I recently purchased VDL 2.5 and the program itself seems to work, but the sound makes my ears hurt.  The sound that seemingly everything play is like the sound you get with a piece of wadded up paper in a sub woofer, and there seems to be an unwanted echo as well.  I have messed and fiddled with everything on the Kontakt player (putting it back after testing it) and i seem to be missing something...  If anyone can tell me about something in the effects or settings that could cause this effect, that would be mighty helpful.  Thank you!

You know, I'm sure we can help you out, but we know nothing about your computer.  Perhaps if you can provide us with some stats about your machine and what notation software you're using, we can help you out.

This is almost always a result of a buffer size/latency setting that's too low.

My computer is an HP Pavilion dv4 125mx Entertainment Notebook PC.  Bran spanken' new.

How would i go about changing the buffer settings?

As I open the program, I'm told that ";Locking memory does not seem to be working properly.  Under certain circumstances, this might result in bad performance, notes being cut off, or other artefacts.  Please make sure that you are logged in with administrative privileges!";

I bought the program myself, I'm the only one to use the disk, how would I not have administrative privileges?

My computer is running on Windows Vista.  Earlier FAQs have said that NI is having trouble with incorporating VDL into Vista.  Would that have anything to do with the awful sound quality?

I'm hoping to get it incorporated into Sibelius 5.2.5 as well. 

What I need to know is what would cause the sound quality?  Any case, any scenario, anything you can think of.  I bought an entirely new laptop so that I could run VDL, and the fact that I can't is really depressing.  My parents are even talking about getting a refund on both VDL and my laptop if i can't get them to work together.  Help ASAP would be much MUCH appreciated.

Thanks from a very sad drummer.

=(

P.S. I have changed the buffer settings both high, low, and everything in between and seems to have had no effect.

So you are using Sibelius 5.2.5?

I'm still not clear as to how you are opening the program and playing sounds.

Are you opening the Kontakt Player 2 in standalone mode, or are you opening it as a VST plugin in Sibelius 5.2.5?

If you are using it as a plugin in Sibelius, do you get the same poor sound quality if you open a score that uses a different VST library (such as the Essentials)?

Also, have you ran the NI Service Center to make sure you are at the latest version of the Kontakt Player 2/VDL Library?

The more detailed you can be, the faster you can get an answer or some troubleshooting steps.  If you could walk us through step by step how you're opening the program up until poor playback, we might be able to tell you the cause of your issues.

As Tyler Durden suggests, some details about the exact way you're using the program will be helpful in troubleshooting.

But without knowing much about what you've done so far, my first hunch is that this has something to do with your soundcard or the settings applied to it. Since you're using a PC, this subject can be a little more confusing, but there's a good intro to some important knowledge you should have if you read this post on the FAQ:
https://www.tapspace.com/support/faq/index.php?action=artikel&cat=4&id=33

Pay close attention to the bit about audio drivers (ASIO, DS, MME) as those settings can often affect whether or not your sound comes out sounding great or like a fork in an electrical outlet.

When you report back, some of these primary questions of importance will need answers:

1. What are your system specs? Please include how much RAM you have, as well as CPU type and clock speed.

2. What is the make and model of your soundcard, and does it have an ASIO compatible driver?

3. In your usage so far, are you running KP2 in standalone mode, or as a plugin within Sibelius?

4. What version of KP2 are you running?

TylerDurden already asked some of these questions, but they'll be important in helping others offer some input about things you may not have tried yet.

After weeks of fiddling around with the program, I decided to look around and try everything i could (again) before posting.

Turns out, after much frustration both here at my house and on the super slow internet i have (5 kb/s), the latency was set at 90ms on the kontakt 2.5 player.  I'm not sure at all what the heck that means, i can only guess how much of my processor is being used, but i beefed it up to 400ms and that seems to have done the trick.  Didn't see it because i had to go all they way to file and then to sound settings. =S

I'm sorry to have troubled you guys with my silly questions and vague responses, but thank you for your time and your patents with me. 

After all this, the problem was solved with 3 clicks.... Someone should post that somewhere titled ";In case of poor sound."; =D

Thanks again for your time and patients, and now i can calmly go about my business and finally do what i wanted this program to do in the first place: use it in sibelius!

That's odd that raising the latency that high would solve the problem, as normally having latency that high tends to produce distorted rhythms in my experience. Glad to hear that you did get your problem resolved.

Also, a search on here for ";poor sound"; produced quite a few results that would point you in the direction of adjusting latency, so the information is out there - you just have to do a better job of describing your problem to the search engine.

And for the record, it's patience ;-)