I've searched before and tried things written back in 2010 but nothing is working.

I am writing some books this summer but both of my wind arrangers use Finale and I am using Sibelius.  I have imported the Music XML files and adjusted the copious amounts of incorrect staff spacing and everything, I have imported a house style with VDL and I have tried starting with my VDL template and adding the wind parts to it and neither of these is giving me the VDL sounds in the proper staves, just the stock sibelius sounds.  What am I doing wrong?

Hi Jeremy,

I've found it's most efficient to start your Sibelius score with your VDL template first, then adding the wind staves to it. Much less chance for screwiness to occur with instrument/staff types, mappings, note heads, dictionary definitions, etc. All that stuff goes pretty deep in the templates, so it's best not to assume it'll import into other scores via house styles. I don't trust that approach.

If you're not getting VDL sounds in your VDL-specific instrument staves, you may want to double-check that you're using the correct sound set. This would be the sound set that conforms to the template you're using. You should be able to learn more information from the Write Score documentation or by checking with them for specific suggestions. They may peruse this board and offer answers here, but I'd definitely recommend connecting with them via [url=http://forum.thewritescore.com]their forum[/url] as well.

Hope this helps give you some direction!

[quote author=Jim Casella link=topic=4722.msg24270#msg24270 date=1402949241]
Hi Jeremy,

I've found it's most efficient to start your Sibelius score with your VDL template first, then adding the wind staves to it. Much less chance for screwiness to occur with instrument/staff types, mappings, note heads, dictionary definitions, etc. All that stuff goes pretty deep in the templates, so it's best not to assume it'll import into other scores via house styles. I don't trust that approach.[/quote]

I strongly second this. It's so much less complicated to paste into a template and so many fewer things are weird. There is the legwork of setting up a copy of a template with the correct number of measures; rehearsal marks, time signatures, key signatures, etc. in the correct place, and system text and lines as desired. For a few minutes of music I can do this in less than 10 minutes, and most of that time is spent looking at a PDF of the Finale score and making sure I'm counting correctly.

Here's a time-saving tip, Joe. Assuming you're starting a new score, meaning, you just got the wind score from the arranger, converted from Finale into Music XML, then imported that Music XML file into its own vanilla Sibelius file.

If there are time signatures, key sigs, double bars, rehearsal marks, etc. (in the wind score) you can save a TON of time by doing a ";Select All"; in this score, and then, pasting that into a VDL template. You can do this either in a VDL template where you've already created the correct number of wind staves, or you can do it from the 'blank' VDL template that just contains the one ";default"; staff, and it'll create all those staves for you. (If you do the latter, obviously you'd still have to create you required percussion staves, which is pretty easy). But doing it this way (if memory serves...) means all the time signatures and rehearsal marks will import in as well as the music. Give it a try and see if it helps.

Thanks, Jim. Sometimes there are times when I don't want ";all";, but next time I do I'll give this a shot.

Understood. You do have to contend with some (possibly) unwanted things like title text, page numbers (which aren't actually page numbers upon conversion), and probably several other artifacts. I'm guessing this is one of those situations where your mileage may vary depending on your needs.

[quote author=Jim Casella link=topic=4722.msg24303#msg24303 date=1403220998]

If there are time signatures, key sigs, double bars, rehearsal marks, etc. (in the wind score) you can save a TON of time by doing a ";Select All"; in this score, and then, pasting that into a VDL template. You can do this either in a VDL template where you've already created the correct number of wind staves, or you can do it from the 'blank' VDL template that just contains the one ";default"; staff, and it'll create all those staves for you.
[/quote]

Hi Jim,

I just tried this method via the 'default' template avenue and it copied but only the default stave is filled and a bunch of other stuff layered throughout.  Is there a certain formula to ";Select All"; and pasting w/in the VDL template?  Just trying to by-pass the bars, marks, key sigs etc...

I'm running:

MAC OSX 10.6.8
2.26 Intel Core 2 Duo
6GB RAM
Sibelius 6.2
VDL Template 6.0

I should also note, I opened the xml and saved it as a new file; then tried to import the house style I saved from the VDL Template.  That resulted in the score doubling itself and displaying both.

I just tried adding wind instruments to my VDL file which already has all the percussion parts completed.  I then tried to select all from the XML wind score.  I've deleted all the unnecessary instruments from the XML file.  I then tried to copy and paste into my percussion score, but it overwrote the previously written percussion parts with empty staves.

Am I just copying and pasting incorrectly?

[quote author=Spaceman_Spiff link=topic=4722.msg24330#msg24330 date=1403906037]Am I just copying and pasting incorrectly?
[/quote]
It sounds like it.

Here's what I do (this assumes you want to only grab wind parts):

1. Open a copy of the VDL template. This can be a file you've already worked on, a clean copy of the template, whatever.

2. If they don't already exist, add wind instruments to the score. Order them the same as the parts in the XML are ordered.

3. Import the XML. Whenever I do this it looks frighteningly ugly. Doesn't matter, you're just copying notes and expression text. I adjust the staff size so that I can see everything and nothing overlaps. This usually means using a really small staff size.

4. In the imported XML file, click in the first bar of the top instrument of the score to select this measure.

5. Navigate to the end of the XML file and click in the last bar of the bottom instrument in the score. Now the entire score is selected. COPY THIS.

6. Go the the VDL file and click in the first bar of the top instrument of the score to select this measure.

7. PASTE.

8. Save your VDL file.

9. Close the XML file and never think of it again (until someone sends you some revisions via XML).

Thanks for the reply Joe!

I've definitely been using that technique, but that does not copy all the key changes, meter changes etc if I haven't created the full score properly to begin with.

You would need the purple ";Select All"; selection box in order to copy in the system-wide elements like key sigs, time sigs, etc. Since it sounds like you already tried this, but it overwrote your percussion staves, what I would suggest would be to create the wind staves in a new BLANK VDL template document. Then copy/paste the content from the XML convert file into this new blank document. Use the ";Select All"; method to ensure you have the purple selection box, not the blue one.

At this point, you should have the wind parts effectively copied into your VDL template along with the corresponding key and time sigs. Now, create your percussion staves. Once these are created, copy in the percussion parts you have already written into them, but this time do it with the regular BLUE selection box.

It's convoluted, but it seems like this should work. Hope it helps!

Thanks Murray!