I'm trying to get a percussion buddy of mine set up as best as possible to use Sibelius 6 without owning VDL. I think the best course of action would be for him to purchase the template, then use KP2 or KP4 with the ";Virtual Drumline 2.5"; soundset in conjunction with the instrument mappings documented in the template readme. While this means that many of the more esoteric VDL sounds won't play back properly for the one who does not own VDL, the basic L and R hits for snare, tenor, and bass will work. For me, everything will play back properly, and we should be able to share files seamlessly.

Does this sound like a reasonable plan of attack? I started walking my buddy through setting up a plroper playback configuration to do this, and while he owns Sibelius 6 w/ Essentials, he didn't have KP2 installed. I gave him the download to KP4, and now he says that the ";Virtual Drumline 2.5"; soundset is not available for an instance of KP4. In fact, he says that the ";Sibelius Essentials"; soundset isn't available either. I have both of these soundsets available for Kontakt Player even when I don't have VDL installed (although I think that they may have come from Sibelius 5, not Sibelius 6).

Is it possible for me to pull these soundsets off of my hard drive and pass them along to my buddy? Would there be anything wrong with this, and if not, would this help to get us going?

Or I am completely off track here?

I don't think you're completely off track, but let me see if I can explain why this won't work.

Sibelius 6 already comes with the old Essentials (the Kontakt version) sound set included in the main install. However, Sibelius also knows that that sample library is not installed on his computer. Same with VDL. When those libraries are installed, a library ID number is preassigned and this information is placed somewhere in the OS registry. If that library is nonexistent, Sibelius knows this and therefore won't show the user the sound set as an option in the drop-down list. I believe this is the result you are already seeing. (Go to the [i]SibeliusInstallationDirectory[/i]/Sibelius 6/Sounds folder on your computer to see all the sound sets that Sibelius installs.)

(The ";Sibelius Essentials"; sound set will only show up when being applied to an instance of Sibelius Player. In Sibelius 6, the Kontakt version of Essentials' sound set would show up as ";Sibelius Essentials (Kontakt)";.)

So, the only way for him to have either of the VDL sound sets (";Virtual Drumline 2.5"; or ";VDL SoundSet 6.0a";) available is to have the library installed. (And we all know it's a steal at only $199!)

Probably not the answer you wanted, but I'm not aware of any viable workaround.

Hmmm, so the ";Virtual Drumline 2.5"; soundset [i]doesn't[/i] come with Essentials? Bummer; that puts a dent in my plans.

[quote author=Joe link=topic=3926.msg20658#msg20658 date=1295457828]
Hmmm, so the ";Virtual Drumline 2.5"; soundset [i]doesn't[/i] come with Essentials?
[/quote]

Correct. They are two completely separate entities altogether. The ";Virtual Drumline 2.5"; sound set is for the full version of VDL; the Essentials sound set is for the Essentials sample library (which does include their stripped set of VDL sounds).

The only other option I see for him that doesn't require VDL, is to just use his copy of the template with a Playback Configuration that does not have any devices instantiated. You could use the v6 Essentials stuff, but I think it would be more annoying than just not having anything load at all. Otherwise, the pertinent information he would need to write with is still in the .sib file.

[quote author=chznvrt link=topic=3926.msg20669#msg20669 date=1295467404]The only other option I see for him that doesn't require VDL, is to just use his copy of the template with a Playback Configuration that does not have any devices instantiated. You could use the v6 Essentials stuff, but I think it would be more annoying than just not having anything load at all. Otherwise, the pertinent information he would need to write with is still in the .sib file.[/quote]Yeah, I think this is what we'll do. So much for my bright idea.

As an aside, since the template-specific soundsets are required to achieve proper playback, why does the ";Virtual Drumline 2.5"; soundset exist at all?

[quote author=Joe link=topic=3926.msg20674#msg20674 date=1295545466]
As an aside, since the template-specific soundsets are required to achieve proper playback, why does the ";Virtual Drumline 2.5"; soundset exist at all?
[/quote]

That sound set is the ";original"; sound set that Sibelius provided to work with VDL 2.5.0 - and believe me, it took a lot of work to get it that far. The sound set that I have included within the template package has a few further customizations as well as the 2.5.2 library update items.