I finished a percussion score for a marching band show that I'm doing.  In the first movement, the bass drums sounded great!  However, in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th movements, the sound is not on the head.  I'm using the same notation for 3 bass drums (the bottom 3 spaces).  Would this have happened because I loaded the basses different when inputting for those movements?  I'm not sure exactly how to fix this, so all of my bass drums sound like the first movement.

Please help.

Thanks,

Dennis

I can't remember off the top of my head...which notation program are you using?

Also, which VDL bassline are you trying to use? Was each score entered using VDL mapping? Did you set the bassline staff to use the corresponding staff type (sibelius) or percussion map (finale)?

Jim,

I'm using Sibelius 4, VDL2 programs.  What I originally did was copied my bass drum part (originally written using the kontakt gold) and pasted it on the template that I downloaded from your site.  Then, I was able to move the notes either up or down to get the desired sound.  Worked well on the 1st movement.  If I want to fix the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th movements to sound like the first, I have to have the notes below the staff.  So, I must have used a different setting after the first movement.

I want the bass drums to mainly get the sound as if playing on the head.  I hope this makes sense.

Dennis

In VDL, you have several Bassline instruments to choose from, such as Bassline LITE, Bassline AutoRL, etc. Which one works best will depend on what you're trying to do.

Generally speaking, it's difficult to get older scores (input prior to VDL) to sound 100% perfect. The AutoRL instruments however may give you a moderate degree of success.

Two important things you must do to ensure proper mapping between Sibelius and VDL:

1 - Select an instrument in VDL  (i.e. AutoRL/Full/Lite), and stick to it for the complete score you're working on.
2 - Once you've selected an instrument, be sure you've assigned the corresponding staff in Sibelius to use that [u]exact[/u] instrument's [b]staff type[/b]. If you are uncertain on what staff types are, take a few minutes to consult your Sibelius documentation. They are an important concept to understand. To select the staff type for a given staff, click once on the first measure (so it's framed), then go to: Create>Other>Staff Type Change>Percussion>VDL2(stafftype x).

Assuming you've pasted parts from an old score into this staff, you should be able move notes with the up/down arrow keys to get a little better display to accompany playback.

Still - the most reliable way to have pre-VDL scores perform properly is to load instrument in VDL, set corresponding staff type in Sibelius, then actually re-enter all the old music.

I hope some of this info is helpful.

Jim,

Thanks again for your help.

Dennis

Jim,

I just reset the basses to full MW and all is great!  Your solutions are excellent!

Thanks,

Dennis