I just installed VDL 2.5.1, with all the upgrades. And downloaded the pay for template package for 2009 Finale.
I immediately see the benefit of the percussion libraries.
Are there some subtleties with the score templates, beyond what I would normally do from scratch?

I didn't get any playback by just opening the templates, and still have to load each staff's instrument into the Kontakt player.
The Garritan GPO and JABB come with an instrument.txt (like GarritanJazzinstrument-K2.txt) file that you place in the Finale AU folder, so you automatically setup sounds from the Setup Wizard.
This is just a text file. Why isn't there one for VDL 2.5??

With these template you really do not need to use the Setup Wizard. Yes, you will still need to load sounds but given the number of sounds available in VDL and the complexity of creating those text files it is currently beyond the scope of what is essentially a one person operation in creating the templates. It is on the list of future enhancements. The benefits of the templates include the percussion library, the inclusion of text expressions, and linked parts.

Thank you for the inquiry and your support of Virtual Drumline. Please feel free to post suggestions for future feature requests.


Ted Boliske

[quote author=ted_boliske link=topic=3444.msg18069#msg18069 date=1259718707]
The benefits of the templates include the percussion library, the inclusion of text expressions, and linked parts. [/quote]

Ted: Thanks for the prompt and elucidating reply.

So, I really ";get it"; with the percussion library.
And I should go in depth into the Expression tool library (and perhaps the Articulation tool) to see the additions, and how they are implemented.

But isn't the link function just part of Finale 2009?
Or is there something special going on with linked parts in these VDL templates?

Thanks again!

The library is the essential part of the templates. It has all of the notehead shapes and staff placements for ALL of the VDL sounds. The template scores are formatted for printing as are the individual parts. The linked parts, while a new Finale feature to 2009, must be set up in a score to function properly. For the curious some of these features can be explored further, one of the reasons for including the library. For the less curious, just load sounds and start writing. Hope that explains things a bit more.

Ted