This may either be a Sibelius question or a Kontakt question.

I'm currently scoring Dust in the Wind for a band program I teach and I'm pulling a portion of my battery into the pit to really fill out the keyboard and auxillary parts. This score is pretty thorough and I've set up program banks from each player to cover all the aux instruments as well as mallet changes for the 6 keyboard parts I'm writing. I've tried putting the program changes into Sibelius but everytime I enter a program change, it changes all of the banks in Kontakt, not just the one assigned to that specific midi channel.

Is there a setting I need to change? Perhaps with in the program bank? I'm using Sibelius 3 w/ Kontakt 2 and the latest VDL 2 template.

Thanks,

Greg

For starters, I'd recommend you update to the latest version of Kontakt 2. NI just released a maintenance update to version 2.0. a couple days ago.

In Kontakt 2, be sure each instrument bank is assigned to its own unique channel (not omni). If you've already set it up this way, I'm a little stumped. Any more details you can provide?

There was a similar issue that came up a few weeks ago (not quite the same as your description), but the problem was fixed by switching to a different Virtual MIDI Cable.

Mac OSX seems to perform with more reliability by using MIDI Patchbay (http://pete.yandell.com/software/)

Windows XP results seem to vary based on your configuration. Most folks have great success with MIDI Yoke (http://www.midiox.com), and for the most part Maple MIDI Tools (http://www.marblesound.com) gets good reports as well.

It may be a bit of trial and error, but you might find it worth the exercise to find the best Virtual MIDI Cable for your particular system.

This is actually the same problem I had with sibelius 3/kontakt 2 myself and I've yet to have it resolved.  Maybe this maintenance release will fix the problem (I am on 2.0.0).

Justin - did you try MIDI Patchbay yet? Sorry if we've already discussed this...memory isn't what it used to be ;)

I think I started to but given a crunched timeline, me not quite sure if I had the program configured right, and needing to open and configure the program everytime I composed (or at least opened a saved file) I opted to stay with the Apple driver.

That may very well be the exact reason why it's not working for me--I might give patchbay a second try.  Did you do anything special to configure patchbay?

I am currently using Midi Yoke now and I haven't encountered any issues with it yet before.

I've tried entering the program changes as a Ctrl-T and a Ctrl-E in Sibelius and both react the same way. I do have each midi bank assigned to its own individual channel. Basicall my score looks like this:

Snareline Full: Channel 1
Tenors Full: Channel 2
Basssline Full: Channel 3
Glockenspiel Bank: Channel 4
Xylophone Bank:Channel 5
Vibraphone 1 Bank: Channel 6
Vibraphone 2 Bank: Channel 7
Marimba 1 Bank: Channel 8
Marimba 2 Bank: Channel 9
Chimes Bank: channel 10
Timpani Bank: Channel 11
Percussion 1 Bank: Channel 12
Percussion 2 Bank: Channel 13
Metronome: Channel 14

All of my melodic instruments are set up as banks for mallet changes and I set up the auxillary parts for instrument changes.

Jim, I remember reading that you use program changes like this for mallet selection and I know you use Sibelius. Have you not encountered this problem before in your arraing using Kontakt 2?