I'm trying to write a drumkit part but whenever I enter 2 notes at the same time, the noteheads get screwed up. For example, when I try to enter a h-hat note and a bass drum hit at the same time, the bass drum appears with the same x notehead as the hi hat part and it doesn't play back correctly. It make the correct sound when I enter the note.

I'm using sibelius 3.1.3 and the latest templates. is this a tamplate issue or a Sibelius issue? What can I do to fix it? I do have the staff type set correctly.

Gabe is correct - this is a Sibelius limitation when using double-stops (or more) on staves containing percussion maps. When you enter two notes simultaneously like this (i.e. bass drum and HH), you'll only get ONE of the expected noteheads that will appear for both notes, hence your ";X"; bass drum notehead. It's a bit of a pain and is likely something Sibelius will address in future versions.

For now the workarounds would be to do as you suggested - manually changing notehead (though knowing the exact notehead number can be tricky on certain staff types).

OR

Write parts like this in two seperate layers one at a time. (That's usually what I do depending on the situation).

When I do the playback it doesn't play the sound I've entered either. The bass drum hit shows up as an x along with my hi hat entry but when it is played back, I hear what sound like one of the snare crush sounds.

I was able to manually edit the note heads and it played back the sound I wanted to hear though.

Thanks,

I am pretty sure that this is a Sibelius issue. It happens whether or not you use the VD:2 template. I haven't been bothered enough to mess with the staff type. You can change the individual notehead and it shouldn't change the sound.

Gabe