i have spent most of this weekend beginning some writing, and i have discovered a few things that some of you may be able to help me with.

1.  every time i start sibelius i have to change the input devices in the preferences.  is there a way to save this?  not a big deal just annoying.

2.  when i adjust the volume of an instrument in the kontakt player via the mixer, every time i hit play everything resets.  i can physically watch this happen if i leave the kontakt player    open when i press play.

3. i have discovered that a few of the sounds do not play back how they are supposed to.  in particular i have had problems with ";fat crushes"; in the snareline (lite) and the ";drum 4 skanks"; in the tenors (lite).  this is what happens: 

when i play it on my keyboard it sounds correct; when i enter the note into the score it sounds correct; but when i play it back it just sounds like a regular hit or nothing at all.  at this point even if i click the note with my mouse it no longer sounds correct.

Thanks for any help!

and on another subject:

Do I hear VDL on the Chevy President's Day Sale commercial?

I am not sure about the Sibelius stuff, so I will have to look into that, but for number 2 Try the following and see if this helps:

https://www.tapspace.com/forums/index.php?topic=2014.0

Coach,
thanks for the response.  that worked and sorry for not searching more to find my answer.

I am still looking for answers on 1 and 3!  anybody else that has info on this please share!  thanks again!

The other thing related to volume is that if you update your VDL to the 2.5.1 maintenance update, volumes should generally be much livelier without having to manually tweak KP2 settings. The VDL 2.5.1 update is available via the NI Service Center.

Regarding question 1, I'm not sure. If your input device isn't on (i.e., if it's a USB keyboard and not plugged in when you launch Sibelius), you may want to be sure you launch Sibelius after it's connected. What type of device is it? I'm wondering if maybe it requires a driver update for Sibelius to recognize it automatically?

Regarding question 3, my guess is that you haven't applied the correct articulation to the fat crush. Without the articulation assigned, playback won't select the correct sound. This is one of those Sibelius 5 things that will take some getting used to, but it does make for cleaner mapping since it allows multiple sounds to use common noteheads without having to rely on as many ";twin"; noteheads that were necessary in the Sibelius 4 template. The articulation will be the extra variable to define which note plays back. In the case of fat crushes, we had to compromise by having the mordent placed above the stems. It's not particularly pretty, but function won out over form in that particular case.

ok--i figured out question 3--that makes sense.  i added the up bow for the skanks and it worked.  but when i added the mordent (from the symbols menu) it did not work.  is there another way to add the mordent so it is recognized?  this is probably a very easy problem that i am just missing for whatever reason!  thanks!

Three things will determine successful playback:

1) Notehead number
2) Position on Staff
3) Articulation (if applicable)

If you applied the mordent to any old note, it may not work if its notehead isn't the exact notehead used for crushes indicated in the ReadMe file. If the original notehead entered was done so on the MIDI keyboard with the crush pitch entered, the notehead should be automatically assigned for you, but if you're putting the articulation on a nothead that was entered using a different pitch, it's very possible the notehead isn't correct.

You can always tell which notehead is assigned to the selected note by viewing the first pulldown menu in the ";Notes"; section of the Properties window.

Thanks for the reply Jim. 

I think you may have misunderstood my problem with the mordent.  For the skanks, i was able to add the up bow from one of the keypad menus.  i could not find a mordent in the keypad, so i entered it as a symbol from the Ctrl-Z shortcut.  apparently if you enter it that way it does not play back correctly.  is there another way to enter a mordent?  or better yet, is there a way to add it to one of the keypad menus? i feel completely stupid about this, but for whatever reason i can't figure it out!
Thanks again
Chris

Ah! I did misunderstand. Sorry about that.

Check out pages 18-19 of the Template readme, and it should answer this question for you. Particularly the part about the inverted mordent being assigned to the first position of the custom articulation spaces in the keypad. I think this should get you going.

OK, as I was typing, you guys both posted. Sheesh! Anyway...


Chris

The Template is setup with the mordent assigned to the first position available of the custom articulation spaces (below). If you place the mordent in the score by any other means, well, I think you know the results.

�� [img]http://members.cox.net/oldhands101/pics/keypad4.bmp[/img]

It is not so much that the mordent does anything, it is more that the first custom articulation space is used. We just happen to have the mordent assigned to it.

Does that help?


Yes, Sibelius calls it an ";inverted mordent";. Don't ask me why. ;)

Thank you gentleman--I will check it out when I get back to my computer that has sibelius on it--i will let you know then if it works out!

Hey cmac76,

Looks like you got great advice on the ";3 issues";.  But in regards to the last bit on your original post,

[quote author=cmac76 link=topic=2318.msg12227#msg12227 date=1203869929]
and on another subject:

Do I hear VDL on the Chevy President's Day Sale commercial?
[/quote]

check this out: 

https://www.tapspace.com/forums/index.php?topic=2308.0

Peace!

i completely missed that thread.........i've been a little out of it for the last week or so........

No problem...as they say: ";been there done that.";  At times, life gets a little too crazy.

[quote author=chznvrt link=topic=2318.msg12250#msg12250 date=1203970306]
Yes, Sibelius calls it an ";inverted mordent";. Don't ask me why. ;)[/quote]Sorry to resurrect a thread from the past without addressing the original topic, but I stumbled across this on Wikipedia today and couldn't help but answer the question we've all been losing sleep over...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornament_%28music%29#Mordent

Short answer - ";inverted mordent"; and ";mordent"; are used to indicate a turn upwards or downwards from the notated pitch and back again (when not using VDL, of course...). Apparently there is some ambiguity over which is which, but Sibelius developers had to pick one and stick with it.

Ha! Good timing, Joe. I was just having this exact conversation a couple weeks ago when we were recording some vocals for a commercial I did. Good ol' inverted mordent. :)