OK - I don't think this is a new topic, but I can't find the old thread I thought I once saw.  I am using VDL 2.5 and Finale and want to both notate and playback suspended cymbal hits (and maybe ride) on the Xylophone and Glock staves. I know that the Vibe and Marimba have the suspended cymbal ";built-in"; and I use it there with a staff style change - no problem. How can I use Finale (2008) and VDL 2.5 to see and hear suspended cymbal on the xylophone/glock parts?

David

Thanks Jim,

I am going to ";get radical"; and refer to the manual regarding your suggestion on layers. I have an abstract awareness of this mechanism in Finale, but did not consider that as a possibility! BTW - I just tried out the knowledge from the Tips and Tutorials regarding exporting Finale files as MIDI and them importing them into a sequencer for playback (I tried Sonar) and it was SO nice. I have started saving my set-ups in the Kontakt Player and they made it VERY easy to import the MIDI, configure the player and bounce to track. I wish I had tried it sooner!

Thanks again,

David

One of the really cool things about Finale is that you can assign different playback channels to each layer in Finale. So in the [b]Instrument List[/b] window, you could load a Xylo into layer one on its own channel, then in layer 2 load a separate channel for, say, 18"; suspended cymbal. When you need to notate a sus cym part, simply enter it into layer 2 (using the appropriate staff style of course).

That would be my first suggestion. Doing this would obviously entail loading a xylo (for example) into its own slot into one of your hosted instances of KP2, in addition to loading a cymbal patch into its own channel as well.