Like many people here, I must use VD without a MIDI keyboard.
But, I don't use Finale or Sibelius or any other 'user friendly' programs to sequence.
I use DirectMusic Producer from Microsoft, so I have much more control over individual notes than if I were to use any commercial music writing tool.

So my question is, do the instruments in VD use a percussion map, that it, require MIDI channel 10? And since I'm using DMP, are the note names individually named like drum maps usually are?

ataricom

Virtual Drumline instruments do NOT require them to be on the standard general midi channel 10. The notes aren't mapped like GM, nor are they named as such. As far as your sequencer is concerned, the VDL instruments are treated as "melodic" instruments. You can use any sequencer you like, though the majority of Virtual Drumline users are drumline arrangers or band directors who need to use the sounds in conjunction with print/notation programs. The important thing to know in advance is that the sounds (gigastudio or soundfont formats included) must be loaded into a sampler or soundcard that accepts those sample formats. Your sequencer would then access them from that source.

Hope this helps,
AB

Great! It's too confusing having to mess around with Drum banks in my view.

Oh, and all I'd need to do to load the instruments is convert them into a DLS file. Those can me directly imported into DirectMusic Producer.

Also, is there a key map that matches what notes are for the different sounds?