Sibelius 6 and Tuba Sound

[xoidufn]

Hi, everyone. So, my upgrade to Sib. 6 arrived yesterday. Much of the reason I bought it was because the sample of the tuba sound online sounded so much better than what I was getting in Sib. 5. In Sib. 5, when arranging for our quartet, I usually just switched to the built-in tuba-midi sound from my five-year-old SoundBlaster card because it was so much better.

However, to my surprise, the tuba sound in Sib. 6, though it seems better, was not as dazzling as the online sample, which you can hear at

http://www.sibelius.com/products/sibeli ... baSolo.mp3

If that doesn't get you there, just go to this page of sounds and scroll down to the tuba solo in the list of sounds.

http://www.sibelius.com/products/sibeli ... tials.html

I'm wondering if I go into my sound library and replace the Sibelius .wav files with recordings of myself if I'd be happier. The supplied sound is decent enough in the staff, but as with Sib. 5, once you get below the staff, it starts to sound like a marching band bass trombone. Plus some notes, like the G and F at the bottom of the staff, tend to be a great deal louder than others, so you are stuck tweaking the individual volume on those if you don't want them suddenly marcato in your mp. line.

I know there are other options and soundfont players you can load in Sibelius, but part of the "sell" on this is that you can use the new "seamless" interface for sounds and not have to be bothered with all the fiddling.

Anyhow, I'd be interested to hear from any other tuba/composer/arranger who has made the jump.

Thx,
Xoid

[tbn.al]

I am not happy with any of the brass sounds in Sibelius. The WW's are but a notch better. The strings are pretty good however. They are all good enough to compose with, but I certainly would not try to use them for publication.

[BVD Press]

Same awful sounds in Finale for Brass. It takes hours of massaging to get what one hears here:

http://www.finalemusic.com/finale/featu ... VstAu.aspx

None of these were from me, but I know the approximate time to get the sounds you hear for each piece was 20 hours with multiple layering of instruments, etc.

If you want some truly amazing sounds, check out the The FLying Dutchman here:

http://vsl.co.at/en/67/3920/4701.vsl

or some of the Rite of Spring Clips:

http://vsl.co.at/en/67/3920/4700.vsl#

Some very serious time was put in to create these....

[Tom Waid]

This works with Sibelius 5. I can only assume that it is the same with Sibelius 6. Go to "playback devices" in the "play" menu and make sure you are using KontaktPlayer.

[xoidufn]

Thanks, everyone, for the responses and interesting discussion.

I would like to point out I don't expect things to be perfect. But when a few notes are 60 percent louder than the surrounding notes, it tends to pull you out of your score, and it gets a little old to keep tweaking the same 2-3 pitches over and over. Supposedly the new search filters are pretty detailed, so I may be able to just search each piece for the offending pitches and lower their volume.

I may, as a long=term fix, figure out which .wav file produces the extra LOUD notes and reduce its overall volume, if nothing else, so I can be done with a one-time time fix. I suppose the reason I don't like the bass bone sound below the staff is simply because a lot of the arranging I do is of fairly legato and lyric stuff, and it's not nice having "Jonny Blattweasel" playing fourth in your quartet arrangement of Debussy, lol.

I do understand these things aren't going to come even close to real performers, and I don't have much interest in making the software do that. But it would be nice if the instrument sound out of the (rather expensive) box had an even tone quality and volume, even if clearly artificial.

That said, compared to writing on paper and my banging away at the piano, the latest versions of Sibelius or Finale are pretty delightful and tend to give you a good idea of whether your stuff is working before you drag it into your group.

Thx, all.
X

[xoidufn]

Okay, in case anyone else wants to try this:

You can edit the sound files in a decent sound editor.

However: The file you edit must be the exact same length when you are finished. Not size. Length of how long the sample plays. So if you try some cutting and pasting, be sure not to trim or extend the orig. length of the file.

I fixed a lot of the problem notes from F below the staff down to C by putting a bit of "fade-in" on the first second of the attack to reduce the slap-tongue sound. I also rolled off some of the highs and a bit of mid-range to get a more characteristic tuba sound, less bass boney. It took about a half hour, and well worth it for me. I also discovered the A below the staff has a delay problem with the attack. It's not too bad with long pitches, but if you are using that note for eighths and sixteenths at a moderate or faster tempo, you definitely get an annoying syncopated hitch in the words, or if too fast, it doesn't really sound at all. I fixed that with a little cut and paste work.

Just saying. If anyone on the PC side would like me to e-mail them with a zipped file with the 12 replacement wav files, glad to do it. I'd suggest you place your orig. wav files in a safety folder so if for some reason something doesn't work or you prefer the blatty orig., you can restore them.

Thanks!
Xoid

[Todd S. Malicoate]

The day that midi sounds like a real tuba is the day we are all out of a job.

Poppycock. There are plenty of drummers, pianists, and string players doing fine. I will agree that the advent of acceptable computer-generated music has hurt the studio scene, however.