Ok this is probably more of a Sibelius issue than a VD, but I am having SOME trouble during playback with the dynamics. The keyword being some... For example it will play the 1st part of the music with cres. decres. accents etc. and all the sudden it will just stop (at a certain point everytime) playing all articulations and just "ram" through the rest. If I start the playback from that point it won't have the problem. It's only when the music is played in it's entirety. Just wondering if anyone could shed some light on this for me. Thanks a lot.


P.S. I am running Sibelius 3 on a 3 ghz processor, sound blaster audigy, 512 ram and Vitual Drumline...

Rob - This problem has to do with how Sibelius interprets accents and hairpins. In both cases, Sibelius creates a midi velocity setting for each note. Accents get a higher velocity. Hairpins alter velocity over the entire span of the hairpin. Seems that the hairpin will negate the accent-to-tap velocity relationships, which can result in some goofy playback.

In such cases, I generally select all taps (unaccented notes) that occur during the hairpin, then reduce their velocities with Sibelius' Live Velocity Playback feature. Your Sib3 manual should give you the details. I simply command-click all these notes, then apply the velocity setting in one fell swoop (in the 'playback' area of the 'properties' pallette). I usually set taps somewhere around 66 or so depending on the music.

It's one extra step, but is fairly simple and does the trick for me!

Rob,

Just as a side, Sibelius has a system for assigning velocities to notes that makes a lot of sense for wind instruments. Of course, that's problematic for us. Sib 3 offers more control by allowing a user to globally select velocity for markings like p/mp/mf/f/etc.

One thing that's not allowed to be changed, yet, is how an accent and marcato affect velocity. They are set values of +25 and +44 respectively. This means that when you're playing something ff, giving notes approximately 117 for a velocity, you won't get much movement; you're already nearly maxed out. In your case when you have the velocity of a hairpin, notes can go up the scale faster than you may expect.

My 2c -

-Mat