For years I have been using Sibelius 4 on both Windows and Mac. Here is the process that I used to go through each time I started a new song:
- Create a set of themes or one main theme and get excited enough about it to want to put it into a full orchestral score.
- Load up Sibelius and create the score.
- Load up Kontakt 2.
- Load the instruments in Kontakt 2 so they correspond to the instruments I am using in the score.
- Map each staff with its appropriate instrument via MIDI channels.
- Fine tune each instrument to get the sound that I desire from it.
- Sit down and do a test to make sure all of the instruments are mapped and configured properly by having them play a scale or something of the sort.
- Finally start inputting the theme.
- In most cases give up because I no longer have the drive to go through with the project as I did 30 minutes to an hour earlier when I was first starting up Sibelius.
Needless to say, when Snow Leopard came about I ended up with my computer crashing quite often due to compatibility issues with Kontakt 2 and Sibelius 4. This is a major reason why I drifted away from doing film score and toward my smaller ensembles that I have been working with recently. I did create templates for Kontakt 2 and Sibelius, but small things like accidentally leaving the mixer open in Sibelius 4 or just changing the impulse in Kontakt 2′s convolution filter will either crash the program and require me to reset all of my audio devices or completely kill the window manager on my Mac.
Today I have finally upgraded to Sibelius 6.1. The sound libraries I was using before have been upgraded to work with Sibelius 6.1. Needless to say, I have had very little issues with it. But probably the most stunning aspect is how this has changed my workflow. Now when I start a project, it goes as follows:
- Create a set of themes or one main theme and get excited enough about it to want to put it into a full orchestral score
- Start up Sibelius and create the score
- Start writing the piece
- Fine tune the instruments while the piece progresses.
Suddenly a process that used to be upwards of one and a half hours due to computer issues has become just a couple of minutes.
Unfortunately I haven’t had much of a chance to use Sibelius 6 except for about half an hour today. I do, however, have a small sample of music that I ran through Sibelius 6. Here is a quick and dirty rendering of Celebration of Life. Absolutely no changes were made to the score. I just simply opened the score and recorded it to test Sibelius 6. With a little bit of fine tuning, I could probably get my old sound back.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
[MP3]
