Ok I am new with this stuff. First of all my laptop is on steroids so I have plenty of RAM and Prcessor speed.

1. I'm not getting any sound. I have the VDL2 midi yoke NT:1 on and all outputs off. In Sebelius I opened the playback/input devices window. In the USE column next to midi yoke NT:1 I clicked YES. In the input device tab, midi yoke NT:1 is automatically highlighted. Since it didn't work with midi yoke NT:1 highligted I tried to highlight a blank space, it wouldn't let me do that, so I highlighted midi yoke NT:8 and It still does not work. Help please.

2. When I open Sibelius4 I don't find a template for VDL2. When I open the VDL2 template that I downloaded it opens Sibelius but with more instrument staves than I need. I tried changing them to fit my needs but I can't find any other VDL2 templates except the first one that pops up and all I need are the battery instruments. When I go into CREATE and try to change the amount of staves ,by clicking on an instrument 'it gives me that instrument on four staves instead of 4 different instruments on 4 staves. Help please.

3. Lastly, when I open the mixer and reset the sounds the four battery instruments turn to 10 and it won't let me change the channel number. Do I even need to change the number and how do I know if it matches the same channels in VDL2? Also I'm running XP MEDIA.....I don't know if this would make a difference

This is day four that I have been trying to get all of this to work, I get a little closer everyday but obviously not close enough. I just want to write battery parts, hear them back and record them. Thanks in advance for any suggestions given.

In Sibelius, if you'd like to tighten up your grace notes, you can do so in the ";Note Spacing Rule"; window (in the ";house style"; menu).
[list]
[li]For ";space around grace notes";, enter: 0 (zero)[/li]
[li]For  ";extra space after last grace note";, enter: 0.1[/li]
[/list]
If you want this change to affect your score globally (assuming there's already been notes entered at the old spacing), do a ";select all";, then do a ";reset note spacing"; command, and they'll all be changed. Pretty quick!

Oops; I thought that was only engraving.  Jim; you're the man!

Hey folks I'm back with yet anothe question. I'm trying to record my compositions. I downloaded Audacity, so I attempted to record things souded ok. When I tried to listen back to the recording in my Windows media player I didn't hear anything although it looks like it's playing. Next I import the track into Audacity and It won't play there either. Am I missing something?

Thanks
Craig

That's very likely settings on your soundcard for audacity.  go to start > run, sndvol32 /r

In there, you'll see the recording settings for your soundcard.  Make sure those are correct.  Audacity and all the other windows programs that do this are recording from the source set here.  Unless you have a specialized card, this will be the standard windows runners.

Fiddle with these; I think you'll find joy here.  If not, let us know.