Question re NI vst instruments and Finale 2006

[stmain]

Hi all, I know that there have been various pieces of this topic all over the place in the past, and I've been trying to read all of them (and I'm not to bright with the technical stuff), but I'm finally at the point where I simply have to get choral sounds/other sounds playable from my Finale scores (I need this for my work). So here is my basic question:

====>Am I to understand that it's possible to use Finale 2006 with any other NI sampled instruments?<===

If the answer is YES, then the following questions follow:

1. My understanding is that I'd have to upgrade to the full version of Kontakt (2, I believe). Is that true?

2. Having thus upgraded, would I then be able to buy the East West Symphonic choir, load it into Kontakt, and have Finale 2006 play the choir's sampled sounds? Would Human Playback work for these sounds?

3. What about the various instruments I have in Gigastudio 3? Would THEY also be loadable into the Kontakt player and thus playable in a Finale 2006 score?

4. I gather from a recent post by Tom
http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/showthread.php?t=36092
that it's complicated to get GPO to work correctly in Kontakt 2. If I wanted to avoid those complications, could I simply load GPO Studio the usual way (using the Notation folder and the Kontakt 1.5 that comes with GPO), and SIMULTANEOUSLY load the EastWest Choir, or GigaStudio samples in Kontakt 2? Or would it all have to be in Kontakt 2 at that point?

5. And lastly, given Finale's new 2006a update, would all of the above be recordable as an audio file?

I REALLY appreciate any help with these questions.... Please convey any technical advice to me in a form that could be understood by a not-too-bright 6-year old child... then I'll have a fighting chance!

Thanks,
Steve Main

[Richard N.]

====>Am I to understand that it's possible to use Finale 2006 with any other NI sampled instruments?<=== YES

If the answer is YES, then the following questions follow:

1. My understanding is that I'd have to upgrade to the full version of Kontakt (2, I believe). Is that true? Kontakt 2 is an option, but there are other libraries that comes with their own NI player VST which Finale can load

2. Having thus upgraded, would I then be able to buy the East West Symphonic choir, load it into Kontakt, and have Finale 2006 play the choir's sampled sounds? Would Human Playback work for these sounds? Sorry - I don't know anything about East West. If the samples are compatible with Kontakt 2 (and most are) then you are OK to go. HP should work but you would probably have to use the "apply HP" plugin with "optimise for GPO" option selected on the GPO staves.

3. What about the various instruments I have in Gigastudio 3? Would THEY also be loadable into the Kontakt player and thus playable in a Finale 2006 score? Again, you jut need to check that K2 can open Giga files (I think it can)

4. I gather from a recent post by Tom
http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/showthread.php?t=36092
that it's complicated to get GPO to work correctly in Kontakt 2. If I wanted to avoid those complications, could I simply load GPO Studio the usual way (using the Notation folder and the Kontakt 1.5 that comes with GPO), and SIMULTANEOUSLY load the EastWest Choir, or GigaStudio samples in Kontakt 2? Or would it all have to be in Kontakt 2 at that point? It;s not really complicated, there are just some midi signals you may need to send at hte start of each track for some instruments to sound right. Note: you can have up to 8 different VST's loaded in Finale, so you don't need to use K2 for the GPO samples, you could have VST 1 as GPO, and VST 2 as K2.


5. And lastly, given Finale's new 2006a update, would all of the above be recordable as an audio file? I've not tried it myself but I understand that the answer is YES.

I REALLY appreciate any help with these questions.... Please convey any technical advice to me in a form that could be understood by a not-too-bright 6-year old child... then I'll have a fighting chance!

Thanks,
Steve Main