As I continue on my quest to achieve natural VDL battery input without the use of a MIDI keyboard, my major annoyance is Sibelius' method of placing notes closest to the previous note.

For example, if I am writing a tenor part, I will be inputting using the F, A, C, E, and G keys (for those who don't know, VDL percussion clefs are interpreted as treble clefs for puposes of note-letter keyboard input). But, since Sibelius places the next note in the position closest to the previous, a lot of these notes are constantly off by an octave. Octave-jumping them gets annoying. Same thing goes for the bass drums.

So, I'm wondering if there is a way to limit an instrument range such that Sibelius only can place notes in permitted places. Not only would this solve my annoyances, but in an ideal world it would be even more useful because noteheads would skip over lines or spaces where noteheads are not permitted; this would allow you to bump tenor or bass drum notes up or down without having to press twice to move past the lines on the staff.

Any way to achieve this?

After you enter a note, leave it highlighted and hit CTRL+down arrow or up arrow to change the octave.

But seriously, spend the $80-100 on a MIDI keyboard.

Yes, I know how to change the octave. My point is that it gets annoying doing it so much, so I'm looking for a way to avoid it.

I do not lack a MIDI keyboard because of money. In fact, I am working with a more expensive device in an attempt to come up with something better. The idea is to create a more intuitive input method, instead of an arbitrary decision that, for example, F#4 is a left-hand hit.

If there's no way to limit the input range, that's fine. But I'd like to know for sure.

You can set ranges for instruments in Sibelius, but it will only mark them as red, not transpose them.  Maybe check the sibelius forums too see if anyone made a plugin, or how you could make your own.

I hear you about finding easier ways to input notes.  I'm working on using electric drums to enter notes into Logic so I can just record myself drumming.  Using a dual-zone pad allows for R/L hand notes.