As I'm transcribing some music for an alumni corps, I need side tenor sounds. I figured that one of the notes in the solo Mylar produced the closest sound. Unfortunately, I also need cymbal rides, which Mylar doesn't have. Is my only recourse to add a separate line for the Cymbal ride sound? The result is ugly, and I was hoping to avoid that.

The mylar snare drum in VDL2 is specifically a solo snare drum (not a mylar ";line";). Neither of the solo snares (mylar or kevlar) have ride cymbals i'm afraid. If you're trying to produce a 'line' sound playing on ride cymbals, I'd recommend the regular full or lite snareline sounds - it may not solve the side tenor issue. But then again, if you're using a solo mylar snare drum instrument to play back the sounds of tenors playing the sides of the drums, perhaps it would be worthwhile to just use a couple instruments to accomplish what you need. If you aren't using Kontakt 2 (which will allow you to load instrument banks and create program changes), your best bet would be to create a separate channel for the cymbal ride. If you are using Finale however, you can assign this to a specific LAYER in your staff. If you are using Sibelius, I'd recommend an ossia staff.