Hi,

I've been digging around for a bit, but am having difficulty find help with bass drum playback.

I am using VDL 2.5 and Sibelius 5.1.

The notehead ";e"; plays bass drum 1, while notehead ";g"; plays bass drum 2. I would greatly appreciate any help!

Thanks,

Chris

Hi Chris,

Are you using the VDL Template for Sibelius? If so, can you confirm that you've properly assigned one of the Bassline instruments for VDL (using the ";instruments"; window)? Sometimes people will mistakenly assign ";Marching Bass Drums"; (which isn't tailored to the VDL library), rather than the VDL-specific ";Bassline Manual"; or ";Bassline AutoRL.";

To check which instrument is currently assigned for your bassline, you can hit the ";I"; key which will open the Instruments window. On the right hand side under ";staves in score"; check the exact name of the Bassline instrument you've assigned. If it's not one from the VDL family, you should replace it with one that is.

Jim,

Thanks for the quick response.

I am using the VDL template for Sibelius. ";Bass Drum Manual-LITE"; in is shown in the ";staves in score"; column. Would you possibly have any other suggestions?

Thanks,

Chris

Okay. Thanks for clarifying Chris. It would seem that to best troubleshoot this, you'd need to go into the drum map editor. To do this, you'd need to go to House Style>Edit Instruments, then locate the Bassline Manual LITE instrument, click edit, then click the ";edit staff type"; button. In this window, you'll find the complete landscape of how the instrument is mapped.

If that seems a little too intimidating or time consuming, one way to find out if something has gone squirrely with your drum map/instrument, is to paste this music into a Bassline Manual Lite staff that you've created in a fresh, unused VDL template. If the problem doesn't occur there, it's likely something in your score's drum map.

It's not well documented, but something that Sibelius may try to do is add items to your map if you accidentally enter a pitch that's not currently in it. It thinks it's helping, but when it does this, it can cause other, already-mapped sounds to misbehave. Unfortunately, tracking down these rogue, added notes can be a little tedious. Often, you'll find that added mappings are assigned to F#1. Most VDL instruments don't even contain this pitch, so it's easier to locate. Bassline Manual, however, does contain a legitimate sound mapped to F#1 (Drum 5 Sticks-In), so if you locate that one, don't delete it.

The above paragraph is likely more info than you wanted, but it describes some quirky behavior that can occur that isn't immediately obvious. It may or may not be what you're experiencing, but it's definitely a possibility.

Jim,

The drums were ";flip flopped"; on the mapping. Problem solved. Thank you so much for your help, I really appreciate it!

Chris