I'm very new to this forum and am blown away by all of the information VDL's users have shared on it...definitely helps the newbies like me.  Thanks in advance, folks.

When I have some time, I plan to scour this forum for a thread that discusses how to use the mod wheel sounds for batterie instruments ([i]I'm pretty sure that someone has already asked for help with this.[/i])  If it does exist, do any of you have a link to that thread?  
I'm a Mac/Finale user, and I set up a template where I use defined staff styles that allow me to use multiple sounds within the same staff  throughout a score.
[color=red]For example, Vibe 1 could play concert BD, various susp cymbals, and small perc accessories.  I then trigger those sounds when I need to with an expression selection I've created that assigns that expression's patch to a slot within the sound bank I've assigned to that staff.[/color]
The mod wheel is something I've never messed with before, so I am not sure how to proceed with trying to incorporate the sounds the mod wheel allows for.  I'm trying to use the center of head, halfway to edge, and edge of head sounds in SnareLine Manual, but I don't know how to access those sounds within my score.

Any direction would be greatly appreciated, and thanks for reading all of this.

If you're using the Finale 2009 or 2010 templates that Ted built for Tapspace, a lot of these mod-wheel functions have been pre-designed into text expression categories. So rather than sending a manual message to the Modulation Wheel controller ([url=https://www.tapspace.com/support/tutorials/finalemod.html]check this tutorial[/url] for instructions), mod-wheel values are already defined as playback functions for certain words.

For example, looking in the ReadMe for the VDL/Finale 2010 template, I see that applying the expression [i][b]pedal up (muted)[/b][/i] into a VibeMW instrument will cause the mod-wheel to move up, thus creating a dampened vibraphone.

It never hurts to know how to better manipulate this stuff yourself though, and your willingness to dive in is great! There's a lot of extra control available with Finale's MIDI Tool which you can read more about in your Finale documentation. If you ever need to reference what Mod-Wheel values to assign to specific instruments in VDL, check the VDL User Guide, which you'll find as a PDF within the [i]Documentation[/i] folder of your VDL installation.

Hope this helps!

Hey, Jim!  Thanks for the great response.  Although I own Finale 2010, I prefer to use 2008 when I'm writing for marching percussion, because it allows me the freedom to assign multiple instruments to the same player within the same staff.  Another forum thread posted by MichaelAHS a while back discussed an issue with Finale 2010 in which it's not possible to assign more than four instruments per staff.  This is true, and I'm hoping that there's a fix on the way from MakeMusic...or that it's at least fixed in Finale 2011.

Anyway, I'll keep plugging away.  Thanks, again, Jim.

Wow!  I just watched the tutorial that you provided.  I had no idea those existed.  Thanks, again.  I'm floored by how informative this forum is. 

You bet!
Yeah, let's hope that limitation in Finale 2010 is addressed as it can cramp your style when switching from pitched to unpitched percussion layouts.

The text attribute functionality is still there for you in Finale 2008. I don't think the attribute ";categories"; will be available, but that's partly just a way of organizing different types of text, so don't let that stop you. You can simply assign your own text, assign mod wheel values to that text as playback functions, and go from there. Just keep in mind which text may be specific to certain instruments. For example: ";Pedal Up"; might switch your [i]Vibraphone (MW) instruments[/i] mod-wheel to a value of 127, however this same command wouldn't serve you as well if you were using the [i]Vibraphone (PED) instruments[/i] (which use the sustain pedal (CC64) for their pedal up/down control).

Good luck!

...just thought I'd chime in one more time with regard to mod wheel assignments in Finale.

I got with user MichaelAHS, and he showed me a shorter way to do what the tutorial video illustrates.  While it can be done that way, I thought that this other way allowed me to use the mod wheel assignment repeatedly without having to go through the MIDI tool each time.

With the Expression Tool, create an expression assignment for whatever mod wheel sound you want.  Then, under the Playback tab, select controller from the ";Type"; drop down menu and select ";modulation"; from the new drop down menu.  In the ";Set to Value"; field, type in the mod wheel number that corresponds to whatever sound you're wanting to get.  That's it!
By going through this method once, you will have also created an expression that you can use repeatedly to recall that mod wheel sound.

Hope this makes sense.  And special thanks to MichaelAHS.

Just to repeat what Jim mentioned above, ALL of the Mod wheel function in VDL are now available in the templates. These were added in 2009 and in 2010 the Expressions library is included with the templates.