Music editing - MuseScore

[Dave2002]

You need to have a virtual instrument to play them in Reaper (or most other DAW)
Garageband is mostly virtual instruments so will work straight away.

Do you have any suggestions for reasonable virtual instruments (or collections of them), which are not astronomically expensive? If the plugins are going to cost a lot, it might even be simpler, easier to buy a DAW such as Logic Pro, which would presumably have them built in.

I did a search for virtual instruments and plug-ins. Looks like there are hundreds available, but not necessarily what I want, or perhaps just not affordable. My guess is that if one gets into this sort of thing in a big way, and becomes more familiar with the technology, then one might be interested in buying/installing more expensive plug-ins.

[MrGongGong]

Do you have any suggestions for reasonable virtual instruments (or collections of them), which are not astronomically expensive? If the plugins are going to cost a lot, it might even be simpler, easier to buy a DAW such as Logic Pro, which would presumably have them built in.

I did a search for virtual instruments and plug-ins. Looks like there are hundreds available, but not necessarily what I want, or perhaps just not affordable. My guess is that if one gets into this sort of thing in a big way, and becomes more familiar with the technology, then one might be interested in buying/installing more expensive plug-ins.

You probably have a General MIDI (GM) set of sounds already
and the Garageband sounds can be played by other DAW's
you just need to work out how to get the DAW to find them ... I don't use them myself but there is probably a SCAN option

or I think this might tell you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo3RJHsZijk

[Dave2002]

I have music to write so only watched the start
but this seems to sum up what I hate about Sibelius 7
I'm sticking to V6


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKx1wnXClcI

I've now downloaded Sibeius First, which comes with a 30 day evaluation of the larger package. The user interface is as horrible as that video points out. I got the system going - then looked at it and thought "what the **** do I do next?" - just as the guy in the video mentioned.

Maybe the system will do things that I don't know - only just got it going, but at first glance it doesn't look too helpful. Unlike MuseScore, the Sibelius package does observe dynamics in a way for simulated playback - though it's pretty crude. Why there isn't an obvious feature to mute individual lines or "tracks" I can't imagine. Maybe that feature is there, but not obvious.

The sounds produced by the virtual instruments are different, but still pretty poor overall. As a means of getting improved notation it's probably OK - though is it really so much better than MuseScore?

[MrGongGong]

I've now downloaded Sibeius First, which comes with a 30 day evaluation of the larger package. The user interface is as horrible as that video points out. I got the system going - then looked at it and thought "what the **** do I do next?" - just as the guy in the video mentioned.

Maybe the system will do things that I don't know - only just got it going, but at first glance it doesn't look too helpful. Unlike MuseScore, the Sibelius package does observe dynamics in a way for simulated playback - though it's pretty crude. Why there isn't an obvious feature to mute individual lines or "tracks" I can't imagine. Maybe that feature is there, but not obvious.

The sounds produced by the virtual instruments are different, but still pretty poor overall. As a means of getting improved notation it's probably OK - though is it really so much better than MuseScore?

The generic way to select what is played in Sibelius is to simply select a bar (or bars) of which instruments you want to play.
OR use the mixer

The sounds depend on which audio engine you are using. The Sibelius sounds are generally "better" than the GM ones BUT if you really want it to sound better you have to spend time playing about with it. I don't bother as I know that an orchestral bass drum roll doesn't sound like the double pedal death metal drummer that you get with GM.

And YES it really is much much better than MuseScore
If you want something to PLAY music get Ableton, Logic, Digital Performer etc etc
Sibelius is a notation programme IMV the sounds are a guide.

[Richard Barrett]

Sibelius is a notation programme IMV the sounds are a guide.

It used to be that some kind of ability to hear the sounds inwardly was a prerequisite for using musical notation. Now that this is (sort of) no longer the case, it's easy to get into the situation of thinking that the sounds the computer puts out are what the music should sound like (especially when you get into making them sound as "realistic" as possible), so that when people play it what they're effectively being asked to do is imitate the computer. If what you want is something that sounds good out of the machine, then you're effectively not writing the music for people to play any more. Which in itself is fine of course, electronic music has a distinguished history. But it's something to be clear about.

[MrGongGong]

It used to be that some kind of ability to hear the sounds inwardly was a prerequisite for using musical notation. Now that this is (sort of) no longer the case, it's easy to get into the situation of thinking that the sounds the computer puts out are what the music should sound like (especially when you get into making them sound as "realistic" as possible), so that when people play it what they're effectively being asked to do is imitate the computer. If what you want is something that sounds good out of the machine, then you're effectively not writing the music for people to play any more. Which in itself is fine of course, electronic music has a distinguished history. But it's something to be clear about.

That touches on one of my favourite rants along the lines of
"why on earth would I want to try and get my computer to sound like a clarinet when there are plenty of clarinets in the world already?"


Yes, I know there are practical reasons BUT, as RB says, being clear about whether the music happens when you push SAVE_AS or whether it happens when people in a room play it is vital IMV......NOT that there is anything wrong with making electronic music

There's an article in the latest "Organised Sound" that touches on this and the way that as music (in England) education has moved from music being a "thinking" to a more "practical" subject the ability to develop compositional imagination (Audiation ) has become lost. I think it's an unintended consequence, I wouldn't go back to the days of "O Level Musicology" where we made NO sounds at all. But, as we all probably know, the days of music education are numbered for many youngsters....

[Dave2002]

Absolutely agree with the general comments in both the above posts.

Sibelius is a notation programme IMV the sounds are a guide.

Listening to these tools - Sibelius, MuseScore, Other ... "play" the scores is dire. Just a guide. Sometimes people have put in more effort and got the scores to sound maybe a tenth of the way (nah...) decent, but the defaults are pretty dreadful. However, if treated as a way to check out the score for performers these tools can be helpful.

There is no flexibllity in timing, rhythm, phrasing and the dynamics (Sibelius) are very stepped and crude - though perhaps crescendo, diminuendo would work.

There is another issue re Sibelius (and probably many similar programs) re lock-in. If there isn't a stand alone version available, so only subscription versions can be bought, then people might be locked-in to a subscription they don't really need any more, simply in order to keep their scores available. I noticed recently a comment about people who'd previously produced Sibelius files (.sib) who could no longer print them if they'd let their subscription lapse. If that's the case, it's one more reason why I don't like the subscription model which is being pushed hard by some money grabbing companies.

[Richard Barrett]

people might be locked-in to a subscription they don't really need any more, simply in order to keep their scores available

Well no, you save your score as a pdf and then anyone can view it or print it out, or you can if you like export Sibelius files as MusicXML which can be read by other notation software.

[MrGongGong]

There is no flexibllity in timing, rhythm, phrasing and the dynamics (Sibelius) are very stepped and crude - though perhaps crescendo, diminuendo would work.

I don't think you have found how to do this yet. Sibelius is very good at this and NOT crude at all.

There is another issue re Sibelius (and probably many similar programs) re lock-in. If there isn't a stand alone version available, so only subscription versions can be bought, then people might be locked-in to a subscription they don't really need any more, simply in order to keep their scores available. I noticed recently a comment about people who'd previously produced Sibelius files (.sib) who could no longer print them if they'd let their subscription lapse. If that's the case, it's one more reason why I don't like the subscription model which is being pushed hard by some money grabbing companies.

You can buy an old version that isn't subscription model... it's what most composers I know use.
Sibelius is backwards compatible so you can always SAVE_AS a previous version, which is what I would always ask students to do.

[Dave2002]

Again - thanks to both of you for the responses. Of course it's possible to circumvent the issues which might arise from subscriptions, but maybe not everyone figures this out, which is probably what some vendors rely on. Odd how paper still tends to be the most robust method for archiving - though we should use that as well as other methods. I draw the line at using a chisel and a stone.

[Dave Payn]

I use Noteperformer 3 for Sibelius 7.5. Works for me and an improvement on Sibelius Sounds (to my ears, anyway)

[Dave2002]

I use Noteperformer 3 for Sibelius 7.5. Works for me and an improvement on Sibelius Sounds (to my ears, anyway)

I suspect it's a lot better than the virtual orchestra inside Sibelius. There's more here - https://soundcloud.com/noteperformer

Some of the pieces are quite good - but still nothing like a real orchestra. However much better than the inbuilt sounds I think. I quite liked the Tchaikovsky 5, and the Sibelius 2. The Mendelssohn violin concerto sounds real at first, but the violinist is no David Oistrakh!

Avid's approach to Sibelius is a pain. I spent some while trying to find out about the different versions. The only version which has the features I particularly want is the Ultimate edition - things like Invert, Retrograde are not in the cut down 16 stave version. I did ask about academic pricing, which might reduce the price by around 50% to £249 for a perpetual license. There's an approval process to go through. At full price, as a mere amateur it's not worth my while - though having said that maybe some professional composers don't make enough money to justify the full cost either.

The user interface to Sibelius is, as mentioned in a couple of posts and a video above (post 26), truly dreadful. On the other hand I don't think Dorico, which reportedly is much better re UI, has the specific features which I might find useful, so it might be worth putting up with an awful interface in order to get the useful features.

The suggestion to get a "used" version of an earlier version of Sibelius may make a lot of sense.

[Beresford]

Does MuseScore allow you to import (or input from a keyboard) a simple midi file, and convert it to a score, then transpose and print?

Or is that the realm of different software?

[MrGongGong]

I suspect it's a lot better than the virtual orchestra inside Sibelius. There's more here - https://soundcloud.com/noteperformer

I think you have some fundamental misunderstandings about how these things work.
Sibelius has various sets of instruments depending on which version you have , it will also play GM (General MIDI) sounds and other "virtual" instruments.
If you play about you CAN get the Sibelius sounds to sound "better" (tweak the Eq, change the reverb settings etc etc) but that's not really what it does.
If you want something to play your music then you need to invest time (and money) in things that do that. Just like getting any instrument.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

A film score that I part orchestrated in the noughties revealed just how good virtual instruments can sound. On hearing the film soundtrack, I felt something wasn’t quite right, but eventually realised it was an orchestra of sampled sounds. It was far nearer to the sound of a real orchestra than I’d thought possible.