i recently bought sibelius 5, VDL:2.5, and the oxygen8 v2 midi controller. I can not seem to figure any of this out. is there anyone or anything that can help me?

Glad to have you to forums. . .

You might wanna check this out. . .

https://www.tapspace.com/forums/index.php?topic=436.msg1557#msg1557

This will help answer a lot of questions you have and if there are more specific questions. . . We'll be glad to help.

BTW the Sibelius 5 templates are not up yet so it will be a little more difficult getting up and running. I too have bought Sibelius 5 but haven't even installed it beacause the templates aren't ready. . If that helps. Enjoy!

could you explain what the templates do and why they are so important?
i'm a giant noob.

The templates assist the notation program in mapping the extensive amount of sampled sounds available in the library to readable percussion notation.

Say you press a note on the keyboard that is associated with a snareline hit.�� The signal sent to the notation program is just the note you hit (a F#4 if my memory serves me correctly), and Sibelius has no idea this has special meaning.�� The template will intercept this note, and remap it into its proper position (on the 3rd space of the staff) as well as apply any necessary changes in noteheads depending on what was pressed (rimshots are automatically mapped to x noteheads, bass unisons get slash noteheads, etc).��

Sibelius is still firing a F#4 when it plays that note, which is why the VDL player recognizes and plays back a snare hit, but for the sake of presentation the template is displaying that note in Sibelius in its proper position on the staff.

[quote author=phtbeats44 link=topic=1967.msg9884#msg9884 date=1188845186]
could you explain what the templates do and why they are so important?
i'm a giant noob.
[/quote]

No worries man we all had to start some where. . . It would probably be best to lurk around a bit and read read read. . . Most of your starter questions have been answered, just use the search bar.

Adding to what Justin said it: templates allow us drummers to ";see"; our music in Sibelius how we are accustomed to seeing it.

Here's the quick and dirty:
[list]
[li]VDL 2.5 and other sound libraries use midi in the background[/li]

[li]Midi only allows for distinct note signals to be sent i.e. Midi Note #60 is Middle C on a piano[/li]

[li]This doesn't translate so well to what we do as drummers - we have different [i]sounds[/i] not different [i]notes[/i][/li]

[li]So what VDL 2 does is it assigns a specific sound like a rim shot to a specific midi note[/li]

[li]So when you hit the G4 note on a midi keyboard it plays the rim shot sound[/li]

[li]Now Sibelius thinks you hit a G4 so it puts the note on line G4 in the staff[/li]

[li]This creates a problem because with all our different sounds we'd have notes all up and down the staff or way off the staff in some cases, not on a single line like most drum music is written. So this is where templates come into play[/li]

[li]The template acts between Sibelius and the user - Sibelius will [i]play[/i] a G4 and hence the rimshot sound, but it might [i]display[/i] the rimshot on the line A5 in the staff. We can also tell the template to display all the other sounds on the A5 line (or specific lines for bass drums, tenors, etc) and now it will look like normal drum music instead of being all over the staff.[/li]
[/list]

It's a little more complicated than this. It boils down to midi not being well suited to percussion music, and drummers throughout the history of midi have been duct taping a square peg to a round hole, but that's a discussion for another time. ;)

I hope that helps getting you started. :)

Cheers

i'm glad you guys told me that because i have been trying to figure out why my midi control does not notate the percussion notes correctly. also when i apply the VDL:2.5 sounds it puts the tenor sounds on the snare line and the bass sounds on the tenor line. will the templates fix this also?

You pretty much want to start every composition utilizing VDL2.5 with the template for your notation program.  You can do handy things like export common configurations as manuscripts in Sibelius, which are then selectable from the create new score dialog (I have several for just battery, just pit, pit and battery, pit, battery and horn reduction, etc.).  In short, screwy things happen if you don't use the template so make sure you use it. :)

one more question, does anyone know when the sibelius 5 templates will be created?

They are currently being worked on. . . I assume they will be out ASAP. There is a bit of a learning curve since Sibelius changed the way the midi channels talk to each other.

I, like many, have been anxiously, and patiently, awaiting the release of the Sibelius 5 VDL2(.5) templates and, of course, I've been following the conversation regarding the complexity of the template build for Sibelius 5. 

Taking that into consideration, maybe this is for Jim but is there a tentative target date for the release?

Thanks,
Steve F.