Will Kontackt Player Silver work for using Virtual Drumline with a laptop?

No. The new version of Sibelius (with Kontakt Player silver, or upgraded to gold), will NOT allow you to load in third party samples.

We suggest you contact Sibelius at: infoUSA@sibelius.com and request this feature for future editions. Simply tell them you're very interested in being able to load outside libraries into their Kontakt Player. It's a long shot that they'd add this feature, but the more people who request it, the more they'll take it seriously.

If not, you'd have to have a sampler program to load the sounds into as on a laptop, there are no soundcards that are soundfont compatible. We'd reccommend checking out KOMPAKT by Native instruments as it's much less expensive than KONTAKT.

In that case, I already have Finale 2002 and may upgrade to 2004. If I use Kompakt as my sampler to load VD sounds into, will I be good to go or is there some other software I will need?

You should be good to go!

The only other aspect you'll need to do is 'link' the two programs together so Finale will see Kompakt as a MIDI device. If you are working on a PC, we recommend you use the (free) program Maple Midi Tools for this. On Mac OS9, this is done through OMS, and on OSX it's done with a (free) program called Midi Patchbay.

Let us know which operating system you're on, and we can forward you some more step-by-step details on setting up this configuration. It seems a little tricky the first time, but once you've got it up and running, it's a breeze!

I would like that help as well, if possible. I have Finale 2003 with Kompkat and I just (today) bought the Oxygen 8 MIDI keyboard. I have a laptop. Thanks for the help...this kind of support kicks butt!

Jeremy Vest

Here's the process for getting your Finale or Sibelius program to access sounds from Kompakt via Maple Midi Tools.

Maple Midi Tools is a free program, and will serve as the link between your notation program and Kompakt. Here's how you do it:

1.) Go to http://www.marblesound.com/ and download the free "Maple Midi Tools". Install it.

2.) In Maple's "Midi Settings" window, click the button that says, "accept input from sequencer or scoring program" then click "OK." Keep Maple running in the background.

3.) Launch Kompakt and load each of your desired Virtual Drumline Samples and assign them to apporpriate (and unique) channels (ie: channel 1 = snares, channel 2 = tenors, etc.) Note, Kompakt should load the Gigastudio formatted files, and it is recommended you use these as they are a bit more versatile than the SoundFont versions.

4.) In Kompakt, setup your MIDI settings so that "MarbleSound Midi Port 1" is the "Input." It's advised that you save this configuration for future use. Keep Kompakt AND MapleMidi running in the background as well while you are working in your notation program.

5.) Now open your notation program (Sibelius or Finale) and set up your MIDI settings there so that the staves you wish to access the Virtual Drumline soundfonts are set to send MIDI output to "MarbleSound Midi Port 1." Note: in Sibelius, prior to doing this, you may need to click the "reset sounds" button in the "mixer" window.

6.) Open the window where you set the MIDI channel/program settings for each staff (In Sibelius, this is the "mixer" window. In Finale, it's the "Instrument List" window). Here, you'll want to ensure that each staff coordinates to the same channel that it was set to in Kompakt (i.e. snares= channel 1, tenors = channel 2, etc.).

Note for Finale users: If you are hearing random general midi sounds when you try to input notes into Finale (rather than the loaded soundfonts), be sure to check and make sure the "Internal Speaker Playback" option from Finale is NOT selected.

Hope this helps!

Then we basically cannot make wav files and burn cds of these nice sounds when using Sibelius 3? Or is there another way?

Coach,

Yes, you can still make wav files, but not from directly in Sibelius. I believe this feature of Sibelius 3 will only use the Kontakt Silver Player component. If you are using sounds from another program, or your soundcard, I believe you still must create your wav files the "old fashioned way". There's some hints on this in another thread at:

https://www.tapspace.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12

Adam