Rack Combos

I have to say, my favorite thing about Virtual Drumline right now is using the rack combos.

Writing for the auxiliary percussion players in Finale has always been tedious in terms of getting all the sounds mapped; so I tended to put it off and leave it until last.

To make it work, I would have to map to several different sound fonts for one staff, and doing so meant making staff expressions that would change the midi channel for every different sound.

It took a long time, and killed the fun of writing for that part of my score.

The rack combos (there is an "A" & a "B") have all the sounds I need and then some. It's like the program was designed by a marching percussion arranger or something (and one who's career didn't end in the 1970's)!

Oh, it was.

I suggest using the Rack Combos for your pit rack players and auxiliary percussion parts. And, if you need to customize the notation, you can learn that here:

Editing Percussion Layouts

Indoor season is coming.

I wonder how many of you are getting ready to write your indoor show(s)? I am working myself.

I wish you much creativity and lots of cash.

I am planning a post on flam and diddle playback, as well as layouts and printing.

If you do have a burning question, let me know.

larryrcauley at mac dot com

Finale no longer gives the XML files out for free.

Well, this is a change.

There used to be a help file on the Finale website that linked to a ZIP file with the VDL layouts and XML files. That page has now been replaced with instructions to go to a Tapspace page and buy the stuff for $10.

Here's the link:

http://makemusic.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1690

http://www.tapspace.com/VDL-Template-for-Finale-2010-pr-122.html

If you don't have those .lib or .xml files, you will need them. You will also get some templates.

I'm glad that I got mine while the getting was good!

You will still need my information if you want to add percussion to other's horn scores and to customize those stock templates.

Editing Percussion Layouts

How to customize your percussion layouts.

Setting up your score Lesson 5

In this lesson:

Matching your Kontakt 2 player midi channels to your Finale Channels.

Remember, Midi Channel 1 equals the first number of the Finale Channel group (1,17,33,49, 65, 81, 97, 113)



After you have this lesson complete, you should be able to write in Finale. The next lesson will deal with customizing your setup: changing note heads, moving drums to different lines, custom articulations, etc.

Setting up your score Lesson 4

In this lesson:

Midi channels.

Kontakt 2 plugin.

Loading Virtual Drumline Instruments.

Setting up your score Lesson 3

In this lesson:

Assigning the percussion layouts to staves.

The Instrument List.

Setting up your score Lesson 2

In this lesson:

Downloading the .lib and .xml files that you need for Virtual Drumline.

Audio background.

Loading the layout library.

300

Setting up your score Lesson 1

I'm going to start with a "mega-lesson". At the end of the lesson, you should have a good set up to work with - Finale will look good, and Virtual Drumline will sound good.

Here is part one.

This is a basic lesson on how to start from scratch and set up your battery score. I add staves to a horn score. You can use the information to just make a battery score or add to pit parts, etc.

Skills included in part 1:

Making staves.
Grouping staves and grouping them.
Staff attributes menu.
Naming staves.
Flipping stems up.
Percussion clef.
Key signatures.







I'm working on the quality of the video, so bear with me.

L

This blog is about ...

... helping marching percussionists notate their music using the programs Finale and Virtual Drumline.

Finale is a powerful program, but the learning curve is very steep. I have been using the program since about 1994 and can get around in it pretty well. In the beginning, you really had to manipulate Finale to get drumline battery and percussion parts to look correctly. Finale has made a lot of improvements over the last 15 years to help this process along, but there are still a lot of little customizations that need to be made to get it to display and playback marching percussion as we all know it. And then there is Finale 2010 ...

Virtual Drumline is awesome. In the beginning, my marching snare sound was the "hand clap" in general midi bank 118. The best sound that I could provide for my tenors made it sound like I was marching a line of log drums. Now, I have authentic sounds for every percussion instrument that I can think of .... if I can only get Finale to play them back.

I will post lessons on how to make all of this work. Feel free to email me any questions.

L