I am running VDL 2.5.5, Sib 7.1.2, Kontakt Player 5, and VDL Template 7.0a. Everything is all up to date...but still running Mac OSX 10.6.8.

I have a full score of winds, brass, and percussion and am having trouble getting everything to playback correctly. The VDL sounds work great by themselves when I have just an instance or two of the new VDL soundset, but when I add an instance of Sibelius player all goes hay-wire!

My attempted playback configuration is:
Two instances of Kontakt 5 (AU) with the VDL Soundset 7.0, and one instance of Sibelius Player with the Sibelius 7 Sounds Soundset.

The VDL sounds get all screwed up, 1/2 the brass isn't sounding, and playback is super choppy.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

Hey Ben,

Are you for sure using the template 7.0a sound set with your playback configurations? It's easy to get this confused if you're not wary of it. Under Active Devices in your Playback Configurations window, you should have them set to ";VDL SoundSet 7.0a";, rather than ";Virtual Drumline 2.5";, which is the one that comes with Sibelius. I would double check this as one way of troubleshooting.

Secondly, I have also noticed some bizarre ";auto-load"; functionality in Sib 7. Open you mixer window and click the little button that looks like cell phone reception bars to expand the mixer columns up until you can see the info about which players and instruments are loaded for which staves. Ideally, the text in this area should have parentheses around it, which is Sibelius' indication that this instrument auto loads. (Note that you will have to hit ";Play"; or similar to load the instruments prior to them showing up here.) On any staves that you want VDL sounds to load on, the player should say something like (Kontakt 5) or (K 5), while the instrument should also have parens around it.

What I've noticed in Sib 7 is that sometimes staves that should be auto-loading VDL instruments will have the wrong player attributed to them, like ";(S. Play)"; which stands for ";Sibelius Player."; This is the wrong player for VDL instruments, which should be reading ";(K 5)";. For a score I was working on, I had to manually select a Kontakt player to force Sibelius to choose the right player for a VDL staff. You can select one of your K5 instances manually from those little menus. It's not clear why I'm having to do this, but it at least gets me up and running!

Hope this helps��_

Thanks for the response, Murray!

This definitely opened up some new ideas. I cannot find the ";VDL SoundSet 7.0a"; Just the 7.0...I double checked and the score I'm working on is using the 7.0a template. The 7.0a SoundSet is not in the available options...maybe I misplaced a file while updating the template?

As far as the mixer: that fixed the problem! All the labels were saying ";unalloc"; after some messing around with it I was able to get the wind instruments assigned to ";S. Play"; and VDL instruments to ";K. 5";

I'm up and running but the lost ";VDL SoundSet 7.0a"; still has me wondering...

[quote author=Ben_Runkel link=topic=4373.msg22901#msg22901 date=1337724357]
This definitely opened up some new ideas. I cannot find the ";VDL SoundSet 7.0a"; Just the 7.0...I double checked and the score I'm working on is using the 7.0a template. The 7.0a SoundSet is not in the available options...maybe I misplaced a file while updating the template?
[/quote]

That'd be my guess. Find the 7.0 sound set and place the 7.0a one with it.

The [url=http://www.thewritescore.com/forum/index.php?topic=292.0]verdict is still out[/url] on the errant auto-loading peculiarity.

Thanks Hugh��_I feel better knowing that I'm not the only one this is happening to! :)

I'm still not finding the VDL SoundSet 7.0a. I deleted all old templates so all that is left is 7.0a, yet still all I see in the SoundSet Options is the VDL SoundSet 7.0 (and about 40 other options but no 7.0a)...see screenshot.

Also, when attempting to switch to another saved playback configuration everything freezes up..see other screenshot.

Thanks for your help!

Hi Ben

Where did you place the 7.0a xml file?

Regarding the freeze, I think this is an issue with Sibelius and Kontakt devices. I'm not sure if it's specific to Mac users, but we've heard lots of people experiencing this before. I would recommend you contact Avid about it.

In the meantime, try NOT switching your configuration directly from within the ";Playback Devices"; window, but rather, from within the ribbon itself. Not sure if this is a surefire workaround, but in limited tests, we've found it to be more reliable.

Hugh,

The xml file is in the folder entitled Sib_VDL_Template_7.0a. This folder is in my own folder called ";sibelius files"; within my ";Documents"; folder. I used this setup for all previous templates and it worked fine. Right now it's with the same files as the maps pdf, readme pdf, and sibelius files.

Ben - this isn't the correct location for the xml file. Place a copy of the file at:

Macintosh HD>Library>Application Support>Avid>Sibelius 7>Sounds

[i]or[/i]

Macintosh HD>Users>your username>Library>Application Support>Avid>Sibelius 7>Sounds

ah yes... (bows head in shame)

problem solved.