For the first time, I am attempting to load several instruments into a bank for one channel to allow writing a player specific part.  I loaded an empty bank for the channel, and then loaded four sounds that I wanted available for that part.  When I go back to Finale and click the staff and then change to say layer 4, as soon as I play a note on my keyboard to enter the pitch, Finale shuts down and closes.  Any help would be appreciated.  This seams like a fairly easy and common practice to be able to do with the Kontakt player and VDL 2.5.  Thoughts?

Thanks in advance

So if I understand correctly, you're loading four patches into four separate bank slots in KP2. Then in Finale's Instrument List window, you're assigning each of these patches to respond on the same channel, using a unique program number on each of the four available layers?

If this is what you're doing, in theory it should work. But I can't say for sure. If you want to assign different instruments to different layers, you may find it more reliable not to use banks, and instead load instruments individually. Doing this, each instrument would have its own channel, and you could feasibly have four separate channels being accessed from each staff (if assigning each layer to a different channel in the instrument list). If you run out of slots in KP2, load another instance (channels 17-32). Doing it this way may also help avoid the need to load duplicate instruments into multiple banks if you foresee different staves needing access to the same patch at times.

Jim,
Thank you very much for the tip.  Loading each instrument into it's own channel and then assigning each layer to that specific channel works perfect.  Not sure what was causing the crash the other way, but I'm sure the way I was loading was causing some sort of conflict.  Now, I am writing just the percussion book (another arranger is writing the horn book).  He has the wind stuff assigned to channels 17-32.  When I use all of the first 16 channels in KP2 for my percussion sounds, I can't load on channels 17-32.  When I try to skip over to 33-48, it doesn't send any sounds.  Do I have to move all of the wind channels over to give me the next 16 channels for percussion sounds?

Thanks,

Bob

If you'd rather leave the wind staves alone (on 17-32), it might benefit you to load your next instance of KP2 (for percussion stuff) into channels 33-48, then assign those instruments accordingly in the instrument list.

Or you could reassign winds to a higher bank of channels. It really shouldn't matter. If you regularly send scores back and forth with the wind arranger, it'd be ideal him/her to have their wind channels set to the same ones you do so it's less reassigning.

Just remember that Finale channel 33 equals KP2 channel 1 (on the third slot). Finale 34 equals KP2 channel 2, etc.

Jim,
I tried that at first and I couldn't get any sound.  When I load the next instance, it automatically assigns that instrument to Midi Ch.(B)1.  It also says that ports B-D aren't available when I pull the drop down menu in the midi channel section of the instrument.  Maybe I'm misunderstanding something.  I'm trying to attach a shot of the KP2 console showing this.  Maybe it will work.

Thanks,
Bob

Ah! That explains it. I can see how you may have gotten confused here.

Finale will only access sounds that are loaded into Kontakt Player's channels 1-16. It looks like in KP2, you've loaded the sounds into the third page of the rack. Those 4 pages (in KP2) are only useable in standalone mode. Since you're using KP2 as a plugin, you'd want to load your sounds into the first page of channels (channels 1-16) in Kontakt Player and just ignore those buttons that say 17-32, 33-44, etc.

If you load sounds into that page (in the KP2 rack), they should default to port A (from host), which should then route properly to where Finale expects to find them.

Sorry to sound ignorant about this, but will that only allow me to load 16 instruments?  Is their a way around this to allow me to load more.  I would estimate that I would like to be able to load approx. 20 or so if possible.  Thanks for your help by the way.  I think I've almost got this. 

You can load 16 instruments [u][i]per instance[/i][/u] of KP2. Since Finale allows you to load 8 instances of the player, you could feasibly load 128 instruments if you had enough RAM to handle that.

So when you run out of slots in the first instance of KP2, you'd load a second instance into Finale's VST/AU setup window.

Thanks Jim, I really do appreciate all that you guys do in this forum.  I think VDL 2.5 is the greatest thing in the world, but the support we get from the forum makes it even better.

Thanks again,

Bob McClure