Suspended cymbal in Sibelius 6

[padmavyuha]

Well, I've looked 'everywhere', and it appears to me there's no way to score a suspended cymbal in S6 without purchasing some sounds add-on for £100, like Tapspace Virtual Drumline or Garritan Personal Orchestra.

Unless someone here knows better? Am I missing something obvious? Help!

[padmavyuha]

I found it's possible to 'add a new instrument' once a score is up and running, so I can add susp cymbal, but I can't find a way to just have that instrument on its own from the outset, as a solo instrument in the score.

[Sebasian]

I can't find a way to just have that as a solo instrument in the score.

You don't say what's wrong with the cymbal sounds in Sibelius Essentials.

If you need to you can use House Styles > Edit Instruments to change the sounds. For cymbals on their own I think the best sounds, stroke and roll, are in VDL Concert Percussion. If you do edit the definition of a percussion instrument, make sure all the sounds come from the one set (e.g. don't mix VDL Concert Percussion with Basic Percussion Essentials).

If you're not too sure about editing Percussion staves, take a look at the video tutorial on the Sibelius blog:

http://www.sibeliusblog.com/category/tutorials/

[padmavyuha]

I'm trying to create a clean score with just suspended cymbal in it, but that instrument isn't available in the instruments list at creation time. I don't know how to get access to the Essentials instruments you're talking about at time of score creation - all I can find is Cymbals, which is clash cymbals or kit cymbals.

I've tried the House Styles route you're suggesting, but I don't know how to reassign an existing instrument in a score to be the new one once I've done that.

[Sebasian]

. . . that instrument isn't available in the instruments list at creation time.

There is one in All Instruments > Orchestral Unpitched Percussion

I've tried the House Styles route you're suggesting, but I don't know how to reassign an existing instrument in a score to be the new one once I've done that.

Use an Instrument Change before the beginning of the score (just to the left of the first clef on that stave).

[padmavyuha]

. . . that instrument isn't available in the instruments list at creation time.

There is one in All Instruments > Orchestral Unpitched Percussion

As I said before, in my All Instruments>Orchestral Unpitched Percussion list, there's just 'Cymbals', and it defaults to being a pair of clash cymbals.
Okay, I'm starting to make sense of something here. It seems the way to do this is to start with Cymbals as the instrument, but then apply House Style>Edit Instruments on a note/bar/whatever basis to change the sound/style from the default Clash Cymbals sound to one of the relevant susp cymbal sounds (roll, soft beater, stick, etc.)
I was assuming there would be a susp cymbal in the basic orchestral instrument list (since it's a basic orchestral percussion instrument), rather than me having to go through a whole load of screens and submenus to create it for each different instance of the instrument, but I can live with that. I'll need to dig into the manual a lot more, as maybe there's a way to make a permanent shortcut to the susp cymbal instrument set, since I'm likely to use it often.
Thanks for your help anyway.

[Sebasian]

. . to make a permanent shortcut to the susp cymbal instrument set . . .

Create the instrument, then Export as a House Style. Import this house style into future scores.