OK this happens a lot to me. Instrument changes are playing back as suspended cymbal sounds.

This happens after everything has been working beautifully. I am programming a lot of instrument changes, and after playing back with no problems, three of my instruments changed to suspended cymbal. I did no additional edit to accidently create this, so I am extremely puzzled.

Right now my guiro, ratchet and congas are all playing back as choked cymbals.

This is not the first time it has happened. Usually I get half way through a score and have to recreate one or more staves to correct this problem.

I am using VDL 2.5.1, Sibelius 5.2.5, Mac OS 10.5.6 on a MacBook Pro. I recently updated everything.

Any thoughts?

Jeff

Jeff - I'm not sure if this will be the ticket, and it may require you to do a little techy sleuthing, but if you're up for the challenge, here's what it may be:

Choose an instrument that behaves improperly like this. Let's use the Guiro as an example. Find that Guiro in the ";Edit Instruments"; window (be sure you're using the one in the VDL category). Drill down to edit that instrument, then view the percussion map for that instrument. Compare the noteheads/staff placements here to what you see in the README file that came with the template. If you see some notes in this percussion map that do NOT exist in the readme (possibly assigned to a low F#), those notes should be deleted from the instrument.

You may be wondering ";why would there be extra notes in the map?"; Well, I'm not quite sure. We've asked Sibelius about this, and they've dubbed it as a ";feature"; which kicks in when/if you add a note in your score using a notehead that's not a part of the actual percussion map. Rather than just not playing such notes, it adds an entry to the instrument in which the note was entered in hopes of creating a sound for you. When it does this, if any of its noteheads, assigned sound id's, staff placements, or MIDI input pitches duplicate that of other items within the same percussion map, you get a conflict which usually results in the wrong instrument or sound being played.

I'm probably not explaining it very well - partly because it's perplexed me in the past as well, and I don't quite understand the behavior. But my hunch is this is what may be happening to you. I think there may be another post or two about it somewhere here on the forum, and Hugh may have a more intimate knowledge of the details of this behavior.

The good news is that once you understand how to locate these little anomalies, and you can delete them with confidence, your scores would return to playing back normally as you'd expect them to.

If you're able to determine this is indeed what's happening to you, it may be a good time to start forcing the habit of entering parts via the midi keyboard, knowing exactly which pitches you're entering PRIOR to entering them. It's also possible these errors could result from pasting parts/rhythms in from other instruments that contain noteheads not  present in the receiving instrument. So be careful if you're using copy/paste a lot - especially between unpitched instruments.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the info. I have explored this in the past, and I had a hunch this might be the problem. I just get a little worried that edits I make to the instruments will come back to haunt me some other time.

I will keep you posted if I discover anything on my end.

Jeff

Here is a little bit more on what Jim is talking about:

   [url=https://www.tapspace.com/forums/index.php?topic=2551.msg13615#msg13615]https://www.tapspace.com/forums/index.php?topic=2551.msg13615#msg13615[/url]

If the mappings are correct, one other thing it may be is that if you have lots of instrument changes, Sibelius might get confused as to the exact slot/patch assigning. The more changes there are, the more likely this could occur. Try these instructions to fix it:

   [url=https://www.tapspace.com/forums/index.php?topic=2554.msg13636#msg13636]https://www.tapspace.com/forums/index.php?topic=2554.msg13636#msg13636[/url]

You may want to read the entire thread for the above link to make sure you have the whole context.

And of course, it that doesn't get it, come on back and let us know.