I'm afraid that by making this post I'm about to become the biggest hassle on this site.  I believe my ignorance is far surpassed that of the average visitor, but I will try my hardest to make this work.

Ok.  So first off, I'm brand new at this.  I'll admit I have no previous experience with writing music on computers other than playing around with the Sibelius 4 demo.  However, I've invested in what I would hope are good products to help me begin my journey on the quest of computer notation.  Problem is ... I have no clue what to do, or where to begin.  Here's my current setup:

(Running off a Dell, Windows XP computer:  2.66 Ghz / 1 Gig RAM / Plenty of Hard-drive):

-Virtual Drumline 1
-Sibelius 4 (demo version, but plan on purchasing full soon, unless advised otherwise)
-M-Audio O2 MIDI Keyboard
-Reason Adapted 2.5 for M-Audio
-MidiYoke (not sure why I have it or what it does. I just have it 'cause I was told to)

So basically, my question is:  [u]What do I do to make it all work?[/u]

I was reading through some previous posts trying to get help without bothering anyone, and I came across this one concerning Reason 2.5: [url]https://www.tapspace.com/forums/index.php?topic=480.0[/url] ... Does Reason Adapted, though claiming to be version 2.5, not work?

Overall, I'm just all sorts of confused, and I just don't have time to sit and learn everything.  All I want to do is start up Sibelius, play my little keyboard, write the music on the screen, have it play back in the sounds of a drumline, and print it off.  Please tell me I'm just a fool and that it's really not as hard as I'm making it.

I'm sorry if this has been answered before.  I really did try browsing and searching the forums but didn't find anything directly linked to me.  Please help me if your time permits.  I would extremely appreciate it.

Thanks!

-Jordan S.

Jordan,

There's good news and bad news....the bad news (well, it's not really ";bad";) is that you're going to have to bite the bullet and accept that you'll have to learn some new skills if you really want to make all this work. What you're trying to do is a bit more technical than just ";push play"; and voila...the drumline plays. Hopefully you already know that though...

The good news is there's plenty of help and information available. You have a lot of questions, so it'll be best to work through each of them one by one.

For starters, read the help file (carefully) that came with VDL1. Just to reiterate, read it carefully. If you find that you still have questions, that's ok. It has good information about the different soundfont banks of VDL1 so you can understand some of the differences between those, as well as why the Giga versions are different from soundfonts.

To load soundfonts into Reason, you need to load an instance of the NN-XT sampler for each instrument you're going to use. If that makes no sense to you, stop. Get out your Reason manual, and start reading and learning about the NN-XT sampler found within Reason. I don't know what the differences between the full on Reason 2.5 and ";Reason Adapted"; are. You'll definitely want to know that. I'm sure the documentation that came with it, or the Propellerheads website will have your answers there.

Remember, take things step by step and be patient as you learn.

Jim,

Reason Adapted is a condensed version of Reason, limited sound library and number/type of instruments. I used a version last year for a Berklee online course and I don't remember the NN-XT being available. The installer disk is still around so I'll double check and get back.


Ted Boliske 

Registration was time limited and it would not allow me to reinstall. I do believe though that there is not an NN-XT sampler player.

Ted

What you're missing is some container to run your samples from.  VDL1 is a library, but it needs that engine to run.  The NN-XT would work, but if you're out that, you can look around from scratch.  Look for anything that would play soundfonts on google.  For that matter, you may as well look for something that plays the giga libraries.  Either way, that's key.