I am using VDL 2 as a plugin in Finale 2006c and want to run three racks of VDL2 and two of GPO. How much memory is needed? I have an AMD 64-3000+ running at 2 GZ. My hard drive is a SATA 7500 rpm drive. I get all kinds of erratic behavior with 1.5 GB of RAM. I plan to upgrade the ram today to at least 2 GB depending on what my MB will let me do.

Also, I am experienceing propblems with getting the correct sounds to work from the VDL Finale template. When I enter the correspnding channels from Bank 1 into the staves in the VDL template, the bass drum sounds seem to not match your documentation even with this being the only bank used. So, I figure there should be no issues with memory here. I pulled all proccesses out of memory, so Finale is the only app working in memory.

Thanks,

Scott Lambert
Chesapeake, VA

Hey I do all m sequencing on my G5 with about 4.5 gigs of ram.  It sounds like alot but if you want all those samplers playing in real time you're going to need it.

Scott,

It sounds like your processor should be adequate.  As far as memory goes, it really depends on what sounds you are loading into those banks.  I have a very similar system to your potential system (2 GB RAM), and run similar setups to the one that you mention.  Every now and then during very dense passages I might experience a hiccup or two while running it in Sibelius and Finale. 
If you're planning on running battery with a full set of mallets for each board and all the bells and whistles, it might be taxing.  Based on your description, it sounds like you're probably wanting to running a full band worth of sounds.  2 GB would definitely get you started if this is your main focus

Before purchasing Kontakt 2, I discovered one thing that helped to avoid some of these problems: While playing back your files, try minimizing Finale.  I don't know if small memory surges are needed to refresh the screen, but in Sibelius, when playing back a file, I noticed that there were far less dropouts with the program minimized to the taskbar.  Once again, how well your computer runs could be entirely decided on what patches you have loaded.

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In terms of the template, I'm presuming that by Bank 1 you are speaking of the first VDL2 VST rack in Finale.  I don't know if this is part of your problem, but I know that when I was messing around with Finale, I had to ";sharp"; (or Shift + =) the notes a few times to get them to the appropriate sounds.  It was very similar with the tenor maps.  Also, go to the percussion map (Staff Tool > Click on staff > Notation style > Select > Edit) and click the ";All Named Notes"; button to make sure that all of the notes in fact respond to the correct MIDI notes and their corresponding mappings.

I don't know if it would be within your means or interest, but if you plan on doing a good deal of arranging (or maybe just a little and would like to come away from writing with as much hair in your head as when you started), I would highly recommend picking up a MIDI controller keyboard.  I spent about a week using the standard QWERTY keyboard for about 2 weeks, then decided to pop for an M-Audio Keystation 49e.  It has since helped to streamline my work immensely.

I hope this helps.

Great response Bryan!

Scott and I managed to speak on the phone yesterday, and determined that the confusion with the template was merely the fact that he was trying to enter notes by clicking them into the staff with his mouse pointer. Fortunately, he already has a MIDI keyboard, so it'll just be a matter of him embracing the concept of percussion mapping and getting used to a different method of entry via step time/speedy with the MIDI keyboard.

Bryan's point about minimizing Finale brings up a good point about screen redraws. Redraws  steal CPU power, and Finale has seemed particularly resource hungry in this department. It might be worth turning off screen redraws if you can live without that feature (it would bug me not to see it, but for others it may not be a big deal).

There's also a wealth of great AUDIO TUNE UP tips at this website, that are recommended for Windows users. It gives some great ideas for setting certain things within your normal system settings/control panel/etc which will help windows play nice with the heavy lifting you're asking it to do with all the sample playback:
http://www.musicxp.net