I wrote a granite blocks part at the beginning of a piece of music that initially played back fine. After I composed the rest, including instrument changes on the granite blocks staff, granite blocks are playing back as rolls. Technique text ";~hits";, ";~[reset]";, or ~nat."; does not fix the problem.

What controller change can I implement at the beginning of the music to make the granite blocks play back normally? Related question: the VDL readme indicates which CC values correspond with which techniques / Sound IDs, but it does not indicate the controller number (unless I am mistaken).

Hi Joe

There are two different ways the rolls can be activated for the Granite Blocks (and Temple Blocks). One is to use staff text; either something defined in the Dictionary or just a regular MIDI command (~x,x). The second, and the way I set it up, is to just add either a 4 or 8 tremolo (2 or 3 slash) to the note. From there, the instrument mapping and sound set then tell KP2 to move the modwheel whichever way it needs to. (In the case of the Granite and Temple Blocks instruments, a Sound ID change is not involved in producing regular hits or rolls. The CC values for said sounds are defined in the sound set.)

However, as seems the case in your score, [i]somehow[/i] the modwheel is being moved by the first scenario I gave above. Do you have [i]any[/i] technique text at the beginning of the score that has a corresponding definition in the Dictionary? If so, this could be the culprit (overriding anything else you put in).

If not, well, we'll go from there.

I have two technique text entries. The first is ";~CC64,1";. Per [url=https://www.tapspace.com/forums/index.php?topic=2658.0]this thread[/url], I thought some of the ";l.v."; commands I have farther along on this staff, for other instruments, might be messing with the granite blocks playback, so I put that controller message in there to try to fix it.

The other entry is simply ";Granite Blocks, mallets";, telling the player the notated instrument.

I should point out, in case I haven't made it clear, that if I open this score fresh and play it, the temple blocks sound fine. It's only after Sibelius plays through the score at least once that the temple block playback turns into all rolls. So, it's something elsewhere in the score that is causing the unwanted rolls, not something in the beginning.

EDIT: hmmm, I just played through the score once and then went back to the beginning, and the granite block playback is normal. So, I seem to have made a liar out of myself. Perhaps some of the other controller changes that I fixed with ~CC64,1 commands affected this staff and I needed to close and re-open the score to settle things?

I will report back if the undesired rolls come back, and if so, what I may have done to cause their return.

Joe, the problem you're having is normally solved by unchecking the 'Play On Pass' for any staff text that isn't a suggested dictionary definition for VDL. As you discovered with your marimba ";stick"; issue, that is the first thing you'll want to always check when that sort of stuff happens. The only other thing that normally causes that to happen is putting a VDL Instrument on a non VDL staff i.e. one that originates as an instrument not from the VDL family, on which you put a VDL instrument.

Also, you should note that CC64 only affects release, and shouldn't have any affect on what sound is playing back.  That midi controller only affect the release of the note, once the note has release i.e. once note value has completed.