Tweaking Sibelius-Sounds - Part 1 - Inspector

[wizzarts]

Unfortunately we can not do much about the sounds itself. But we can change settings individually per note in the inspector.

First we should enable Live-playback. No matter whether or not you have recorded via life-recording.

When we select a note we will see the following settings in the inspector:



There are 3 settings regarding to the life-playback which are very interesting:

Live velocity

When recording a passage this values will represent the key-velocity with which the notes are played during the recording. Every note got its own individual value. So actually it is exactly what you have played.
When entering notes in stepwrite-mode the value will be a default for every note. I myself prefer step-writing. Being that I do not have to clean up the score afterwards I am much faster. Also the default value gives me more flexibility.

Live start position

Beside where you have placed the note you can alter the start position of the sound of a note with +/- values. The note itself will not be moved.

Live duration

Live duration alters the duration (how it comes?) of the sound of a note but not the appearance of the note itself.

These settings are very helpful to adjust key-velocity for ie. staccato-notes, to separate notes a bit to give them more transparency, etc.



This example shows a little phrase for trumpet. Please open the picture in a new window and follow the phrases while playing the soundcloud-file.

https%3A//soundcloud.com/andrew-noah-cap/example-2

I would like to invite you to play around with those settings to get a feeling what can be done and what cannot be done.

[Joseph]

Andy, this is pretty granular stuff (though I'm sure only the beginning of what might be done). Is there a cross-over with what might be accomplished by using the dictionary definitions? Joseph

[wizzarts]

Well, both the dictionary and the inspector will help tweaking the sounds. The dictionary is more a adjustment in general while the inspector helps tweaking the details.

Use the dictionary as long as possible. Use articulations where ever they are needed. Do not add articulation just to make it sound better with the playback.

Depending on the style human musicians will interprete phrases individually. To simulate those all tweaking should be invisible.

Here is an example for some more testing:



As you can see adjusting only the staccato in the dictionary would be not enough to make it sound more like played by a human.

I would also shorten the quarter a bit and set the first 32th startpoint to -20 and would add to the duration +20 while rising the velocity to 96. Also the following 32th got the same velocity which doesn't sound so good. So this should be corrected as well.

The more you go into detail the more work.

I would say only tweak a score when some phrases are prominent or things are really annoying.

[Joseph]

OK Andy, let me see if I understand. In order to make the 32nds sound more natural take a bit (a bit, that's like my grandmother telling me how much salt goes in the gravy) off of the note just before the run then start the 32nd run early (thank you for defining this) but give it more strength (to 96 from I assume 80 based on your previous posts). Any suggestions for the staccato 16th notes? Joseph

[wizzarts]

Hi Joseph,

So far you got it right. In the romantic style the first note of a run had more weight and is also broader.

Playing staccato is always a thing of timing. So we should alter the start-position and the duration individually. Also the sound and the pitch is changing from note to note. When it comes to a certain speed wind instruments switch to double- and triple-tongue, - spoken as Ta-Ka or Ti-Ti-Ka. So we should pay attention on the Ka and reduce the velocity, - and being that the note after Ka always comes a bit earlier we should move the start-position.

If you have the chance to record your voice saying Ta-Ka-Ta-Ka (for a minute or so) and then play it slow-motion you will hear all those things we should think about when tweaking staccato note-repetition, - Bad timing, bad sound sometimes, different duration of the notes etc.

I hope this helps
Sometimes it is enough to alter only a few notes.

[Joseph]

Jun 13, 2013 20:05:58 GMT wizzarts said:

". . . When it comes to a certain speed windinstruments switch to double- and tripletounge, - spoken as Ta-Ka or Ti-Ti-Ka . . ."

an interesting aside, there was a brass teacher back in university who had modified the triple tongue technique to be ta-ka-ta - ka-ta-ka  suggesting better speed but IMO harder to master!