# Notation/orchestration from Cubase to Sibelius questions



## Ryan (Jul 22, 2012)

Hi

Next year I'm gonna compose for a symphony. This means that I need to do some notation and orchestration from Cubase into Sibelius. I'm more of the sequencer type of guy, but I really need to learn some basic tricks to get my sequenced score into Sibelius where I could start to do some cleaning and real notation. Does any one have some video-tips, books, personal experience they want to shear with me? 

I would be most grateful for any kind of user experience. 

I know there are some books that covers this subject, but I would like to hear some thoughts from you guys. 
I've started to read some books on writing for strings etc, but I need more!!

I think I saw a video by Mike P. (Cinesamples) for a while ago where he shows us from muck-up to real orchestra. I sort of want a more detailed video/book like that, if its possible. 

Finally I got the chance to compose for a real orchestra :D gonna be awesome! 

Best Regards
Ryan


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## Daryl (Jul 22, 2012)

Not to be argumentative, but if you are writing for a real orchestra, while on earth would you use Cubase at all? Just type directly into Sibelius.

BTW Mike P. might take offense at being accused of writing a "muck-up". :lol: 

D


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## Ryan (Jul 22, 2012)

Thanks Daryl. But not the answer I was looking for

I like to sequence before I use Sibelius. As I'm a noob at orchestration in the first place.


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## arnau (Jul 22, 2012)

I do this only when transcribing music for picture, no when I write concert music (then I go directly to Sibelius):

Import MIDI into Sibelius. Select the Minimun duration value in Notation. Tip: if you have several values, for exemple a lot of 8ths but several 16th, you can import the same MIDI file twice with these different values and copy from each one as needed, 
Then apply several plugins: 
1. Re-notate performance
2. Combine tied notes and rests (specially if you are transcribing strings played in one track)
3. remove overlapping notes.
With these plugins you can clean a lot, but always you have to check carefully and rewrite some stuff. There is not a PERFECT solution. This is the fastest for me and I can tell you I've done this quite often...

What I do next is: open my template score on the left monitor, then the clean MIDI on the right so I can copy from right to left selecting the material I need in each situation. For example, you can have several tracks of different articulations for violins on the right that you want to put together on the left...
I also have Cubase opened on the back so I can double-check. 

Hope this helps..
Arnau


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## Daryl (Jul 22, 2012)

Depending on the complexity of your music, you may find it quicker to clean it up, including explode where necessary, in the Cubase Score Editor, and then use the Score to MIDI function, export a MIDI file and then import that into Sibelius. Just be careful about leaving anything on Channel 10, because you may get results that you're not prepared for. :wink: 

D


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## sbkp (Jul 22, 2012)

This may also not be the answer you're looking for 

Orchestrating for a real orchestra isn't necessarily all that much like orchestrating for samples. It's easy to make things sound good in samples that will sound terrible (or just awkward, etc) played live. It's at least as easy to do that as it is to write stuff for live players that will sound terrible on samples, in my opinion.


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## mducharme (Jul 22, 2012)

I've actually been working with Cubase notation -> Sibelius notation with fairly decent results. I've been using the following method:

- Programmed VST expression maps for all instruments so I can have one track per stave (i.e. one track for violins 1, one track for violins 2, etc) and to use the appropriate articulation marks or text directions for the notes
- "Display quantize" through the Cubase score editor to simplify the notation and get rid of all sorts of weird values caused by not playing dead on the beat. This does not change the actual note start timing in the piano roll, it simply changes their display on the notation.
- Export via MusicXML and import into notation software (Sibelius/Finale) for clean-up

I am still tweaking the workflow somewhat but it does work. The imported notation from Cubase maintains tuplet markings, articulation marks, and directions, saving a lot of work.


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## doubleattack (Jul 22, 2012)

mducharme @ Sun 22 Jul said:


> I've actually been working with Cubase notation -> Sibelius notation with fairly decent results. I've been using the following method:
> 
> - Programmed VST expression maps for all instruments so I can have one track per stave (i.e. one track for violins 1, one track for violins 2, etc) and to use the appropriate articulation marks or text directions for the notes
> - "Display quantize" through the Cubase score editor to simplify the notation and get rid of all sorts of weird values caused by not playing dead on the beat. This does not change the actual note start timing in the piano roll, it simply changes their display on the notation.
> ...



I've worked the same way some times.
musicXML export from Cubase into Sibelius is an advantage in opposite to a midi-file.

The only annoying thing: From every page break I've got a keychange on every stave in Sibelius; didn't find no other solution than deleting them manually. (Any suggestions or tips)?

If you really want compose in Cubase with sequencing it's a possible workflow IMO.
After a trial Period using Sibelius 7 I switched back to compose directly in the notation program. I've worked a long long time with notator sl from good old atari; and I hated the notation programs, where you have stepping to hundreds menues to change one note. That's why I wrote two years directly in the piano roll of Cubase; it's very fast, but you must have a good memory without seeing the written score. And I'm getting an old man. :wink: 
So I'm relly really happy with Sibelius 7 now; it's great, simple and easy to use. 
Seems to me, old user of Sib 6 aren't exited about. I'm lucky don't knowing about the older versions...


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## Daryl (Jul 22, 2012)

I still find the clean MIDI file the quickest way to do things. Articulations and dynamics will all have to be entered again, whether or not they were entered before an XML file export, because they just won't look good. By the time I've cleaned all that nonsense up, it would actually have been quicker for me to add them from scratch.

D


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## Amusics (Jul 22, 2012)

Although I'm not a Cubase user I thought this might be useful anyway. When I'm writing to include live players in my mocks ups, I find it often more productive if I can have my session open and Sibelius open at the same time. I've found midi clean up way too tedious and, especially with new libraries using special notes for specific effects, articulations, etc. it just seems to make more sense to look at it as I orchestrate into Sibelius. A good example of this is cinebrass's double tounging and triple Tounging.
This is also assuming your system can do that.
Also Id like to reiterate that sample orchestration and live are totally different worlds.
Almost would be worth just writing with piano sounds rather than Sibelius sounds, let the imagination do the timbres.


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## Steve Martin (Jul 22, 2012)

Hi Ryan,

I use Sibelius as my notation program, and in the work I have done recently for a Xmas Carol CD, it was kind of done a lot differently than from what I would expect.

Instead of orchestrating in Sibelius, it started off in the studio. The singers would sing, and I would play along improvising an accompaniment on the keyboard. We would listen or decided which "take" we would use for the track. The improvising was all done to a click track from Cubase to keep everyone in time.

I then got the Cubase file, exported the midi piano track, and then orchestrated it from then on in Sibelius. Because the notes were played to a click track, most of the piano part shows up quite well, and then I was able to edit it's appearance if I needed to. Even though this is not what you are doing, I feel in order for you to export the Cubase composition in a midi file to open up in Sibelius, you should save a lot of work by keeping your played in parts in time with a midi click, and decide on a time signature also of your composition in Cubase, so that when you export it to Sibelius as a midi file, it will come up with the time signature when you open it up. If you want to make changes to the time signature, you could do this in Cubase, or do it later in Sibelius.

Once you open up the midi file in Sibelius, you will need to check the opening midi file options that will come up - and you will need to decide what is the smallest note value you wish to use as a default value for what you want to see. So click on the notation tab to do this. If you were playing 16th notes, and you want these to show up in the score as such, remember to check that box. Because live playing will not be exactly on the beat, if you choose anything smaller than this, you could end up with 32nd notes where you actually played 16th notes because of the live playing not being exactly in time with the beat. If you have notes smaller than this in value, and do not want a whole score with a mix of 32nd and 16th notes, one way to solve this is to open up the midi file choosing either 8th or 16th notes as a default value, then open up the midi score again choosing 32nd notes as a default value, and you could copy paste in the bars that use those small values back into your first midi file opening so you don't have the difficulty of fixing up the values of notes that were originally 8th or 16th notes appearing as 32nd notes, because they were not exactly on the beat.

You may also run into ties being not where they are meant to be simply because you extended the value of a note during a bar, so that it accidentally went over the last beat into the 1st beat of the next bar, and so, using a larger default value such as 8th or 16th notes, should help somewhat. 

If you have triplets in your original Cubase played in score, you could also option that in the note values when you open the midi in Sibelius, and I recommend ticking the "simple" box [or something like that I think it was]. You have the option for triplets being 3,6,9,5,7 and 10, and the basic choices are: none [no triplets at all], simple, moderate and complex. Simple should get you want you want out of triplets, but, again, you may have to open up two different versions of the same score, as if any of your notes could possibly be interpreted by the program as triplets because all of the notes may not have been all evenly divided over the beat. You may have to experiment with some of these to find what is best for you.

Another thing, if you are happy with the notes staying as they are, in that they will not exactly start on the beat because they come from a live performance, that's fine. You can also edit the timings of the notes by highlighting the score or part that you wish to do this to, and then go to the "play" tab, and select "Transform Live Playback", and you can edit the timing of the notes in this menu.

A quick way to get notes all staring right on the beat, is to select the passage, and click on the small ticked box [that is if you are using Sibelius 6 - not sure about that other versions - I have Sib 6 and 7], and click on the "playback" part, and then put a tick onto the "live start position" and type in a zero. This will make all of the notes play back from the exact start of the notation as indicated in the score.

I'm not sure if this will be helpful to you, so, let me know if you have any questions relating to what I have written here.

best,

Steve


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## doubleattack (Jul 23, 2012)

Daryl @ Sun 22 Jul said:


> I still find the clean MIDI file the quickest way to do things. Articulations and dynamics will all have to be entered again, whether or not they were entered before an XML file export, because they just won't look good. By the time I've cleaned all that nonsense up, it would actually have been quicker for me to add them from scratch.
> 
> D



I can't confirm this. 

Using the Cubase expression maps you get all articulations in a good looking way after export, even the dynamics. The magnetic layout in Sib 7 helps a lot here.
The one and only mess are the shown keychanges in Sib coming from the page breaks in Cubase. That's the only mess I've got from my imports.
Maybe you've tried xml export long time ago with older Sib versions? (Sib 7 has an improved xml-import.) 

Anyway, writing directly in the notion program is for notation the fastest way for shure. But sometimes you'll get good ideas fiddeling around your pitch material and that's done in a sequencer more easy. So I can understand such wishes.


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## Daryl (Jul 23, 2012)

doubleattack @ Mon Jul 23 said:


> Daryl @ Sun 22 Jul said:
> 
> 
> > I still find the clean MIDI file the quickest way to do things. Articulations and dynamics will all have to be entered again, whether or not they were entered before an XML file export, because they just won't look good. By the time I've cleaned all that nonsense up, it would actually have been quicker for me to add them from scratch.
> ...


Yes, but there is the huge caveat. You are using the Expression Maps. I'm not, and none of the people I work with/for are either. Also putting dynamics and copious expression markings in a Cubase score is very slow when compared with the same task in Sibelius.

D


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## Ryan (Jul 23, 2012)

Hi!
woauw!!! This is why i love this forum. 

First off I want to thank you all for so many great tips, tricks and shared experience. By reading all this I definitly get some sort of idea of how it works. I sat down a bit with Sibelius today (Sibelius 7 by the way), and found out that there's light in the end of my tunnel. I will off course encounter some stuff that needs more expertize in Sibelius. That I could handle. 

I did recently read in SOS about a ScoreCleaner by DoriMir (http://scorecleaner.com/)
Any one have any experience with that one? I'm downloading the trail now, just to check that one out as well. The SOS review came out pretty damn well, so that's why I'm gonna try it. 

Is it OK if I post a PDF of some work in the near future? So you guys could see if it's readable / playable in any sense?

Many Many Many thanks: o-[][]-o 
Steve Martin
Daryl
doubleattack
Amusics
mducharme
sbkp
arnau

Best
Kai-Anders Ryan


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## almound (Sep 1, 2015)

Ryan said:


> Hi
> 
> Next year I'm gonna compose for a symphony. This means that I need to do some notation and orchestration from Cubase into Sibelius. I'm more of the sequencer type of guy, but I really need to learn some basic tricks to get my sequenced score into Sibelius where I could start to do some cleaning and real notation. Does any one have some video-tips, books, personal experience they want to shear with me?
> Ryan


Check out how I do it.


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