I am on the verge of upgrading to FINALE 06 and bought VDL1 last year, but never really took the time to learn it/use it.    I understand that FINALE 06 has made it easier to ";drop"; sound libraries directly in for use.    If I can get this to fly, I guess I would take a hard look at VDL2 next.  Any help/advice would be appreciated.

Tom

Tom,

First advice, if you are a Mac user, wait on the Finale update because there are some major issues. Everything from speed of screen redraws, Human Playback issues, not being able to use the soft synths and any hardware sounds at the same time, to the big one of possibly having your address book erased by the Finale installer. I would go to the Finale forums at Coda and read everything regardless of whether you are a mac or windows user. See my post regarding the FIN2k6 bug report.

OTOH, the Native Instruments AU/VST implimentation has some potential. If you have any of the NI programs you can use them as plug-ins rather than stand alone devices, no more VMC issues. Hope this helps.


Ted Boliske

Tom,

The VDL:1 sounds will not load directly into Finale (any version).  If you are a PC user and have a Soundblaster sound card in your computer, you can load the .sf2 files into your sound card.  Or, you can use a sampler program, like Kompakt or Kontakt and then use Finale 2006 to host Kompakt or Kontakt.

[quote author=drumcorpbc link=topic=755.msg2913#msg2913 date=1122754345]
Tom,

The VDL:1 sounds will not load directly into Finale (any version).  If you are a PC user and have a Soundblaster sound card in your computer, you can load the .sf2 files into your sound card.  Or, you can use a sampler program, like Kompakt or Kontakt and then use Finale 2006 to host Kompakt or Kontakt.
[/quote]

Bill's right. If you want to host VDL1 directly within Finale 2006, you have to use a compatible VST or AU plug-in instrument by Native Instruments. Kompakt or Kontakt (version 1.5 or 2) will all do this, and are capable of loading VDL1 sounds. Or, if you later decide to get into VDL2, you can just host it directly as its own plugin without having to mess with the conversion of the Giga/Soundfont format into Kontakt or Kompakt.

Jim,

As a side note, can you load the VDL:1 sounds into Kontakt 2?  I haven't tried, but then again I don't have VDL:1 installed on my computer anymore.

Good question Bill. VDL2 has consumed my world lately, so I haven't used VDL1 in quite some time either. Kontakt 2 does have the capability of importing both Gigastudio and Soundfont formats though, so VDL1 should work fine in K2.

Hi Tom,

If you can afford it, you should update to VDL2.  It will open up your world as far as percussion sounds go.  I must say that it has increased the sounds tremendously from VDL1.  And it also works in Finale 2006.

Jim