onearmedbandit

Great, thank you very much for your advice Ken!

I have 7 too but I really don't like composing on it. I usually use 3 to compose and then 7 to spruce the score up. Hmm, I must be able to find out somewhere if 3 accepts it. It certainly accepts other external sound sets like soundfonts and that sort of thing. Maybe I'll try posting on a Sibelius forum about that. What do you think of this? http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/AudioBoxUSB

Hi Ken, the Garritan Jazz & Big Band library looks like it might be very good for me (since that's mostly what I compose/arrange). Do you happen to know if it is compatible with Sibelius 3?

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Thanks! Yeah, I think you're right - I do want both a sound card and a sample library.

Hey everyone I used to be very active on this forum, years ago. It's nice to see it going strong Basically, I've got a pretty basic set up for both composing and recording and I've decided to splash out a bit on some new equipment. I'm actually perfectly happy with my composing and recording software (Sibelius and Cool Edit Pro respectively), but for hardware I've really no idea where to start. My main priorities are: 1. To have half-decent synthesized sounds (at the moment I use software-loaded sound fonts - they're a step up from General MIDI, but I know there's way, way better out there) 2. To be able to record with a jack lead (an XLR input would be a bonus) Would an external sound card be able to help with both of these? What sort of things do I need to consider? I guess I could stretch up to say £100 for this. If you have any suggestions I'd be really grateful! Oh and also... if you read this and think I really don't have a clue and need a basic education in this stuff, feel free to say so (politely!) and point me in the direction of a learning resource :) Thank you!

Thanks for that. Very useful stuff :) My 2 biggest scoring problems in big band (or any jazz band) has always been piano and drums. Hopefully this should help! Out of interest... your "peace on earth" signature - Dr. Strangelove?

Hey all, thanks a lot for your responses. Robinjessome - you're totally right about the rhythms. It's something I try to avoid but unfortunately I'm in a bad habit of doing it! I'll look at that alto part you mentioned but I'm not sure there's anywhere else it could go at that point, except maybe down the octave, as those notes are covered by the 1st trumpet anyway. jdrcomposer - thanks :D doovongeman - I agree with your critique. It was never my intention for the piano part to play those notes. It's just difficult for me to notate what a pianist would actually play. Do you think I should notate a more improvised-sounding piano part with instructions to ad lib?

I need to think of a better name for this piece, that's for sure. But anyway, I'm just looking for some preliminary feedback on a new piece I'm doing. It's supposed to be quite straightforward and clich swing4.pdf swing4.mid

This is great. Nice job :) That's about all I have to say...

OK I've managed to do it :D Hooray. Thanks for the help, everyone....

Nope... is there another way to make Sibelius files into PDFs? Alternatively I could just save the pages as jpegs and put it in a zip file.

I am, but when I try to open the file, GSview won't recognise it

By the way I seem to have trouble using the ghost printer thing to make a .pdf :( I followed all the instructions...

Hi Glenn, thanks for your thoughtful comments. I'll respond to each: 1. Ah, I haven't quite finished doing the saxomophone parts for this part of the piece, although I was planning on keeping them as triplets. I quite like the rhythm they play, but the notes aren't right yet. Hopefully when I've tweaked it it'll sound better. I'd be interested to know what you think. 2. I agree completely, but that's exactly what I was going for. I wanted to bring the energy right down for this section. I guess that's just a question of style & taste. 3. Well it may just be my MIDI sounds, but it sounded a bit muddy with the 4th trombone part in there. I'll think about putting it in. 4. I'll try that & see how it sounds.