Hi Jim....It's JJ. love the program!!! I am slowly but surely figuring this out as I am now having to start writing.

I am using a Mac, Finale and Kontakt
Here is my question: I have all my sounds loaded on the rack in kontakt. When I click with my mouse on the keyboard in kontakt i can hear all the sounds of the tenors, bass, cym, etc. But When I hit my midi keyboard, it will only play the snare sounds. In finale the keyboard will only trigger snare sounds.

What am I missing?

JJ

PS: I notice you and your staff are great about answering these questions, no matter how big or small. i want to thank you and your staff for giving your time and answering all of these questions that i know I am almost embarrased to ask, because i know there is a simple answer and I am just a computer zero!

JJ,

Check to see that Kontakt has a different midi channel set for each instrument and that none are set to omni. Just click in the area under the word "Keyrange" for a pop-up menu.

- David

I said in my previous e-mail that I am using Kontakt. Sorry, I am actualy using Kompakt.

JJ

Hi JJ! No worries - I'm glad we have this as a place to exchange ideas and help season more Virtual Drumline pro's. Before you know it, you'll be an expert.

As David pointed out, it sounds as if your channels are set properly. In KOMPAKT, set Snares to channel 1, Tenors to channel 2, Basses to channel 3, and Cyms to channel 4. In Kompakt or Kontakt, channels are set on each instrument by clicking in the little box where it says "omni".

Then in Finale, go into the Instrument List window, and verify that Snares are on channel 1, tenors on channel 2, etc. It's also a good idea to have your MIDI Thru set to "smart" (access this in your midi menu).

One more thing: In Kompakt, go to the Setup menu, and click the MIDI button. Be sure your keyboard controller is set to "OFF" here for the input device. The only thing that should be set to "ON" would be the driver that's receiving info from Finale. Hope that makes sense.

Feel free to chime back in if you have other questions, or new discoveries to share!

Take care and good luck with getting this all going for the Lewisville show. Send us a demo once you're done! :)

Jim, That was helpful. Next question. When I'm on the tenor, bass, cymbal staff, I still hear Sanre sounds coming through as well.

Couple note entry things.

1) if I am in quads, why can't I get the keyboard to put the notes on the spaces i am playing. Even though the sounds change drums, the notes aer always placed on the same space on the staff.

2) Is the only way to enter notes where I have to have one finger on a number and one finger on the keyboard or can I play the stuff in with both hands?

Thanks again!!

[quote="jj.pipitone"]Jim, That was helpful. Next question. When I'm on the tenor, bass, cymbal staff, I still hear Sanre sounds coming through as well.[/quote]

Just so I understand correctly, on your tenor staff (for example) are you hearing a combination of tenors and snare, or ONLY snare? If it's a combination, check to be sure in Kompakt that your snare instrument isn't set to "OMNI", but rather it should be set to "1". This is the midi channel setting, that should correlate to your settings in Finale's instrument list window.

[quote="jj.pipitone"]Couple note entry things.

1) if I am in quads, why can't I get the keyboard to put the notes on the spaces i am playing. Even though the sounds change drums, the notes aer always placed on the same space on the staff.
[/quote]

Hmmm - I'm not sure I'm following you completely. Are you entering the midi pitches (on your midi keyboard) according to the VDrumline mapping? For example, C#5 is a RH Tenor drum 1 hit, F#4 is a RH Tenor drum 4 hit, A-nat4 is a LH drum 2 hit, etc. If you are doing this, and are using the Finale VDrumline template (which has this mapping pre-programmed), the notes should display on the correct spaces (without accidentals). Is this how your entering notes? You can of course, create your own customized percussion map in Finale if you have a more preferable way of inputing your pitches.

[quote="jj.pipitone"]
2) Is the only way to enter notes where I have to have one finger on a number and one finger on the keyboard or can I play the stuff in with both hands?
[/quote]

I think so. By playing the stuff in with both hands, do you mean both hands on the midi keyboard? Finale has that hyperscribe thing for entering notes in real-time, but you could end up with some pretty screwy rhythmic display. The trick with rudimental stuff is that it's pretty detail oriented. So it's important to input accurate pitch (for proper sample playback), as well as proper rhythm/articulation/sticking/etc (for playback AND printout).

Sibelius' input method is kind of reversed from Finale's that may be what you're looking for. Basically, you select your rhythmic value (i.e. 16th note), then you punch in your pitches on the midi keyboard. If you're creating long series of notes with the same rhythm, this can be a real time saver.

[quote="Jim Casella"][quote="jj.pipitone"]Couple note entry things.

1) if I am in quads, why can't I get the keyboard to put the notes on the spaces i am playing. Even though the sounds change drums, the notes aer always placed on the same space on the staff.
[/quote]

Hmmm - I'm not sure I'm following you completely. Are you entering the midi pitches (on your midi keyboard) according to the VDrumline mapping? For example, C#5 is a RH Tenor drum 1 hit, F#4 is a RH Tenor drum 4 hit, A-nat4 is a LH drum 2 hit, etc. If you are doing this, and are using the Finale VDrumline template (which has this mapping pre-programmed), the notes should display on the correct spaces (without accidentals). Is this how your entering notes? You can of course, create your own customized percussion map in Finale if you have a more preferable way of inputing your pitches.

I believe JJ your using the Oxygen 8 keyboard correct? If you are, I've found it's easiest to go up one octave when you first turn on the keyboard. That will give you the majority of your snare sounds, tenor sounds and bass sounds. That's what I'm doing, and I only need to do an octave change on the keyboard from there for very few things.

There's a way with Finale to enter a note value and have it hold until you change it, similar to Sibelius, but for the life of me I don't know how to turn it on (or off for that matter). I've turned it on by accident in the past, but don't know what I did to activate it. If this helps, I've only successfully turned it on in the bass and tenor voice.

On a side note, your school's concert at PASIC was AWESOME! The Dave Matthew's Band tune you did was killer. Is that available for sale anywhere?

Thanks for your help and for the kind words about the concert. e-mail me at jj.pipitone@verizon.net and we can talk more about the dave Mtthews chart.

JJ

JJ -

You might also check this out for the snare doubling problem. My hunch is that Kompakt is set to receive MIDI-IN from Maple as well as your midi keyboard's driver. I would suggest going into the Setup menu (in Kompakt), and making sure your midi keyboard driver is set to "OFF" for the midi input. In using with finale, the only thing that should say "ON" here is the maple driver's your using for finale to access kompakt.

Let me know if this helps.

JJ

To "play in" rhythms in Finale, push caps lock to the on position. Then, push the number of the rhtyhm you want (ex. 3 for 16th notes) and then play the pattern on the keyboard. It will notate all of the notes you play in. I have found this method great for long keyboard runs and tenor and bass drum licks. The only problem I have found is that you have to turn the caps off to input rests.


Hope this helps.

This is such a great forum and quick answers for tough topics. Keep up the great work Jim!

Does anyone know where I can find a good crotale sample?

Thank you very much Jim, McGillen and Bill. You guys were so helpful! Each of you had a great piece of information that fixed my problems. This forum is awesome. Jim- you are a genious for figuring all of this out and bringing it to us like this.

Anyways....The whale Calls......What a great sound! How do you actually play that? (Not virtualy, but in reality)

JJ

We aim to please...:)
Glad to hear your getting all the answers you need.

Whale Calls are created by pressing the edge of one cymbal into the inside surface of the other cymbal (at a right angle). When you press this cymbal into the other while making a twisting motion, you get some pretty wild sounds. Gotta give it up to the guys in the SCV cymbal line for showing me this one several years ago.