In the marching band I instruct, we use a MalletKat to trigger VDL 2.5.5 samples hosted on a laptop running Kontakt Player 5. For large parts of the show I use the Chimes Hammer (MW) instrument. This works fine and allows ";normal"; sounding chimes parts without needing to use specific pedal control.

For a part of the show there are short tutti hits from the band, and I've written short chime notes to go along with this. In Sibelius these are playing back using the Chimes Hammer (PED) instrument without any pedal markings and sound as I desire. Using the same instrument in Kontakt Player 5 to trigger from the MalletKat should get me the short chimes sounds I'm looking for. However, instead I get no sounds at all.

The VDL maps file shows that the octave for MW chimes and PED chimes is the same (as would be expected). Regardless, I tried other octaves without success. I'm not sure what else to try; this should be a simple matter of things ";just working";, but either I am missing something obvious or there is something wrong with live playback of the Chimes Hammer (PED) instrument in my library.

My first suggestion would be to check the outbound MIDI channel from the MalletKat as well as the inbound MIDI channel in the Chimes PED instrument in Kontakt and make sure they match.

While you're at it, open Kontakt's MIDI settings and make sure to check that its Input Devices reflect the midi interface you're using to connect it to the MalletKat.

[quote author=Jim Casella link=topic=4892.msg24933#msg24933 date=1441912047]
My first suggestion would be to check the outbound MIDI channel from the MalletKat as well as the inbound MIDI channel in the Chimes PED instrument in Kontakt and make sure they match.[/quote]I've tried this - it's the first thing to check when live triggering doesn't work correctly. When the MIDI channels match I get no sound.

[quote]While you're at it, open Kontakt's MIDI settings and make sure to check that its Input Devices reflect the midi interface you're using to connect it to the MalletKat.
[/quote]I will check this tonight, but it must be correct; I have 11 MalletKat setups with two MIDI outs on each setup (split keyboard). 21 of these work correctly and only the PED chimes on the tenth setup does not. That can't be a MIDI interface problem...

Ok.

To see if you're getting MIDI data into that patch, select it in Kontakt Player (so it's highlighted in orange), and then try tapping on the MalletKat while watching the onscreen keys. If there's no animated activity, it would lead me to believe there's some sort of MIDI communication issue.

In regard to animated interface stuff, are you seeing the LED signal showing activity? Or is the volume slider on that patch somehow turned all the way down? If so, you may have accidentally saved a version of this patch with its volume down.

If that's not the case, and you are seeing the keys animating, check to see if the samples may be ";purged"; on that instrument for some reason. In the instrument, clicking the ";purge"; menu will give you an option to reload all samples. There should be a memory reading (to the right of your midi channel setting in the instrument's Kontakt interface) to show that samples have been loaded into RAM.

A few other ideas: check your audio settings in the following locations in Kontakt:

1) in the main preferences/options window - ensuring it's set to your desired interface

2) in the ";Output"; section (button at top of Kontakt player), you'll see a ";st.1"; fader near the bottom of the interface. When you click the button on the bottom of that slider, it will bring up a window from which you can set your output configurations. I've heard this being a solution for seemingly mysterious ";no audio"; issues. That's assuming, of course, that your Chimes PED instrument is set to ";output"; to St.1 in the instrument's onscreen interface (just above the midi channel selector).

Do you have a midi controller that will allow you to manipulate Expression control (controller 11)? If so, turn that all the way up (for the Chimes PED) and see if it has an effect. If so, it could mean that your Chimes PED instrument is somehow loading with its expression defaults too low (which a few patches in older, pre-2.5.5 versions of the library had). If that's happening, I'd suggest you reinstall a fresh version of that patch in case you accidentally saved it at some point with its expression settings turned down.

Let us know if you discover the issue. I've tried to reproduce the problem by loading the Chimes Hammer (PED) instrument and triggering from a MIDI keyboard and it all behaves as expected.