Welcome to the forum!

Are you using Finale v27?

Windows or Mac?

Please describe your steps - so that we can try to reproduce the problem.

- Are you changing instrument via

Utilities menu > Change Instrument…

?

sorry.  Finale 27, Windows

and yes, via Utilities, Change instrument.  

When I try to change instrument on a single staff, there are no problems, the issue is change a grand staff temporarily to Percussion

Use 3 staves:

a single staff

and

a Grand Staff (= two staves)

Use the Staff Tool to hide staves where they are not used.

John,

I think you are correct if you want correct playback you cant' do it as you have laid out. But you can make a score and/or parts that show what you want. Finale always seems to have a way of doing anything. However in this case playback isn't one of them. Sound is a short coming in Finale as a general rule. One reason most of use use NP4.

I don't see Peter's suggestion as a solution either but perhaps I misunderstood what he said if you want all instruments and percussion toys on a single staff line.

John Kinane,

We need a more precise description af what you are trying to do.

1) Do you need to change between two staves (= Grand Staff) and a single staff (like e. g. Vibraphone, Glockenspiel, Cymbals)?

Or do you need to keep two staves, but change to two Percussion staves (as in the graphic shown in the post by Ernest)?

2) Do you need to change mid-system(as in the graphic shown in the post by Ernest), or only at the beginning of a new system?

when trying to change a single like staff, in this case Vibes, to general percussion I am able to do it.

When I try to change here on a grand staff for marimba, I don't see any way to get the staff temporarily to general percussion

John,

You are right.  You can't do it with the Change Instrument tool. You have to use a Staff Style. However, playback is gone. This is what I meant by with Finales there always seems to be a way to do anything. The price is no  correct playback.

HI John Kinane, 

I have run into this issue too with percussion writing - I noticed non-pitched percussion options were gone. Additionally, in my case, I would like to change instruments on ONLY ONE staff for drums, but I have not been successful. I do think I have a work-around for you. 

My work-around was to just choose ANY different instrument, and then in the Score Manager, choose Bank: Kontakt (or wherever you get your percussion sounds) and assign appropriate channel for the sound you want. Then I selected Notation Style: Percussion and selected appropriate item. I did have to load in my VDL libraries. 

This is a bit frustrating! Hopefully this might help! 

Cheers! 

Andrea