Fast Staccato Passages Muddy

Description

Repeated staccato (or other short articulations) at moderate to fast tempos are muddy or not well defined.

Solution

When using the staccato (or other similar 'short' mark) articulation, Sibelius applies the staccato sound to each note individually, reverting to the default sound when the note ends. In cases where the staccato mark is present on multiple notes sequentially this means Sibelius is sending a reset instruction followed by another staccato instruction very rapidly.

The effects are most noticeable at faster tempos, and particularly for patches that use keyswitching or controller switching to trigger the staccato sound, and can cause a sort of pulsing or undefined attack because there is less time in between the notes (often, virtually none at all).

To work around this, it is recommended to use an appropriate text instruction (such as "staccato") to trigger repeating staccato or other short articulations at moderate to fast tempos since the text instruction will persist until you enter another text instruction that ends it. The result is the staccato and reset MIDI instructions are sent only once, at the beginning and end of the passage, respectively.

Last Modified: April 9, 2012