To avoid hauling a lot of large equipment for the indoor season, I would like to play sampled sounds from VDL2.5 by using a midi keyboard and notebook PC. It works okay with the virtual keypad in Kontact 2 but not with my midi...

This is what I have done: 

*I open sibelius and turn on the input devices for midi input
*Then I go into playback devices and activate the VDL soundsets
*I then go into manual soundsets and load whatever instrument I would like in kontact
*I can press the virtual keyboard and hear the sounds, but my midi board can't

Could someone see where I've made a mistake or missed a step?  Perhaps there is an easier way to accomplish this?

Specs:

Windows Vista 32-Bit
Intel Core 2 Duo Centrino
Sibelius 5.2
Virtual Drumline 2.5
M-Audio Oxygen 8 Midi Keyboard

Your terminology is a little confusing- Stand Alone implies you are just opening Kontakt, not Sibelius.  If you just want to perform using VDL2 sounds, don't bother opening Sibelius at all.

At first I tried to open Kontact 2 in ";stand-alone"; without opening Sib but I could not get any audio although Kontact was showing that it was releasing the sounds...

So I thought I would try it in Sib and then I could hear the sounds by clicking on the virtual keyboard but not with my midi. 

In any case you are correct J Matt, I would love to simply operate it in stand-alone without using sib but I just can't get the sounds to come out, then I have to figure out how to trigger the sounds with the Oxygen 8.

Hope that helps!  Thanks in advance..

Be sure to go to your INPUT selector in Kontakt Player and set your MIDI keyboard to ";ON";.

Another thing you may want to check is that your computer's sound card is set as the output when you go to the ";OUTPUTS"; section in Kontakt Player. Every once in a while, this isn't configured automatically, requiring you to set your output device as the main ";outs"; in KP2. Assuming your soundcard shows up in the Audio Setup window (I'd also recommend you use an ASIO driver if your soundcard supports it) you should see this device as an option when you hit the ";Config"; button under the main output slider.

As J Mattson said, you can definitely remove Sibelius from the mix for the purpose of what you're wanting to do here. Just: MIDI Keyboard > KP2 > Audio Output. That's it.

Okay got it working....one more question...

What output latency would you suggest or does it depend on the PC.  I've found it difficult to find the latency that puts the attack ";just right"; to a live metronome.  In other words no delay on the attack of the note.

Thanks again...

It depends on your sound card.  If it's a stock laptop/desktop PC soundcard, you probably need to have it around 30-50ms or you will get the ";scratchy"; sound people often complain about.  ms = milliseconds, or the time between hitting a key and hearing a sound.  I've read that less than 20ms is needed for live performance.  Try the free ASIO4all drivers on your computer, otherwise expect to pay $100 or more to get a low-latency sound card. 

It gets confusing because a lot will advertise ";zero latency hardware monitoring"; but that will apply to things like mics, and not things like software instruments.  I don't fully understand it all myself.