PDF and MP3 links to the competition

[allanh]

Not too happy with the Note Performer playback of my piece. Seems it cannot differentiate between slurs and phrase marks. Some phrase marks are played as slurs and some 'tongued' so to speak. Also I have a lot of note durations set on specific notes and they are simply not there. Just long notes instead of short. It simply does not play articulations as I have set them in Sibelius and hairpins are a hit or a miss, some played, some not, but all played in Sibelius. I also felt the piano part was too soft, but not when I played back in Sibelius.

Maybe if I had written the piece using Note Performer, (which I do not have), I could have set these differently. But quite frankly, the piece you hear is quite simply not the piece that I heard when writing it.

Sorry to be such a moan, but I am still contemplating withdrawing from the competition.

Allan

[Kevin]

Allan,

Apologies, I will re enter your score using your settings.

[allanh]

No Kevin. Just leave it as it is for now.

Allan

[Kevin]

May 4, 2014 12:28:21 GMT allanh said:

No Kevin. Just leave it as it is for now.

Allan

Just changed it! Let me know if it is okay Allan.

[Deleted]

I notice that note performer has a very 'quiet' oboe voice. That means that in my entry one could barely hear the oboe. If it is not too much effort, would it be possible to make the oboe a little bit louder or reduce the piano's volume a little bit?

[allanh]

about an hour ago allanh said:
No Kevin. Just leave it as it is for now.

Allan


Just changed it! Let me know if it is okay Allan.

Kevin

Would you please withdraw my entry in this competition as it is now quite obvious what my piece is and the competition is meant to be anonymous.

Also, the revised playback you refer to above - I did write a piano part!!!!!

Allan

[Joseph]

we have been learning about the idiosyncrasies of using NP within Sibelius. I would not suggest taking a score marked up using embedded expressions, etc. in Sibelius and blindly creating a playback via NP. There is conflict in the software. NP likes its own interpretations and doesn't look kindly on others. Allan, you'd need to remove the instructions you so meticulously placed in the score. On the positive side, I am finding NP does a pretty good job right out of the box interpreting what you write. it just doesn't play well with others. I think my grade school teachers would have given it an NI rather than an E or even an S. Recognizing it is still only at version 1, I expect it will continue to improve its relationships. Joseph

[John Biggs]

I can understand Allan's frustration totally. Fortunately I didn't spend too much time on my composition - but if Allan has, and it gets that sort of audio representation it must be very disappointing. I feel too that my piece does not come out that well - and the balance between piano and oboe is poor. In sibelius it sounds fine. I did try to address my concerns about this in the previous war string composition. What's wrong with submitting your own audio? I'd rather do that - than feel the audio is misrepresented.

[ceg]

Please don't spit your dummy out of the pram Allan, even if you don't think that the version that Kevin put up on SoundCloud is representative of how you think it would sound if performed by human beings.

The competition is being judged by an Oboist and a Pianist - I'm assuming that each will at least play through the oboe and piano parts respectively as part of the judging process. I know that I certainly plan to look through the PDF files before casting my vote.

You also say that it is no longer "anonymous" - but that is only true for those people that listened before Kevin put the revised version up. And there are other clues that might make people suspect particular contributors - note to self, make sure that you next title is in German... I'm not sure that it matters. It's not like the Eurovision Song Contest, I'll vote for the piece that I think is the best, and hope that others will do so too.

So please reconsider your withdrawal Allan.

It's interesting that quite a few people are less than fully satisfied with the MP3 versions (like a couple of other people, I think that my piano part is too soft, though at least one person commented on the "very 'quiet'" oboe sound of Note Performer!). Maybe we should start a separate thread on this matter, on how to get the best out of Sibelius playback, with or without NP or DAWs, and how to get the most consistent playback when (as here) we're not in control of the playback set-up. It would be interesting to get feedback from Arne Wallander on this subject, as obviously his software aims to improve on what comes out of the box from Sibelius.