http://music-for-films.com/crime-jazz/
These are pieces I wrote for a large ensemble that I play in. I wrote these without really knowing a lot about each individual instrument's range and physical characteristics (I'm self taught mostly) and thus, there was some notes that were out of the average range (altissimo for saxes, trumpets jumping consecutive octave eighth notes back and forth, the clarinet crossing the break over and over, etc. textbook no-no's). I also scored stuff for strings not knowing that a string quartet will get completely buried by a group of saxes and brass, even after being amplified. I even scored stuff for contrabassoon, as if I'd find a contrabassoonist who would play for free in a group where you probably wouldn't be able to hear them!
So what I would generally do is mock them up in VSL, export the midi to Sibelius, print it out, and then pray that it would sound good at rehearsal.
Here's a link to a realization of some of them.
http://www.watts-ensemble.com/
and the myspace page has a couple more (though lower fidelity)
http://www.myspace.com/wattsensemble
The final line up was...
Drums
2 Basses
Piano
Vibes
2 Trumpets
2 Trombones
3 Saxes (Alto, Tenor, Bari)
2 Flutes (1 doubling on bassoon, clarinet)
cheerz,
Bw