Hi guys, need a little help here.

How can I get a concert snare drum and concert bass drum sound on the same 5 line percussion staff.  I have Sibelius 5.2.5 and the all the new VDL maps etc.  I tried to go into the VDL concert snare map (via the Edit Staff Type) and add a concert bass drum on 1st space F but I can't get it to work. Even when I select which sound to use.  Standard concert band literature has concert snare on 3rd space C and bass drum on 1st space F.  I just want to be able to write it this way and hear it back properly.  Please advise!

Josh

Josh - you can use the feature in Sibelius called ";focus on."; You should be able to read more about that in your Sibelius documentation. That'd be an easy way to make it happen.

UNT/BD Tenor - Indeed a ";concert band combo"; would be very helpful. Great idea! It's on the list. :)

Bryan,

How do you hide staves with music written in them?  I see where to hide empty staves but that doesn't seem to work.  Thanks again for the help.

Josh

This brings up a possible later addition to the ";combo"; instruments. For a concert band situation, a rack containing a concert snare, concert bass drum, crash cyms, sus cyms, triangle, tambourine, woodblock, temple blocks, etc. would be a very useful tool. Barry Kopetz just finished a composition for our jr. high band and we are doing the world premiere in March. I have recorded the percussion parts and that combo would have helped a ton. My 2 cents.

(like you all don't other things to do....  lol)

Thanks for the idea on hiding staves. I will try that because it must be on the same stave for the projects I am working on.  Thanks all for the help!

Josh

Something else you could do if you're wanting it to be notated properly would be to write it as Jim suggested with two separate staves then make a dummy staff notated as you would like to look and hide the playback staves when printing parts or the score.

Just a few more ideas that might help you get the end result you're wanting.

Josh,

I misspoke. Sorry about that! I had it in my head that Rack Combo A used both concert bass and snare, but I was mistaken. It looks like you'll have to use two separate staves - one each for SD and BD. The positive thing about this is you'll have access to all articulations and rolls that each instrument has to offer. Usually that sort of thing is limited when using combo instruments.

Anyway, sorry for the confusion and inconvenience.

Thanks for the info Jim.  I am still a bit confused.  When I open the VDL template up I found that the snare sounds are in ";Rack Combo A"; and the concert bass drum in ";Rack Combo B"; 

Am I doing something wrong? I checked every note in combo A in the Kontakt player to be sure.  Thanks so much.

Hi Josh,

I would suggest instead of using Concert Snare, you use ";Rack Combo A"; which includes both concert bass drum as well as concert snare articulations. Hopefully you'll find that sufficient to provide the sounds you need.