted to change anything in VI. Using Vienna Ensemble through VST instruments, which creates a new staff which you have to manually create other staffs for each channel, this problem went away, using VE I did not have a single crash. Miroslav on the other hand, would also crash when I had 15 or more instances, but I assume this problem would go away if I had VE PRO and I could load Miroslav in it. The computer I was using is an i5 with 16gb RAM, which is not stellar but should fare better than that.

The problem is, I was away for a week and didn't work on my Notion projects again before the demo expired and I didn't manage to test a score that was, besides heavy in the VST department, also several pages long. I believe the problems would reappear.

Pertaining to what Errikos said, and if we take notation off the equation, this VSL DAW becomes much more feasible. If composition is done elsewhere, let's say in Sibelius, or another notation package, and the user does not expect accurate playback from this package, he could then import the file to VSL DAW, in a manner that the notation (would have to be MusicXML) is automatically converted to the appropriate midi-data.

I for one, have gave up producing mock-ups for one reason. I can not put myself into the burden of setting up a DAW and then effectively recreating the score I already composed. To me this absolutey kills the joy of composition, and only recently I decided to try it again. If the DAW was already preconfigured to work with the VST I use (VSL in this case), half of the work would be already done, creating a track FOR an Oboe, would be akin to creating a staff in Sibelius for the Oboe of Sound Essentials, no setup required.

The other half of the work, if we come from notation, is getting notation symbols to become midi lanes, and I believe that can be achieved even without the VSL DAW, just by having an MusicXML to Midi translator which allows you to set how each articulation should be translated to midi.

Anyway, I agree, that without notation, the DAW becomes more closer to reality.

Errikos is right on the point with this discussion: we are not striving for utopia, we are striving for an improvement, a better relationship between what the composer inputs on the score and the samples available. I speak for myself, of course, but I can assume such was the feelings of several VSL users with the release of Sibelius 7. There was no improvement to integration of VSTs, and I dare to say, no improvements AT ALL.

Some of my burden with the available notation software is precisely the focus which is placed on the publishing technology, I believe this is part of the expectation we face, that the composition must be brought from elsewhere (DAW). I would be happy with an abstract notation editor, where only the composition is in focus, with absolutely no need for page layouts, but I understand some people are more comfortable having the layout in place, which I believe is more similar to the natural notation on paper.

If VSL would take the helm and develop a notation software based on its libraries, of course, the result would be spectacular. If this is not possible, I can only hope another company will take the task of developing notation FOR orchestral samples, or that at least, the available notation packages allow the user to interact more friendly with the midi-data.

The problem with notation playback as it is now, is the extra step that midi information takes to access a sample. As said before in this thread, in DAWs the user communicates the midi data directly with the VST, while in Notation the user places symbols, which in turn are converted to midi-data and then reach the VST. These symbols, I believe, are the biggest difference between Notation composers and DAW composers. DAW composers want to input data, numbers or graphs, which will affect the sounds being played. Notation composers want to input Symbols and expect them to generate the data accurately.

Notion advanced this a little bit, allowing the user to have a set of interpretation rules per document, per score, which means for a particular performance, you can adjust your rule files without interfering with all rules for the VST, which is what a soundset does. Still, this is far from being able to adjust one specific instance of a symbol in the score, like dshertz said, what's the difference between a sfz and an altered sfz? I believe this is similar to what Sibelius Properties window achieve.

In my imagination, the easiest way to provide better performance for notation would be adding a control lane below each staff, collapsable of course. Or better yet, a secondary type of notation that could send changes for the dictionary itself and not to the VST. Using the sfz example from above, let's say the dictionary has the sfz as an +10 increase in velocity. You could apply an extra symbol to the staff, not a number or a graphic, but a different symbol, that extra type of notation specifically for adjusting notation playback itself, maybe on different collor. These would not print or affect the layout of the score, but would affect playback, they would mimic specific decisions the live performer would have made.

Exploring this idea a little further, in the same example above, let's say the composer wants to lessen the sfz a bit, maybe by -2. He adds the -2 Velocity symbol, or maybe, even add it twice. For creating a drag in tempo, for instance, instead of adding a sequence of tempo changes to replace an abstract text instruction, he could add an inverted tempo hairpin, that drags the tempo precisely where he wants, just like a crescendo, he only places the starting tempo and the ending one.

Thus he achieves most actions through a type of notation, which saves the composer the hassle of dealing with yet another type of information: midi. Of course this only matters if the symbols are preconfigured, designed to take the place of every action that is commonly used in midi finetuning. The point is, every change to the performance is done through notation, even if of a different kind.

I think the culprit in this whole discussion is the expectation that DAWs (Piano Roll) are designed for composition. Somehow in the circles of digital composition, I often see people regarding this as a given. Well, they are not, they are designed primarily to handle audio files, and to "interact" with VSTs. Composition itself, happens trough the preference of the composer, which more often than not, includes experimentation through a midi-controller. This midi-controller is more aptly recorded in DAWs, and so I believe here is where that expectation starts.

If we were to accept that the Piano Roll is the main instrument of composition, becomes easy to delegate the role of notation software to an aftertought, to print the score for live performance. The point I make, and that several posters made here, is that this is not the case, the Piano Roll is a necessity we adhere to, only because we are unable to achieve the same results within our notation packages. And we are unable to achieve this because of a third part of the digital music pipeline: performance.

So, splitting the composition process into three segments, we have: composition, performance, publishing. The problem we face is simply that neither DAW or Notation Software covers the three segments adequately, precisely because they are not designed to do so. Notation Softwares are forcefully locked into the latter segment, with glimpses of the first, without ever touching the second. What is lacking is the acknowledgement that the second segment, "performance", is as crucial for "composition" as the ability to input notes itself, and much more important than "publishing", for certain. And that "composition", at least for me and others here, is more easily achieved through traditional notation than piano rolls.

Summing all up: in digital orchestral composition, there should be no distinction between the first two segments, composition and performance. And honestly, the only way I can see this division being removed is if a quality provider of "performance" (an orchestral library such as VSL) takes the whole of providing "composition" as well. There are two reasons for this: First, the library holds all the minutiae of how the samples work and how to make them sound good without hassle; Second, the big assumption I make that composition and performance must be united, only stands when we think about orchestral composition, which I doubt is the primary market for either DAWs or Notation Softwares, but it certainly is for a provider of orchestral samples.

Hello,

Pertaining to what have been discussed, I would like to stablish a distinction between composition and publishing. My view of composing in notation precludes any form of layout or print-oriented editing, for instance, in Sibelius I work only in Panorama and I really don't care if an item is marked red because it cannot fit the layout ditribution.

Making each part clear and print friendly, I regard as a separate step. In fact, in Sibelius, I find the concrete world of printing to get often in the way of the abstract world of composition. Taking as an example the Phantom Menace, composing the parts using notation symbols is all that is needed, having the symbols be accurately interpreted and the sounds correctly played back to the composer. Then we could always export everything as MusicXML and do all the layout tweaking in another platform.

There's a large distinction between audio and desktop publishing and I believe the latter is very distant from what VSL currently provides, is a different world and technology. For my needs, this software would only require:

1. Integration between notation symbols and VSL playback

2. Easy way of controlling midi, akin to what happens in a DAW CC lane.

3. MusicXML import and export.

On another topic, I would like to add that I've been trying MusicXML between Sibelius and Notion. I've been doing some tests, composing in Notion and then exporting everything to Sibelius for printing and I'm very happy with the results, at least for small ensembles, I'm yet to try a full orchestral score.

iscorefilm, you've said that Notion only supports 4 midi channel, but that is not accurate. Notion supports only 4 midi channels for "general" use, but you can load as many instances of VSTs as you want, an example: you could load 8 VE instances with 16 channels each.

Oh, I stand corrected! I've read your post again, for some reason I thought you said the opposite.

Well, if this is a valid encouragement, I would also buy VSL notation software, even in advance! Actually, this software could even cause me to drop my other libraries and migrate for VSL entirely.

The reality, like Errikos said, is that the majority doesn't use notation as their prime composing tool, therefore expecting VSL to take that road is feable speculation. But, I think, if they take the chance, they would captivate a lot of users that, like myself, are trying to settle with one library and one notation software, two concepts that, at the moment, appear to be mutually exclusive.

The lack of interest of VSL people in the topic also disallows our imagination.

Well, from what I can see, the soundset part of Sibelius 7 is just a copy and paste of the previous version. Maybe there's some advancement behind the curtains someone more technically inclined could have noticed.

But I would assume the only real advantage in working with VSL in Sibelius 7 would be the 64-bit update.

I don't see this as big leap. VSL products are already tailored to respond to midi, to handle most of the available audio hardware and software, and most of all, to interact with each other. Like you said before, the hard work is already done. They have the reverb, the host, the mixer AND the samples. Making a simple midi-notation platform shouldn't be that difficult, unless they intend to handle the other aspect of notation: printing and publishing. This is where I agree a big leap would be necessary, as the technology involved is completely alien to audio.

But, if the midi-notation scope is kept, and the software only handles composing and performing, I believe the hard work was already done. Of course we users would need to bring the composition to sibelius or finale for printing, or maybe to a DAW for fine-tuning a mock up.

Or rather: "Does Sibelius 7 handles soundsets better (or in any way differenty) than Sibelius 6.2?"

I guess the answer is no.

I don't know. We should remember that VSL developed softwares that are unusual for a sample library. Vienna Ensemble, Vienna Suite, I believe those were developed because VSL felt the available alternatives were actually interfering with the quality of their samples. So they designed their own software and now they are able to tell us: "see, this is how VSL is *supposed* to sound".

The same concept can be applied to a notation software: "the available notation software is not good enough for our samples, lets build our own". Of course, I'm dreaming aloud here, but if there were a bigger uproar of the user base, I'm sure they wouldn't pass the chance of making a dent in that market. I always felt that the piano roll is the biggest gap between the traditional musician and the midi-trained musician, by stablishing an integrated notation platform VSL could very well capture a large part of the userbase of the competition.