Using HUMAN PLAYBACK with GARRITAN PERSONAL ORCHESTRA and GPO FINALE EDITION A Finale 2006 tutorial by DARCY JAMES ARGUE

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Part 1: CHECKLISTS How to set up GPO Playback in Finale 2006 • GPO Setup Checklist #1: Using GPO in a new score • GPO Setup Checklist #2: Using GPO in an existing score Part 2: REFERENCE Using GPO with Finale 2006 • Human Playback Preferences • Human Playback Style • Keyswitches • Channels • Controllers • The Mixer and Studio View • Ambience Reverb • Player Variations • Percussion • AU/VST Playback vs. MIDI Playback • Saving an Audio File • Performance Tips ACKNOWLEDGMENTS THIS DOCUMENT COPYRIGHT © 2005 DARCY JAMES ARGUE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED MakeMusic® and Finale® are registered trademarks of MakeMusic Inc. and its licensors. Human Playback™ is a trademark of MakeMusic Inc. and its licensors. Human Playback™ was designed and programmed by Robert Piéchaud. Garritan Personal Orchestra® is a registered trademark of Garritan Corp. KONTAKT™ is a trademark of Native Instruments GmbH. Audio Units™ is a trademark of Apple Computer. VST™ is a trademark of Steinberg. Steinway™ is a trademark of Steinway & Sons and is used by permission.

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INTRODUCTION Finale 2006 includes many updated and improved features, but perhaps the most significant new feature is the inclusion of Garritan Personal Orchestra Finale Edition. This library contains over 100 professional-quality virtual instruments drawn from the acclaimed Garritan Personal Orchestra library, giving you unprecedented realism and control over playback. These Garrtian Personal Orchestra instruments are seamlessly integrated into your Finale documents using the latest audio plug-in technology. Whether you use GPO Finale Edition or the full version of GPO, Finale’s Human Playback is designed to take maximum advantage of the power and flexibility of GPO. Hairpins, articulations, expressions, and performance techniques like “pizz.” and “acro” are automatically interpreted. Human Playback takes maximum advantage of the expressive potential of the Garritan Personal Orchestra instruments to bring your score to life. This tutorial guides you through the process of setting up your Finale scores for use with GPO Finale Edition or full GPO. In Part 1, you will learn how to use Finale’s Setup Wizard to configure new scores for GPO playback, and how to convert your existing scores for use with the GPO instruments. In Part 2, you will learn more about some of the advanced features of Finale 2006, Human Playback, and GPO, and how you can use them together to create the most realistic and nuanced playback of your score. This tutorial assumes that you are already somewhat familiar with the basics of Finale 2006 — using the Setup Wizard, entering music, creating custom expressions, articulations and smart shapes, using the playback controls, etc. If you have not yet read and completed the Finale 2006 Tutorial (located in the User Manual folder inside your Finale 2006 folder), I highly recommend that you do so before proceeding. This tutorial also assumes that you have installed the latest update to Human Playback, which is — as of this writing — HP 1.6.1.2. Throughout this document, you will see Macintosh screen shots that refer to “AU” or “Audio Units.” In the Windows version of Finale, the equivalent dialog boxes refer to “VST” instead. The functionality is the same in both versions. Similarly, when I refer to a menu item like “Native Instruments AU/VST Setup,” this is shorthand for “Native Instruments AU Setup” in the Mac version, and “Native Instruments VST Setup” in the Windows version. A reminder that you can search this PDF tutorial for keywords and phrases using the Search function in Adobe Reader or Apple Preview. If, after reading this tutorial, you still have questions about any aspect of Finale, Human Playback, or GPO Finale Edition, you can contact MakeMusic Customer Support by emailing [email protected] or [email protected]. If you have questions about the full version of Garritan Personal Orchestra, you can contact Garritan Customer Service at [email protected]. There are also extremely helpful online support forums for both Finale and Garritan Personal Orchestra: http://forum.makemusic.com/ http://northernsounds.com/forum/ I hope this tutorial helps you get the very best results from Finale, Human Playback, and Garritan Personal Orchestra! - Darcy James Argue

Part 1

CH E CK LIS TS

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How to set up GPO Playback in Finale 2006

GPO SETUP CHECKLIST #1 USING GPO INSTRUMENTS IN A NEW SCORE

Download and install the updated Finale 2006 Default Files: Windows: http://www.finalemusic.com/downloads/download_file.asp?id=323 Mac: http://www.finalemusic.com/downloads/download_file.asp?id=324 Full GPO users: download and install the latest GPO Kontakt Player Update: Windows & Mac: http://www.garritan.com/downloads.html Be sure to install the optional Notation Set for Finale.1 Full GPO users (Mac only): If you have downloaded and installed the updated version (1.0.5) of the Ambience Reverb plug-in, you should replace it with the original version (1.0) to ensure compatibility with Finale 2006. 2 Use Finale’s Setup Wizard to create your score. On Page 2 of the Setup Wizard, select Garritan Personal Orchestra or Garritan Personal Orchestra Finale Edition as your instrument set. Whenever instruments with KS in their name are available — for example, Violin Solo KS 1 or Cellos KS — you should choose those instruments over other versions of the same instrument. For more information, see the entry on Keyswitches in the Reference section of this tutorial. Once your score is set up, if you want to hear the GPO instruments when inputting music using a MIDI keyboard, select MIDI Thru from the MIDI menu, then choose Smart. Remember to turn up the modulation wheel on your MIDI keyboard, or the GPO instruments might be too quiet to hear! When you are adding expressions to your score, do not use the ones marked “use w/HP off FinGPO KS” (or “GPO Finale Edition Keyswitch”). These expressions are incompatible with Human Playback and should be avoided (or deleted).3 Before you play back your file for the first time, click the triangle at the left of the Playback Controls window (Mac version) or the speaker at the right (Windows version) to: reveal Finale’s Playback Settings:

… then choose a Human Playback style:

Reduce the Master volume in Finale’s Mixer to 64 or lower. Now your score is ready to play back using GPO instruments! 1. If you installed the GPO Kontakt Player update before you installed Finale 2006, you must re-install the GPO Kontakt Player update — otherwise, GPO instruments won’t show up in the Setup Wizard. 2. You can find the original version, along with installation instructions, on Disc 4 of your GPO install CDs. 3. Human Playback automatically recognizes expressions like “pizz.” and “arco,” but only if they are not defined for playback. See the entry on Keyswitches for more details.

How to set up GPO Playback in Finale 2006

GPO SETUP CHECKLIST #2

USING GPO INSTRUMENTS IN AN EXISTING SCORE If you have purchased the full version of Garritan Personal Orchestra, download and install the latest GPO Kontakt Player update: Windows & Mac: http://www.garritan.com/downloads.html Be sure to install the optional Notation Set for Finale. Open your existing score in Finale 2006.1 From the Window menu, choose Instrument List and make sure each staff is assigned to a different instrument in the Instrument List.2 This means you may need to create new instruments. If, for example, you have a string orchestra score where all of the string staves are set to String Ensemble 1…

… then you would need to create new instruments — called Violin I, Violin II, Viola, Cello, and Contrabass — and assign them to the appropriate staves:

Once you’ve given each staff its own instrument in the Instrument List, you also need to give each staff its own channel. N.B. If your score contains unpitched percussion instruments, you may want to consult the Reference section entries on Percussion and Channels before proceeding. If you have 8 staves or fewer: Assign your top staff to Channel 1, the next staff to Channel 2, etc, until each staff has its own channel:

1. If you installed the GPO Kontakt Player update before you installed Finale 2006, you must re-install the GPO Kontakt Player update — otherwise, GPO instruments won’t show up in the Setup Wizard. 2. If you don’t know how to do this, then from the Help menu in Finale 2006, choose Finale Tutorials, then consult Tutorial 6: Playback.

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How to set up GPO Playback in Finale 2006

If you have more than 8 staves: Assign the first eight staves to Channels 1-8. Assign the next eight staves to Channels 17-24 (skipping 9-16). 1 Assign the next eight staves to Channels 3340, the next eight to Channels 49-56, and each subsequent group of eight staves to Channels 65-72, 81-88, 97-104, and 113-120, until each staff has its own channel. 2 Here’s what the channel assignments might look like for an orchestral score:

You can use a maximum of 64 simultaneous channels with GPO. 1. If you are wondering why we skip every other block of eight channels, skip ahead to the entry on Channels. 2. The exceptions are multi-staff instruments like piano and harp — in that case, both the RH and LH staves can share the same channel — provided there are not independent dynamics in each staff.

How to set up GPO Playback in Finale 2006 If you don’t pick a General MIDI patch assignment when you create a new instrument in the Instrument List, Finale defaults to using the Acoustic Grand Piano patch for every staff. However, this setting does not affect GPO instruments — so if you only want to use the GPO instruments for playback, you can skip this step and proceed to the next one. But… if you want to be able to easily switch back and forth between using GPO and using Finale’s SmartMusic SoftSynth (or another General MIDI device, such as your sound card, or external synth) for playback, then you need to select an appropriate patch assignment for each staff from the pull-down menus in the GM column. Again, here’s what the Instrument List for an orchestral score might look like when you’ve done this:

Once again, the instruments you choose in the window above will not affect GPO playback. They only affect SmartMusic SoftSynth playback (or other types of General MIDI playback), should you wish to temporarily turn off GPO playback. Once you have assigned each staff to a separate instrument, and assigned each instrument to the correct channel, you are ready to configure your score for GPO Playback: From the MIDI menu, choose Native Instruments AU Setup (on Mac) or Native Instruments VST Setup (on Windows). Check the box that says Play Finale Through Native Instruments Audio Units

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How to set up GPO Playback in Finale 2006 (on Mac) or Play Finale Through Native Instruments VST (on Windows):

In the same dialog box, click on the pull-down menu next to Finale Channel 1-16 and choose either Native Instruments: Finale GPO or (if you have purchased the full version of GPO) Native Instruments: Garritan Personal Orchestra:

Then click the Edit button next to the pull-down menu:

This brings up the first instance of the Kontakt Player, which you will use to load the GPO instruments you want to use in your score:

Click and hold on the Load button in the Kontakt Player, and then select the instrument you want to use to play back the top staff of your score. The instruments in GPO are organized first by section (woodwinds, brass,

How to set up GPO Playback in Finale 2006 strings, etc.) and then by instrument family (flutes, clarinets, bassoons, etc.) Let’s assume for the moment that the Instrument List for your score looks like the one on Page 7 of this tutorial. The top staff in that score is Piccolo, so that’s the first instrument you would need to load. Here’s where you would find the piccolo in GPO Finale Edition:

The instruments in GPO Finale Edition have all been optimized for use with Finale’s Human Playback. The latest update for the full version of GPO also contains a set of instruments that are optimized for Human Playback — and they are found in the “9. Notation” folder. So, whenever you load instruments from the full GPO set into a Finale file, you must remember to load the ones found in the “9. Notation” folder:

THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT! If you are using full GPO and you inadvertently load one of the instruments that isn’t in the “9. Notation” folder, many Human Playback features won’t work correctly. The names of the non-Notation GPO instruments are identical to the names of the Notation instruments, which means it’s not always possible to tell after the fact which version you’ve loaded. So be very careful when manually loading GPO instruments!

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How to set up GPO Playback in Finale 2006

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Finale’s Setup Wizard always loads instruments from the “9. Notation” folder. GPO Finale Edition does not have a “9. Notation” folder because all of the GPO Finale Edition instruments are Notation instruments. You will also notice that in the full version of GPO, there are many more instruments to choose from — for instance, as you can tell from the illustration on the previous page, full GPO has four different kinds of piccolo (whereas GPO Finale Edition has just one). But whether you are using GPO Finale Edition or full GPO, whenever instruments with KS in their name are available — for example, Piccolo Solo KS — you should choose those instruments over other versions of the same instrument. For more information, see the entry on Keyswitches in the Reference section of this tutorial. You should now have successfully loaded your first GPO instrument. The Kontakt Player should now look like this: GPO Finale Edition:

Full GPO:

Now click on the first empty box in the horizontal strip at the top of the Kontakt Player (called the Virtual Rack) just to the left of the blue (highlighted) box:

How to set up GPO Playback in Finale 2006

By default, the second box in the Virtual Rack corresponds to Channel 2. Once again, let’s assume that the Instrument List for your score looks like the one shown on Page 7 of this tutorial — in this score, the next staff below the Piccolo is Flute 1, and that staff is assigned to Channel 2. So now we need to load a flute into the second slot in the Kontakt Player’s Virtual Rack:

You will notice that GPO Finale Edition has four different flutes to choose from, each with their own distinctive characteristics. (For more information, see the entry on Player Variations in the Reference section.) For now, let’s choose Flute Plr1. (If you are using the full version of GPO, you might choose Flute Solo KS instead — again, see the entry on Player Variations for more details.) As you may have guessed, the remaining six empty slots in the Virtual Rack correspond (by default) to Channels 3-8, which are assigned to the next six staves in your score. If you refer once again to the Instrument List window shown on Page 7, you will see that the next six staves below Flute 1 are: Flute 2, Oboe, English Horn, Clarinet in Eb, Clarinet in Bb 1, and Clarinet in Bb 2. To load these instruments, repeat the procedure described above — click on the next available empty slot in the Virtual Rack, then load the GPO instrument that best matches the next instrument in your score.1 As you load up the Kontakt Player with GPO instruments, you will probably want to have the Instrument Window open so you can refer back to it.

1. Both GPO Finale Edition and the full version of GPO contain only traditional orchestral instruments (i.e., no saxophones, no electric guitar, etc). These, and other jazz-oriented instruments, will be included in the upcoming Garritan Jazz & Big Band collection — but for now, if your score contains these instruments, you will have to make substitutions.

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How to set up GPO Playback in Finale 2006 Here’s what the Kontakt Player might look like after you load the first eight instruments from the Instrument Window from Page 7: 1

As you can see, this instance of the Kontakt Player is now fully loaded: there are eight slots in the Virtual Rack (corresponding to Channels 1-8), and each one can hold just one GPO instrument. If our score has more instruments, we will need to close this Kontakt Player instance and open another one. After closing the first Kontakt Player instance, you will see that the Native Instruments Audio Unit/VST Setup dialog box has remained open. In this dialog box, click on the pull-down menu next to 17-32 and once again choose either Native Instruments: Finale GPO or (if you have it) Native Instruments: Garritan Personal Orchestra. Then click the Edit button next to the pulldown menu:

This brings up the second instance of the Kontakt Player, which looks just like the first one did — except for the title bar, which says:

What this means is that the first instrument you load into this second Kontakt Player instance will be assigned to Finale Channel 17, the second instrument will be assigned to Finale Channel 18, and so on. Now you can (hopefully) see why, when we were assigning channels in the instrument list, we skipped Finale Channels 9-16. 2 But if you still find this a little confusing, don’t worry — so long as you set up your instrument list correctly in the first place, and you keep loading instruments in the order in which they appear in your score, you’ll be fine. Referring back to the instrument list from Page 7, you’ll see that the next group of eight instruments — the ones assigned to Finale Channels 17-24 — consists of: Bass Clarinet, Bassoon 1, Bassoon 2, Contrabassoon, Horn in F 1, Horn in F

1. Speaking of substitutions, in the example shown above, we had to substitute a GPO Bb Clarinet for the Eb Clarinet in our score, because GPO Finale Edition does not include an Eb Clarinet. That’s one of several additional instruments you will have access to if you upgrade to full GPO. 2. You might also be wondering why the first Kontakt Player instance says “Bank 1: Virtual Channels 116” if it can only access Channels 1-8. Well, although it is possible to access any channel from 1 through 16 in the first Kontakt Player instance (and for more on that, see the entry on Channels), the Kontakt Player can only ever access a maximum of eight channels per instance — and it uses the first eight channels in each bank by default.

How to set up GPO Playback in Finale 2006 2, Trumpet in C 1, and Trumpet in C 2. So now it’s just a matter of loading the first instrument in this group into the leftmost slot of the Virtual Rack, loading the second instrument into the second slot, and so on, just like we did with the first Kontakt Player instance. Once it’s fully loaded with the second group of eight instruments, the second Kontakt Player instance might look like this:

And if we continue to load each subsequent group of eight instruments into subsequent instances of the Kontakt player (until we have loaded all of the instruments needed in our score), they might look like this: Third Kontakt Player Instance (Bank 3) — Virtual Channels 33-48:

Fourth Kontakt Player Instance (Bank 4) — Virtual Channels 49-64:

As you can see, we needed a total of four Kontakt Player instances to load all of the instruments needed to play our orchestral score. Before you close the final Kontakt Player instance, click the Options button

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How to set up GPO Playback in Finale 2006 (below the Load button) and make sure the following settings are correct:

Use Std. CC#7/CC#10 Volume & Pan should be on. Sustain/Sutenuto Pedal Mode should be set to Normal. If these settings are not already set correctly, after you fix them you may have to quit and re-launch Finale. (Remember to save your document first!) If you want to hear the GPO instruments you have selected when inputting music with a MIDI keyboard, choose MIDI Thru from the MIDI menu, then choose Smart. Remember to turn up the modulation wheel on your MIDI keyboard, or the GPO instruments might be too quiet to hear! If you have used GPO with previous versions of Finale and added expressions that were defined to trigger keyswitches (such as the expressions in the Finale 2005 Keyswitch Library available on the Garritan website), you will need to edit the Playback Options for all of those expressions and set them to None. The GPO instruments in the “9. Notation” folder use different keyswitches, so your old keyswitch expressions will no longer work. Luckily, Human Playback takes care of all your keyswitching needs now! Just make sure you edit the old keyswitching expressions used in your score so they are no longer defined for playback. (For more information, see the entry on Keyswitches in the Reference section of this tutorial.) Before you play back your file for the first time, click the triangle at the left of the Playback Controls window (Mac version) or the speaker at the right (Windows version) to: reveal Finale’s Playback Settings:

… then choose a Human Playback style:

How to set up GPO Playback in Finale 2006

Also, in this Playback Controls dialog box, click the HP Preferences button, then click the Reset to Default button in the Human Playback Preferences dialog box. (You can find out more about all of these options in the Human Playback Preferences entry in the Reference section — but for now, it’s easiest to just hit Reset to Default, which will select the best HP settings for basic GPO playback.) Reduce the Master volume in Finale’s Mixer to 64 or lower. Finally, to get the best stereo image for your instrument setup, from the MIDI menu, choose Set Panning. That’s it! Now your Finale score is (finally) ready to play back using GPO instruments!

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Part 2

R E FE R E NCE

Using GPO with Finale 2006

Human Playback Preferences You access the Human Playback Options from the expanded Playback Controls window (Mac) or Playback Settings window (Windows). To get there, go to the Playback Controls window and click the triangle at the left (Mac) or the speaker at the right (Windows).

Here are the default settings — you can return to these settings at any time by clicking the Reset to Default button:

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The default settings work well for most situations, but if you want to know more about how each of these items affects playback, read on. User MIDI Data If you have used the MIDI tool to customize the MIDI data in your document, or you have created custom expressions that trigger MIDI data that you want Human Playback to take into account, you may want to select HP (Incorporate Data) for the items in this section. Otherwise, you should stick with the defaults. You will definitely not want to choose No HP Effect for any of these options, especially when using GPO instruments, unless you are absolutely certain you want to use user-created MIDI data only. Garritan Personal Orchestra Activate GPO Support This option should be set to Auto Detect — this setting will give you the best results no matter what playback method you’re currently using. Use Contr. #1 for Continuous Dynamic Selecting this option activates Human Playback’s support for modulation wheel dynamics in GPO. (The modulation wheel is MIDI controller #1.) For wind and string instruments in GPO, the modulation wheel is used to control the overall dynamic level (including appropriate timbre changes when playing fortissimo vs. pianissimo), while velocity is used to control the attack strength (i.e., accents). This makes it possible to have sharply accented soft notes, or smooth, legato loud notes. This option should remain on at all times — otherwise, Human Playback will be unable to interpret dynamics when playing GPO instruments. Optimize Attacks This option should also be on, and the Base Value of 80 is a good starting point. This controls the default velocity (attack strength) for GPO instruments. You should increase this number (up to a maximum of 127) if you require stronger accents on all notes. String instruments are especially sensitive to this setting. If you find your strings lack definition, try increasing this value.

Using GPO with Finale 2006 Best Legato Using Controller This should be set to 68 for GPO Finale Edition. It should also be set to 68 for full GPO, so long as you are using the instruments in the 9. Notation folder. This setting allows Human Playback to interpret the slurs in your score. You should only set it to 64 only if you are using full GPO instruments that are not in the 9. Notation folder — for instance, if you haven’t upgraded to the latest version of GPO, or if you are playing back an older score using a saved GPO Studio setup. However, this is not recommended — you will get much better results if you go through the steps in Checklist #2, so that you can take advantage of the improvements in Finale 2006 and full GPO’s Notation instruments. In fact, one of these recent improvements is directly related to the “Best Legato Using Controller” setting. In previous versions of GPO, the sustain pedal (MIDI controller #64) was used to trigger legato playing in winds and strings. This made it easy to create realistic slurs during live playback, but there was also a big drawback — it made made normal sustain pedal operation (for piano, etc) impossible. GPO Finale Edition and the Notation instruments in full GPO solve this problem by moving the trigger for legato (slurred) playing in winds and strings to MIDI controller #68, reserving the sustain pedal (MIDI controller #64) for normal sustain operation. While it might be impractical for you to trigger MIDI controller #68 during live playing, Human Playback can do this easily, so you no longer have to choose between authentic legato in sustaining instruments and playback of pedaling indications in the piano — if you use GPO Finale Edition or the Notation instruments in full GPO, you can have both! N.B. In order for this feature to work correctly, you should also click the Options button in the Kontakt Player and make sure that the Sustain/ Sustenuto Pedal mode is set to Normal:

If this setting is not correct, after you fix it you may have to quit and re-launch Finale. (Remember to save your current document first!) Use Unified Keyswitches should be on if you are using GPO Finale Edition or the Notation instruments in full GPO. It should only be turned off if you are if you haven’t upgraded to the latest version of GPO, or if you are playing back an older score using a saved GPO Studio setup. Again, this is not recommended — you will get much better results if you follow the directions in Checklist #2 to set up your existing score for AU/VST playback using the Notation instruments. Advanced Instrument Techniques These options should all be checked (with one possible exception — see below). Checking these boxes allows Human Playback to interpret expressions like “pizz,” “arco,” etc, using keyswitches. You must load the keyswitched (”KS”) GPO instruments (when available) for these Advanced Instrument Techniques to take effect. See the entry on Keyswitches for more information. N.B. Keyswitched tremolos for solo string instruments are supported in GPO Finale Edition only. If you are using any of the “KS” solo strings in full GPO (such as Violin 1 Gagli KS Solo), then you must uncheck the Tremolo box in this section. String tremolos will still play back, but using Human Playback-created tremolos instead of keyswitched (sampled) tremolos. Again, this only applies to solo strings in full GPO — if you are using section strings only, or if you are using GPO Finale Edition, you should leave the Tremolo box checked.

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Using GPO with Finale 2006 Anticipate Continuous Data This option is best left at 15 milliseconds, for both GPO and Finale’s SmartMusic SoftSynth. This allows Human Playback to send certain types of MIDI data to GPO slightly early, so that it arrives before the note is triggered. Allow Temporary Score Items Adjustments Similarly, some score expressions (like tempo changes) need to be sent slightly early for best results. This item allows Human Playback to temporarily move score expressions and other items horizontally for playback purposes — they return to their default positions when playback is completed. This item should be checked. Never Show Messages Checking this box suppresses all Human Playback-related warnings and messages. Only check this box if you are already familiar with all of these alerts. Advanced Parameters - Crescendo/Diminuendo Type This should be set to Automatic. This allows Human Playback to always choose the best method for creating crescendos and diminuendos — modulation wheel cresc/dim for sustaining instruments (winds and strings) and velocity-based cresc/ dim for non-sustaining instruments (piano, harp, percussion, etc). Curve This should generally be set to Automatic, which allows Human Playback to choose the type of crescendo based on musical context. Selecting Cubic results in a crescendo or diminuendo with a gradually increasing rate of change. Selecting Quadratic results in a dramatic crescendo or diminuendo at the very end of hairpins. Selecting Linear results in a constant rate of change over the entire length of the hairpin. Here is a graphic illustrating how the three types of curves affect a crescendo:

Hairpin Pair Emphasis This setting actually affects all hairpins (not just hairpin pairs) that do not have a terminal dynamic marking. Increase this slider to make hairpins more dramatic, or reduce it to make them more subtle. I find that increasing this slider to around 60% gives more satisfying hairpins in GPO. Auto Expression Emphasis This setting mostly affects the dynamic shaping Human Playback gives to held notes without hairpins. Increase this slider for more dramatic dynamic shaping, decrease it to make the shaping more subtle.

Using GPO with Finale 2006 Advanced Parameters - Glissando/Bend Type This setting should be set to Automatic. This allows Human Playback to always choose instrument-appropriate glissandos — wind instruments and strings use pitch bend (smooth) glisses, piano uses chromatic glisses (for glisses a minor 6th or smaller) or white key/black key glisses (for longer glisses), harp uses diatonic glisses, etc. You can choose to override this if you wish and force Human Playback to make all glisses the same type (pitch bend, chromatic, diatonic), regardless of instrument. Curve This setting is similar to the Curve setting for hairpins. Automatic gives you contextsensitive results, Cubic creates a gliss with a gradually increasing rate of change, Quadratic results in a dramatic sweep at the very end of the the gliss, and Linear keeps the rate of change constant throughout the the gliss. 1/2 Tone Pitch Bend Range This controls the maximum interval (measured in semitones) for which pitch bend glisses are used. Glisses larger than this interval will be interpreted as chromatic glisses, even on sustaining instruments. For instance, if it is set to 6, then glisses of a tritone or smaller will be interpreted as pitch bend glisses, and glisses of a fifth or larger will be be interpreted as chromatic glisses. For GPO Finale Edition, the maximum possible value you can set for the Pitch Bend Range is 12; for full GPO, the maximum possible value is 12 for most instruments, but 2 if your score uses any of the solo string instruments. Delay tells Human Playback to begin the gliss near the end of the note when possible, which is usually desirable. Uncheck this box if you want Human Playback to always begin glisses right away. Advanced Parameters - Ornament/Tremolo Minimum Speed is the minimum number of notes per second used in Human Playback-generated trills and tremolos. They may be faster, depending on context. This setting not affect sampled tremolos, like the ones used in the section string KS instruments. Humanize Rolls and Trills tells Human Playback to vary the intonation and timbre of rolls, tremolos, and trills, which avoids the “machine gun” effect that would otherwise occur. This item should be checked. Advanced Parameters - Fermata Minimum Duration is in addition to the note’s normal duration. Ritarando Before creates a context-sensitive reduction in tempo before the fermatta. Balance Solo/Accomp. Balance allows you to adjust the emphasis given to solo parts (when Detection of Solo Instruments is on) — drag right to bring out the solo parts more, left to give them less emphasis. Base Value for Instrument Volume is used for notes without an initial dynamic marking. Larger numbers are louder; the maximum value is 127.

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Human Playback Style You access the Human Playback Options from the expanded Playback Controls window (Mac) or Playback Settings window (Windows). To get there, go to the Playback Controls window and click the triangle at the left (Mac) or the speaker at the right (Windows).

While the various default Human Playback styles (Baroque, Classical, Jazz, Rock, etc) give excellent results, you also have the ability to create your own custom Human Playback style, tailored to the score you are working on.

Using GPO with Finale 2006

Details about all of these settings can be found in the Finale documentation, in the entry on Human Playback Custom Style dialog box. In this tutorial, we will discuss only those items that have the biggest impact on GPO playback. Copy Settings From: An excellent way to learn about the various settings in this dialog box is to go through all of the choices in this pull-down menu and see which settings have been chosen for each of the default Human Playback Styles. You can also copy the settings from any of the default Human Playback styles to use as a starting point for your custom style. N.B. Custom Human Playback Styles are saved with the document. If you wish, you can even have a different Custom Human Playback Style for each Finale document on your hard drive. However, if you have a specific custom style that you wish to save for future use, you should edit the Custom Human Playback Style settings in your Finale Default File. All new documents created with the Setup Wizard will then use that style by default. Rhythmic Feel, Rhythmic Accents, Rubato Users are often confused by the distinction between these three items. They are easier to explain if we tackle them out of order: Rubato controls the amount of variability in the global tempo. A high value here causes Human Playback to interpret the score with a great deal of rhythmic flexibility, including pronounced accelerandos and ritardandos (even where not explicitly marked), which might be appropriate for some music from the Romantic era. A low value results in very little fluctuation in the global tempo, which would be more appropriate for jazz or rock.

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Using GPO with Finale 2006 Rhythmic Feel, on the other hand, does not affect the global measure-bymeasure tempo. Instead, it creates subtle rhythmic variations within the existing tempo — some notes may be played slightly behind the beat, other notes may be played slightly ahead, but the overall tempo always remains the same. Again, a higher value creates more pronounced internal rhythmic variation, which could be desirable in a Viennese waltz; a lower value tells Human Playback to interpret the written rhythms with strict accuracy, which you might want in a march, or in Afro-Cuban music. Rhythmic Accents doesn’t affect the tempo or the rhythmic placement. Instead, it determines whether the music will be strongly accented and punchy, or light and elegant, with only subtle accents. Rock, jazz, and most Latin styles require a very high value here (70-90%); a lower value (25%) might be more appropriate for chamber music from the Classical era. String instruments are especially sensitive to this setting — if you find that the attacks in your strings are too mushy, try increasing this value. Slurs, Pedal Markings When these options are checked, slurs in GPO Finale Edition and the full GPO Notation instruments are automatically interpreted by Human Playback using MIDI controller #68. Pedal markings are interpreted using MIDI controller #64. N.B. In order for this feature to work correctly, you should also click the Options button in the Kontakt Player and make sure that the Sustain/ Sustenuto Pedal Mode is set to Normal:

Ornaments, Tremolos When this option is checked, Human Playback interprets turns, trills, tremolo diddle articulations ( ), etc. It works best when Humanize Rolls and Trills is also checked in Human Playback Preferences. N.B. When the Tremolo box is checked in the Advanced Instrument Techniques section of the Human Playback Preferences dialog box, Human Playback uses keyswitched (sampled) tremolos when available — for instance, for section string instruments. Hairpins and Dynamics When this option is checked, Human Playback automatically interprets dynamics and hairpins using MIDI controller #1 (modulation wheel) and/or velocity, depending on the instrument and the musical context. For this to work correctly, Activate GPO Support must be set to Auto Detect (or Always) and Use Control. #1 for Continuous Dynamic must be checked in the Human Playback Preferences dialog box. Automatic Expression When this option is checked, Human Playback softens the attack on sustained soft notes, adds expressive dynamic variations to held notes, and adds a subtle diminuendo to the end of long notes. The intensity of this effect is controlled by the Auto Expression Emphasis slider in the Human Playback Preferences dialog box. Automatic Piano Pedaling This feature can work in addition to the Interpret: Pedal Markings checkbox. Human Playback will interpret written pedal markings where they exist, and apply intelligent piano pedaling to sections without pedal markings. Again, this only

Using GPO with Finale 2006 works if the Sustain/Sustenuto Pedal Mode in the Kontakt Player options is set to Normal. String Harmonics When this option is checked, Human Playback recognizes artificial harmonics (two-note intervals where the upper note is a diamond notehead) in string parts, and plays them back at the correct sounding pitch. Harp harmonics (circle articulation) play back at the correct pitch (one octave higher) using GPO’s sampled harp harmonics — provided a KS harp is used, and the Harp Harmonics box is checked in the Advanced Instrument Techniques box in the Human Playback Preferences dialog box.

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Using GPO with Finale 2006

Keyswitches If you are an experienced GPO user, you are probably already familiar with the concept of keyswitches. However, if you just upgraded to Finale 2006 and are exploring GPO or GPO Finale Edition for the first time, you may well be wondering what a “keyswitch” is, and what it has to do with GPO playback.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF KEYSWITCHES To put it simply, a keyswitch is a MIDI note that triggers a different playing technique for a GPO instrument — for instance, pizzicato on a violin, or harmonics on a harp. Keyswitched instruments in earlier versions of GPO were designed to be playable — in other words, someone recording a GPO violin part in real time could easily switch from arco to pizz by pressing a key on his MIDI keyboard — called a “keyswitch” — that triggered pizzicato playing. In order to avoid interfering with an instrument’s sounding pitches, but still remain playable on smaller MIDI keyboards, keyswitches in older versions of GPO always began on the C in the octave immediately below the lowest playable octave of an instrument. For instance, the keyswitches for GPO’s piccolo began on Middle C. Finale users quickly discovered that GPO’s keyswitches were also useful for Finale playback, not just live playing. For instance, instead of having to load an arco violin, a pizz violin, and a tremolo violin in three separate MIDI channels, you could load a single keyswitched violin in a single MIDI channel, then create expressions that would trigger the keyswitches whenever you required pizzicato playing, tremolos, etc. One Finale user, Jeff Turner, even created a Finale 2005 library containing expressions that could be used to trigger any of the keyswitches found in full GPO. 1 However, there were also a number of drawbacks to this method. First, in order to prepare your existing scores for GPO playback you had to replace all of your existing “pizz,” “arco,” etc, expressions with keyswitch expressions that had been specially programmed for playback. And because the keyswitch notes were different for instruments with different ranges, this meant that you needed to use one “pizz” expression for the violins and violas, a different “pizz” expression (programmed to trigger a different MIDI note) for the cellos, and yet another “pizz” expression for the basses. Assigning all of these keyswitch expressions could be quite a chore. MakeMusic and Garritan combined forces to solve these problems in Finale 2006. Garritan created a set of GPO instruments designed specifically for Finale. These instruments use unified keyswitches. Unlike the keyswitches in earlier versions of GPO, unified keyswitches are not designed to be playable live. Instead, all of the keyswitches for all of the instruments begin on the lowest possible MIDI note, MIDI note #0 — i.e., the C two octaves below the lowest C on the piano. While this makes it impractical to trigger unified keyswitches during live playing, it’s much better for FInale purposes. You no longer have to keep track of three different “pizz.” expressions, each with a different playback definition, because now the same unified keyswitch (MIDI note #5) triggers pizzicato playing in all of the string instruments. All of the instruments in GPO Finale Edition, as well as the full GPO instruments in the “9. Notation” folder, use the new unified keyswitches. What’s more, in Finale 2006, it is no longer necessary to use expressions that have been programmed to trigger keyswitches. Finale’s Human Playback will automatically detect whether you are using GPO instruments, and, if so, will automatically send the correct keyswitches. For instance, whenever Human Playback sees the expression “pizz” on a violin staff, it sends the keyswitch for pizzicato playing. 1. This library is still available on the Garritan website, but it is only of interest to people using GPO with older versions of Finale. It does not work with GPO Finale Edition or the Notation instruments in GPO full.

Using GPO with Finale 2006 And whenever it sees a “ ” articulation attached to a note on a harp staff, it sends the keyswitch for harmonics. You no longer have to do any extra work to trigger most GPO keyswitches — Human Playback does it for you. However…

KEYSWITCH CHECKLIST There are a number of conditions that need to be met before Human Playback can correctly interpret keyswitching expressions, articulations, and smart shapes: You must be using GPO playback (i.e., Play Finale Through Native Instruments AU/VST must be checked). You must be using a keyswitched GPO instrument — these are the ones with “KS” in their name. For example, Violin Solo KS 1 or Cellos KS. 1 If you are using full GPO, you must load only the instruments found in the “9. Notation” folder.2 Human Playback must be on. In HP Preferences, the following options must be selected:

Activate GPO Support: Auto Detect Use Unified Keyswitches Everything in the Advanced Instrument Techniques section3 Allow Temporary Score Items Adjustments

1. Not all GPO instruments have keyswitched versions available. In GPO Finale Edition, only the strings, harp, and timpani come in keyswitched versions. Full GPO has many more keyswitched instruments, and some instruments (like the strings) have additional keyswitches not found in GPO Finale Edition. 2. If, for some reason, you wish to use the non-notation GPO instruments with Finale — which is emphatically not recommended — then see the entry on Human Playback Preferences for information on support for older GPO keyswitches. 3. With one possible exception — see here for details.

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Using GPO with Finale 2006

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You must use an expression or articulation that Human Playback recognizes — see the tables below. Your expression must not be programmed to trigger any playback options — this interferes with Human Playback. If your score contains any expressions that triggered keyswitches in earlier versions of Finale, you must edit them in the Text Expression Designer and set the Playback Type to None:

N.B. This applies only to expressions like “pizz,” “arco,” etc., that Human Playback uses to trigger keyswitches in GPO. Other expressions, like dynamics, tempo indications, etc., do not depend on keyswitches and therefore do not need to have their Playback Type set to None. Do not use any of the expressions marked “use w/HP off FinGPO KS” or “GPO Finale Edition Keyswitch” — these expressions are incompatible with Human Playback and should be avoided (or deleted). For best results, use note-attached expressions instead of measureattached expressions. So long as you observe these simple guidelines, using most keyswitches with GPO instruments in Finale 2006 shouldn’t require any additional effort or special programming. Want pizzicato playback in the violas? Just attach a “pizz” expression to the first pizzicato note, and Human Playback does the rest. Want a bowed tremolo in the cellos? Just attach a tremolo articulation to the note, and Human Playback takes care of it. Here are lists of the keyswitches included in GPO Finale Edition and full GPO, along with instructions on how to trigger them:

KEYSWITCHES — GPO FINALE EDITION INSTRUMENT NAME

KEYSWITCH

Timpani

•

l.v. hand-dampened

0 2

• unmarked note • expression or Smart Shape line w/text: “damped”, “damp.”, “dampen”, “étouffé”, “étouffés”, “étouffés”, “étouffez”, “dämpfen”, “velare”, “coprire”

open pluck (ordinario) hand-stopped pluck

1 2

• unmarked note • expression or custom Smart Shape line w/text: “damped”, “damp.”, “dampen”, “stopped”, “étouffé”, “étouffés”, “sons étouffés”, “étouffez”, “dämpfen”, “velare”, “coprire”, “sec”, “secco”,

•

open harmonic hand-stopped harmonic

3 4

•

arco

0

•

pizzicato

5

• expression: “arco”, “ord.”, “ordin.”, “natural”, “nat.”, “normal”, “normale”, “coll’arco”, “con l’arco”, “col arco”, “Bog.”, “Bogen” • expression: “pizz.”, “pizzicato”, “pizzicati”

•

tremolo

7

• articulation:

•

Harp KS

• •

•

All KS Solo Strings and Section Strings

MIDI # TRIGGER

, , ; articulation: , , • articulation: , • “dampen” etc. plus harmonic articulation

Using GPO with Finale 2006 KEYSWITCHES — FULL GPO INSTRUMENT NAME

KEYSWITCH

Piccolo Solo KS, Flute Solo KS

• vibrato (ordinario) • non-vibrato • fluttertongue

All KS Brass instruments • open horn

MIDI # TRIGGER 0 2 4

• unmarked note • not supported by HP • custom articulation — see below

0

• expression: “open”, “mute off”, “mute out”, “no mute”, “ord.”, “ordin.”, “natural”, “nat.”, “normal”, “ohne dämpfer”, “o. Dpf”, “ôtez les sourdines”, “ôtez la sourdine”, “senza sordino”, “senza sordini”, “senza sord.” • expression: “mute”, “mute on”, “mutes”, “straight mute”, “st. mute”, “standard mute”, “con sord.”, “con  sordino”, “sordino”, “sordini”,  “sord.”, “sourd.”, “sourdine”, “sourdines”, “mit Dämpfer”, “m. Dpf.”, “mit Dpf.”, “harmon”, “harmon mute”; articulation: + (Horn only)

• mute

2

Bass Drum KS and Timpani KS

• l.v. • hand-dampened

0 2

• unmarked note • expression or custom Smart Shape line w/text: “damped”, “damp.”, “dampen”, “étouffé”, “étouffés”, “étouffés”, “étouffez”, “dämpfen”, “velare”, “coprire”

Harp 1 KS, Harp 2 KS

• open pluck (ordinario) • open harmonic • glissando harp

0 2 4

• unmarked note • articulation: , • uses HP gliss instead

Harpsichord KS

• 8’ stop (bright) • 8’ & 4’ stop (mellow) • buff stop (muted)

0 2 4

• not supported by HP • not supported by HP • not supported by HP

All KS Solo Strings

• arco (ordinario)

0

• mute on

1

• alternating upbows and downbows • upbows • downbows • pizzicato • tremolo - mute on • tremolo • half-step trill - mute on • half-step trill • whole-step trill - mute on • whole-step trill

2

• expression: “arco”, “ord.”, “ordin.”, “natural”, “nat.”, “normal”, “normale”, “coll’arco”, “con l’arco”, “col arco”, “Bog.”, “Bogen”, “ohne dämpfer”, “o. Dpf”, “ôtez les sourdines”, “ôtez la sourdine”, “senza sordino”, “senza sordini”, “senza sord.”, “mute off”, “mute out”, “no mute”, “alzato” • expression: “mute”, “mute on”,  “mutes”, “con sord.”, “con  sordino”, “sordino”, “sordini”, “sord.”, “sourd.”, “sourdine”, “sourdines”, “mit Dämpfer”, “m. Dpf.” “mit Dpf.” • not supported by HP

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

• • • • • • • • •

• arco (ordinario)

0

• mute on

1

• short notes - alternating upbows and downbows • short notes - upbows • short notes - downbows • pizzicato

2

• expression: “arco”, “ord.”, “ordin.”, “natural”, “nat.”, “normal”, “normale”, “coll’arco”, “con l’arco”, “col arco”, “Bog.”, “Bogen”, “ohne dämpfer”, “o. Dpf”, “ôtez les sourdines”, “ôtez la sourdine”, “senza sordino”, “senza sordini”, “senza sord.”, “mute off”, “mute out”, “no mute”, “alzato” • expression: “mute”, “mute on”,  “mutes”, “con sord.”, “con  sordino”, “sordino”, “sordini”, “sord.”, “sourd.”, “sourdine”, “sourdines”, “mit Dämpfer”, “m. Dpf.” “mit Dpf.” • not supported by HP

3 4 5

• not supported by HP • not supported by HP • expression: “pizz.”, “pizzicato”, “pizzicati”

• tremolo - mute on

6

• • • • •

7 8 9 10 11

• articulation: plus “mute” etc. • articulation: • uses HP trill instead • uses HP trill instead • uses HP-trill instead • uses HP trill instead

All KS Section Strings

tremolo half-step trill - mute on half-step trill whole-step trill - mute on whole-step trill

not supported by HP not supported by HP expression: “pizz.”, “pizzicato”, “pizzicati” not supported - see below not supported - see below uses HP trill instead uses HP trill instead uses HP trill instead uses HP trill instead

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Using GPO with Finale 2006 NOTES ON GPO KEYSWITCHES Dampened Bass Drum, Timpani, and Harp Notes Unlike some keyswitching expressions (like “pizz.”) that remain in effect until cancelled by another keyswitching expression (like “arco”), the expressions that trigger dampened notes in the harp, bass drum, and timpani affect only the note they are attached to. If you have multiple dampened notes, you should create a custom Smart Shape line that includes a trigger word (“dampen,” etc.), then extend it over all of the dampened notes. (If you don’t know how to creat custom Smart Shape lines with text, consult the entry on Custom lines in the Finale documentation.) Fluttertongue on Flute and Piccolo It is possible to trigger this keyswitch with Human Playback, but you must create and use a custom articulation: Using the articulation tool, click on one of the notes which you want played with a fluttertongue. This brings up the Articulation Selection dialog box. Scroll down to the articulation (number 34 by default) and select it:

Now click the Duplicate button, then the Edit button. This brings up the Articulation Designer dialog box. Now click the Flipped button:

This brings up the Symbol Selection dialog box. Scroll down until you find the symbol (number 217), click on it, then click Select:

Using GPO with Finale 2006

This brings us back to the Articulation Designer dialog box. In the Symbol Options section, click on the pull-down menu next to When Placed Below a Note, Use The, and choose Main Symbol:

Now, attach this custom articulation to any note in the flute (or piccolo) staff you want played with a fluttertongue. (You may want to assign the new articulation to a metatool to make this process easier.) You will also notice that the new articulation does not position itself correctly for downstem notes — this is an unfortunate side effect. You will have to reposition the articulation manually on all downstem notes.1 Finally, you probably want to save this articulation in an Articulation Library for future use. N.B. You can also use the articulation you just created to help enable playback of sampled percussion rolls — see the entry on Percussion for more details. Keyswtich Tremolos for Solo String Instruments Sampled tremolos are currently available in GPO Finale Edition only. The solo string instruments in full GPO do not include sampled tremolos. However, Human Playback can create its own tremolos for these instruments. To make this work, if you are using any full GPO solo string instruments in your score, you must uncheck the Tremolo box in the Advanced Instruments Techniques section of the Human Playback Preferences dialog box:

N.B. This limitation only affects solo string instruments in full GPO — the tremolos for section strings are fully supported by Human Playback. If your score has only section strings, you should leave the Tremolo box in HP Preferences checked. 1. Or, if you don’t want to do any manually repositioning, you can create two copies of the custom articulation: one that positions itself correctly for downstem notes, and one that itself correctly for upstem notes.

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Using GPO with Finale 2006 Keyswitch Trills for String Instruments GPO’s sampled trills are not supported by Human Playback. Instead, Human Playback creates its own trills. This allows Human Playback to intelligently choose the trill interval, style, and speed based on the musical context. Human Playback can even make a trill speed up or slow down over time. You will probably find Human Playback trills easier to use and more musically satisfying than the sampled trills.

CREATING YOUR OWN KEYSWITCH EXPRESSIONS Human Playback requires that you enter exactly the right phrase in order to trigger the correct keyswitch. For instance, if you enter “mute out - FAST!” instead of one of the supported “no mute” expressions (see the list of full GPO keyswitches), Human Playback won’t recognize the expression and won’t trigger the correct keyswitch. However, if you would like to use an expression in your score (like “mute out - FAST!”) that Human Playback doesn’t recognize, that’s no problem — just add the expression you want to display/print normally, and then also add a hidden “no mute” expression:

This hidden expression won’t print, but it will cause Human Playback to trigger the correct keyswitch. On the other hand, if you want to trigger a keyswitch that is currently unsupported by Human Playback — such as non-vibrato playing in full GPO’s Flute Solo KS — here’s how to do it: Using the Expression Tool, double-click on the note to which you want to attach the keyswitch expression. Create a new expression and type the desired text — for instance, “non vib.” Next, click the Playback tab in the Text Expression Designer dialog box, and, and from the Type pull-down menu, choose Dump:

Using GPO with Finale 2006

This brings up the cryptic Playback Data Dump dialog box. Don’t be intimidated — to create a keyswitch expression, you just need to enter the following values:

Number of Units is always “3” The top Data box is always “144” The middle Data box is always the MIDI note number of the keyswitch you want to trigger The bottom Data box is always “127”1 Since we want to trigger non-vibrato playing for flute and piccolo — which is triggered by the keyswitch on MIDI note #2 — we will enter “2” in the middle Data box:

1. If you really want to know what all these numbers mean, consult the entry “To add Keyswitches as Expressions” in the Finale documentation.

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Using GPO with Finale 2006 Click OK. The data you just entered will be converted to an indecipherable collection of letters, numbers, and $ signs.1 Don’t worry, nothing bad has happened — just click OK again, four more times. Your keyswitching expression has now been added to your score. But wait… now that we’ve successfully added an expression that triggers nonvibrato flute playing, what happens if we want to go back to ordinario playing (i.e., with vibrato) later in the piece? Time to create another keyswitch expression:

We entered “0” in the middle Data box because the keyswitch for ordinario playing in the keyswitched GPO flute is MIDI note #0. You may want to save these keyswitch expressions as a Text Expression Library so they can be loaded into other documents. N.B. Remember that you should only create custom keyswitch expressions for keyswitches that Human Playback doesn’t already support. If you try to create a custom keyswitch for an expression like “pizz.,” this will cause a conflict with Human Playback, and your expression won’t have the effect you want. Also keep in mind that future versions of Human Playback may add support for additional keyswitches — so if your custom keyswitches suddenly stop working after you update your copy of Finale, try changing the Playback type for these expressions to None. You may find that future updates to Human Playback add automatic support for keyswitches that currently require a custom keyswitch expression.

1. Otherwise known as hexadecimal numerals.

Using GPO with Finale 2006

Channels If you are unfamiliar with the concept of MIDI Channels and MIDI Instruments, and how they relate to Finale, you may wish to consult the entry on MIDI Channels in the Finale documentation before continuing. Also, remember that for new scores, Finale’s Setup Wizard automatically chooses the best channel assignments for the instruments used in your score. It is strongly recommended that you use the Setup Wizard when creating new scores. The information that follows is primarily of interest to people trying to set up existing scores, such as scores imported from earlier versions of Finale. As we explained in Checklist #2, Finale supports a maximum of 64 simultaneous GPO instruments assigned to 64 different MIDI channels, distributed across 8 Kontakt Player instances, with each instance hosting up to 8 GPO instruments, each assigned to a different channel. Each Kontakt Player instance is linked to a bank consisting of 16 MIDI channels. Finale 2006 supports a maximum of 8 banks, as you can see in the Native Instruments AU/VST Setup dialog box (accessed from the MIDI menu):

BANK 1 BANK 2 BANK 3 BANK 4 BANK 5 BANK 6 BANK 7 BANK 8

The first (top) Kontakt Player instance is linked to Bank 1 (channels 1-16), the second is linked to Bank 2 (channels 17-32), and so on. However, as we said above, each Kontakt Player instance — which can be accessed by clicking the Edit button across from the appropriate bank — supports a maximum of 8 simultaneous channels. So even though the first Kontakt player instance says Bank 1: Virtual Channels 1-16 in its title bar:

… that doesn’t mean that you can use all 16 MIDI channels simultaneously. What “Virtual Channels 1-16” actually means is that an individual GPO instrument hosted by this Kontakt Player instance can be assigned to any Finale MIDI Channel from 1 to 16. But since each Kontakt Player instance only has room for 8 instruments in its virtual rack:

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Using GPO with Finale 2006

… that means that only 8 of the 16 channels in Bank 1 can be used at the same time.

CHANGING THE CHANNEL ASSIGNMENT

By default, the 8 GPO instruments hosted by a Kontakt Player Instance will be assigned to Kontakt Player Channels 1-8. The first instrument you load into the Kontakt Player will be automatically assigned to Kontakt Player Channel 1, the second instrument to Kontakt Player Channel 2, the third to Kontakt Player Channel 3, etc However, it is possible to override those default channel assignments, if you so desire. The current Kontakt Player channel assignment is displayed in the box just below the “CPU Usage” box in the Kontakt Player:

It can be modified by clicking on the number. This brings up the Kontakt Player’s Channel Assignment Menu:

Using GPO with Finale 2006 Here you may choose any Kontakt Player Channel (from 1 to 16) for the selected instrument. (You will normally want to avoid assigning two instruments to the same channel.) The main reason you would want to override the default channel assignment would be to preserve the ability to easily switch between GPO playback and SmartMusic SoftSynth playback in a score that contains unpitched percussion staves. For General MIDI playback devices like the SmartMusic SoftSynth, Channel 10 in each bank is reserved for unpitched percussion (see the entry on Percussion for more information). While GPO is not a General MIDI device — you can assign a GPO unpitched percussion instrument to any channel you like — you may wish to use Channel 10 to simplify the process of switching between GPO Playback and SmartMusic SoftSynth playback. N.B. Whenever you switch from SmartSynth playback to GPO playback, you will also have to change the percussion map for all unpitched percussion staves — again, see the entry on Percussion for details.)

KONTAKT PLAYER CHANNELS VS. FINALE CHANNELS

The channel assignments for the first Kontakt Player instance (Bank 1) correspond directly to the channel assignments in Finale’s Instrument List. For instance, if you have a GPO flute assigned to Kontakt Player Channel 1 in the first Kontakt Player instance, then the flute staff in your Finale score must be assigned to Finale Channel 1 in the Instrument List:

Or let’s say you have a piece for flute, harp, and unptiched percussion, and you want to preserve the ability to easily switch between GPO playback and Finale SmartMusic SoftSynth playback. You would set up the Bank 1 Kontakt Player like this:

Flute Solo assigned to Kontakt Player Channel 1 Basic Orch Percussion assigned to Kontakt Player Channel 10 Harp KS assigned to Kontakt Player Channel 2

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Using GPO with Finale 2006 And you would set up your Instrument List like this:

Staff 1 (Flute) assigned to Finale Channel 1 Staff 2 (Percussion) assigned to Finale Channel 10 Staff 3 (Harp RH) and Staff 4 (Harp LH) both assigned to Finale Channel 2 N.B. Remember that for new scores created using the Setup Wizard, Finale automatically assigns the correct channel numbers in both the Kontakt Player and in the Instrument list. It is only necessary to assign the channel numbers yourself if you are converting existing scores or templates. Things become slightly more complicated if your score has more than eight instruments, because this requires the use of more than one Kontakt Player instance. While the first Kontakt Player instance is assigned to Bank 1 (Finale Channels 1-16), and uses the same channel numbers used in Finale’s Instrument List, for all of the other Kontakt Player instances — the ones assigned to Bank 2, Bank 3, etc. — there is a disconnect between the Kontakt Player Channel — the channel number displayed in the Kontakt Player — and the Finale Channel — the channel number displayed in Finale’s Instrument List. This disconnect is best explained by way of talking about an example. Let’s say you have a piece for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, percussion (2 players), 2 violins, viola, and cello. And again, let’s say you want to be able to switch between GPO playback and SoftSynth playback with a minimum of fuss. Since you have more than eight instruments, you will need to use more than one Kontakt Player instance to load them all. Here’s what the Virtual Rack from the first Kontakt Player instance — Bank 1 — would look like for this score:

Flute Solo assigned to Kontakt Player Channel 1 Oboe Solo assigned to Kontakt Player Channel 2 Bb Clarinet Solo assigned to Kontakt Player Channel 3 Bassoon Solo assigned to Kontakt Player Channel 4 French Horn Solo assigned to Kontakt Player Channel 5 Basic Orch Percussion assigned to Kontakt Player Channel 10 Violin Solo KS 1 assigned to Kontakt Player Channel 6 Violin Solo KS 2 assigned to Kontakt Player Channel 7 Again, while Bank 1 contains a total of 16 channels to choose from, we can only use 8 at a time. If our score didn’t contain any unptiched percussion instruments — or if we didn’t care about SoftSynth playback and wanted to use GPO playback exclusively — we would probably have just used Channels 1-8. But since, in this example, we do want to preserve the ability to easily switch between SoftSynth and GPO playback, we reserved Kontakt Player Channel 10 for the

Using GPO with Finale 2006 unpitched percussion and Kontakt Player Channels 1-7 for the first seven pitched instruments in our score. However, this leaves us with three instruments left over: Viola, Cello, and Percussion 2. These instruments must be loaded into the second Kontakt Player instance — Bank 2 — which would look like this:

Basic Orch Percussion assigned to Kontakt Player Channel 10 Viola Solo KS assigned to Kontakt Player Channel 1 Cello Solo KS assigned to Kontakt Player Channel 2 “Wait a minute,” you may be thinking, “why are we re-using Channels 1, 2 and 10? I thought we were supposed to avoid assigning multiple instruments to the same channel. And doesn’t it say ‘Bank 2: Virtual Channels 17-32’ right there in the title bar? Why aren’t we using those channels?” The answer is, we aren’t re-using channels, and despite appearances, we are using Finale Channels 17, 18, etc — it’s just that, as we said earlier, when we use more than one Kontakt Player instance, the channel displayed in the Kontakt Player isn’t always the same as the channel used by Finale. Each Kontakt Player instance allows you to choose only channels from 1 through 16. The Kontakt Player cannot display any of the upper channels (17 and up) available in Finale — so the Kontakt Player Channel is always between 1 and 16. But as we have seen before, each Kontakt Player instance is assigned to a bank of 16 Finale Channels:

BANK 1 BANK 2 BANK 3 BANK 4 BANK 5 BANK 6 BANK 7 BANK 8

In each Kontakt Player instance, Kontakt Player Channel 1 always corresponds to the first Finale Channel (or “Virtual Channel”) in its bank. Since the first Finale Channel in Bank 2 is 17, that means that Kontakt Player Bank 2, Channel 1 = Finale Channel 17. (There is a Kontakt Player Channel to Finale Channel Table at the end of this section.) In other words, since Viola Solo KS is assigned to Kontakt Player Bank 2, Channel 1, the corresponding Finale Channel for the Viola staff is 17. Similarly, our cello — Kontakt Player Bank 2, Channel 2 — corresponds to Finale Channel 18, and our

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Using GPO with Finale 2006 2nd percussion — Kontakt Player Bank 2, Channel 10 — corresponds to Finale Channel 26. Here’s the Instrument List showing the correct Finale Channel assignments for this hypothetical score:

Again, when working with new scores, Finale’s Setup Wizard handles both the Kontakt Player Channel assignments and the Finale Channel assignments automatically. You generally only have to worry about channel assignments when converting existing scores.

MULTI-PART STAVES, ASSIGNMENTS

INSTRUMENT

DOUBLING,

AND

CHANNEL

For orchestral scores, it is common to combine multiple parts on the same staff — for instance, Flutes 1 & 2 often share a staff. You will get the best results from GPO if you assign two different GPO flutes to the same staff, one for the Flute 1 part, and one for the Flute 2 part — this mimics the effect of two individual players with individual sounds interpreting each part. This is especially important if you want unison (a2) passages to sound like they are being performed by two separate players. (See the entry on Player Variations for more details.) This can be accomplished by using the Instrument List to assign different layers of the same staff to different channels, then assigning different GPO instruments to those channels. For instance, let’s look at the Instrument List for a score with a “Flute 1 & 2” staff:

If you click the triangle to the left of the Staff Name (circled above), you are presented with additional options:

Using GPO with Finale 2006

Here, you can create a new Instrument (called “Flute 2”) and assign it to play back the notes in Layer 2 using Finale Channel 2:

Then, load two different GPO flutes in the Bank 1 Kontakt Player and assign them to Kontakt Player Channel 1 and Channel 2:

Of course, for this system to work, you will have to enter the Flute 1 music in Layer 1 and the Flute 2 music in Layer 2. This solution also works for instrument doubling — for instance, let’s say you have a part where the clarinet player is required to switch to bass clarinet for certain passages. Again, using the Instrument List, you would create a new Instrument (”Bass Clarinet”) and assign it to Finale Channel 2:

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Using GPO with Finale 2006

Then, load a GPO Bb Clarinet into Kontakt Player Bank 1, Channel 1, and the GPO bass clarinet into Bank 1, Channel 2:

Using this method, the Bb Clarinet passages need to be entered in Layer 1, and the Bass Clarinet passages need to be entered in Layer 2. Of course, you will also need to apply the appropriate staff style to the Bass Clarinet passages to ensure that the transposition and staff name are correct. (Consult the Finale documentation on Staff Styles if you are unsure how to do this.) N.B. Unfortunately, keyswitching expressions (like “pizz.” etc — see the entry on Keyswitches) do not work reliably on mutli-part staves. If this causes problems in your score, you may wish to explode these multi-part staves into separate staves before creating an audio demo of your score.

Using GPO with Finale 2006

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KONTAKT PLAYER CHANNEL TO FINALE CHANNEL TABLE KONTAKT PLAYER CHANNEL BANK 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 BANK 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 BANK 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 BANK 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

FINALE CHANNEL

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

KONTAKT PLAYER CHANNEL BANK 5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 BANK 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 BANK 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 BANK 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

FINALE CHANNEL

65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128

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Using GPO with Finale 2006

Controllers GPO instruments support the use of many MIDI controllers — for instance, the modulation wheel (MIDI controller #1) — to shape the sound of each instrument. Whenever possible, Human Playback takes advantage of these controllers to create a more realistic performance. You can also use Finale’s MIDI tool to tweak controllers during Finale playback — for more information on manipulating MIDI controllers from within Finale, consult the entry on the MIDI Tool in the Finale documentation. In this tutorial, we will concentrate on those MIDI controllers that have a direct impact on Finale and Human Playback. This is by no means an exhaustive list — consult the GPO documentation for information on some of the advanced controller techniques supported by GPO.

MIDI CONTROLLER #1 — THE MODULATION WHEEL By far the most important controller in GPO is the modulation wheel (MIDI controller #1), which is used to control the volume and timbre of all sustaining GPO instruments. This means that in GPO, crescendos don’t just sound like someone turning up the volume dial on a stereo system — as the dynamic level increases, brass instruments get brassier, string instruments get brighter, and so on. Using the modulation wheel, you will get extremely realistic timbral shifts throughout the entire dynamic range of each instrument. When using GPO instruments with Finale, you will generally not have to worry about the modulation wheel so long as Human Playback is on and Use Contr. #1 for Continuous Dynamic is checked in your Human Playback Preferences. Provided these options are set correctly, Human Playback automatically sends modulation wheel data during GPO playback to shape phrases, realize dynamics, accents, crescendos and diminuendos, etc. However, there is one situation where the modulation wheel requires your attention — if you are using a MIDI keyboard for entry (like, for instance, MIDI-based Speedy Entry) and you have MIDI Thru set to Smart:

Using GPO with Finale 2006

Choosing Smart allows you to hear the appropriate instrument as you enter it — for instance, if you click on a flute staff with the Speedy Tool and play some notes on your MIDI keyboard, you will hear flute playback. However… when you first do this, the playback will likely be extremely faint, perhaps even impossible to hear. This is because all GPO instruments default to a modulation wheel setting of 0 — i.e., the softest possible note. If you want to actually hear the flute as you enter music in the flute staff, you will have to turn up the modulation wheel on your keyboard (which increases the volume of the GPO instrument). You must do this even if your modulation wheel was already turned all the way up — this is because GPO cannot read the initial position of your modulation wheel until you actually move it. A little jog up and down on the modulation wheel is enough to let GPO know what your current modulation wheel setting is. Keep in mind that if you have MIDI Thru set to Smart, you will have to jog the modulation wheel for every staff in your score — if you leave the flute staff and click on the oboe staff with the Speedy Tool for the first time, the oboe also defaults to the lowest possible modulation wheel setting (i.e., softest possible note) and remains there until you jog the modulation wheel. You will also have to repeat this process every time you launch Finale. In fact, if you have MIDI Thru set to Smart, it’s good practice to get into the habit of jogging the modulation wheel every time you change staves. However, the position of your modulation wheel while entering music in Speedy Entry has no effect on playback. Instead, Human Playback looks to things like dynamics, hairpins, and musical context to create the most musical dynamic shaping for all your GPO instruments during playback. There are just a few more things you should keep in mind when MIDI Thru is set to Smart. First, notes outside the range of the selected GPO instrument (the range for each instrument is highlighted in blue in the Kontakt Player) do not sound. For instance, if you try to enter the A below middle C in an oboe staff — a note not playable on oboe — no note will sound during Speedy Entry, and nor will it sound during playback. Also, the maximum number of simultaneously sounding notes for each staff is limited by the polyphony of the currently selected GPO instrument (see the Performance Tips section for more information about polyphony). That means if you play a chord on your MIDI keyboard while entereing music into a solo flute staff, only one note will sound. Some users find these limitations annoying, and prefer to set MIDI Thru to a Fixed channel — usually a piano or harp or other high-polyphony instrument with a wide range. Doing this means that no matter what staff you have selected with the Speedy Entry tool, you will always hear the same instrument during note entry. (And only during note entry only, of course! Playback is unaffected by the MIDI Thru setting.) It also removes the necessity to jog the modulation wheel when changing staves, since piano and harp are non-sustaining instruments and are

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Using GPO with Finale 2006 not affected by the modulation wheel setting. For these reasons, you may find Fixed MIDI Thru more convenient than Smart MIDI Thru.

MIDI CONTROLLER #7 (VOLUME) AND #10 (PAN) See the entry on The Mixer and Studio View.

MIDI CONTROLLER #21 (LENGTH) In GPO, for sustaining instruments like winds and strings, Controller #21 affects the length of the release — increasing this value results in a long, slow release, while decreasing it results in a short, sharp release. For non-sustaining instruments — like xylophone, harp, or pizzicato strings, for instance — this value controls the maximum length of the note. Increasing it will result in notes that take longer to decay; decreasing it will cause notes to decay more quickly. When Humanize Rolls and Trills is checked in the Human Playback Preferences, Human Playback uses this controller to create more realistic trills and tremolos. It is also possible to modify this setting in the Kontakt Player:

The default value is 50%. Click and hold on the dial, then drag straight up to increase the length, or straight down to decrease it. Each instrument has its own independent length setting, and therefore must be individually adjusted. You may wish to increase the length to 80% for a pizzicato bass playing a walking bass line, or perhaps decrease the length to 20-25% for every player in a string quartet if you want additional separation between fast-moving notes. It is also possible to create a Finale expression that will modify this (or any) controller during playback, as seen in the illustration below:

Two things to keep in mind if you use Finale expressions to modify controllers: Finale uses absolute MIDI values (0-127) instead of percentages (0100%). In other words, a length of 50% in the Kontakt Player is equivalent to an absolute length of 64 in Finale.

Using GPO with Finale 2006 Human Playback must be set to incorporate continuous data in the the Human Playback Preferences.

MIDI CONTROLLER #22 (VAR 1) AND #23 (VAR 2) It is possible to use these two controllers to introduce a certain amount of random variability from note to note when using GPO instruments. Controller #22 — called “VAR 1” — controls the amount of variation in the intonation, while controller #23 — called “VAR 2” — controls the amount of variation in the timbre. When Humanize Rolls and Trills is checked in the Human Playback Preferences, Human Playback uses these controllers to create more realistic timpani, bass drum, and side drum rolls. (See the entry on Percussion for details.) As with the length controller, it is also possible to modify these settings in the Kontakt Player:

The default value for both VAR 1 and VAR 2 is 0%. Click and hold on the dial, then drag straight up to increase the variability, or straight down to decrease it. A variability of 5% or so can do a lot to humanize a performance, especially when it comes to arpeggios and fast-moving passages. Each instrument has its own independent setting and therefore must be individually adjusted. It is also possible to create Finale expressions that will modify these controllers during playback — see above.

MIDI CONTROLLER #64 — THE SUSTAIN PEDAL

As discussed in the entry on Human Playback Preferences, when using GPO Finale Edition or the Notation instruments in full GPO, the Sustain/Sustenuto Pedal Mode in the Kontakt Player Options should be set to Normal:

This enables standard sustain pedal operation for the piano, vibraphone, etc. Unlike in earlier versions of GPO, it is possible to have both standard piano pedaling and true legato in the winds and strings simultaneously — that’s because GPO Finale Edition and the Notation instruments in full GPO use a separate controller for legato, namely:

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Using GPO with Finale 2006 MIDI CONTROLLER #68 — LEGATO Sustaining instruments in GPO can produce extremely realistic slurs and legato playing. However, in previous versions of GPO, this ability was triggered by the sustain pedal (MIDI controller #64), which created a conflict with normal piano pedaling. In both GPO Finale Edition and the Notation instruments in full GPO, legato playing has been moved to MIDI controller #68. With Best Legato using Controller 68 selected in Human Playback Preferences, Human Playback automatically interprets the slur markings in your score, creating smooth transitions between slurred notes.

Using GPO with Finale 2006

The Mixer and Studio View In addition to the improvements to Human Playback, the ability to host AU or VST instruments, and the tight integration with GPO, Finale 2006 also introduces two new methods for fine-tuning playback — the Mixer, and Studio View (which is like a combination of the Mixer and Scroll View). The first thing you need to know about both of these features is that they only work correctly with GPO instruments if Use Std. CC#7/CC#10 Volume & Pan is turned on in the Kontakt Player options. To make sure that this is the case, from the MIDI menu, choose Native Instruments AU/VST Setup, then click any of the Edit buttons in the dialogue box to bring up an instance of the Kontakt Player. Then click the Options button in the Kontakt Player:

… and make sure the following option is on (highlighted):

This will enable you to use the Mixer or Studio View (or even the Instrument List) to control GPO instruments. You can make adjustments during playback.

THE MIXER

Finale’s mixer is laid out just like a real mixing board, with a volume slider, a pan pot, and mute and solo buttons for each instrument, as well as a Master volume control at the far right. Here’s what the Mixer looks like for a string quartet score:

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Using GPO with Finale 2006

You can use the mixer during playback to adjust the balance between instruments, panning (stereo placement), mute and/or solo tracks, and adjust the overall (Master) playback volume. For additional details, see the entry on the Mixer in the Finale documentation. N.B. Despite appearances, the Reverb Level and Room Size settings in the Mixer have no effect when using GPO instruments. Consult the entry on Ambience Reverb to learn how to add reverb to GPO playback. Volume For optimum GPO playback, you will probably want to reduce the volume on the Master slider from the default level of 101 (out of 127) to 64 or lower. Leaving the master volume at the default level will often result in distorted playback from GPO. (You may also need to increase the system volume and/or the volume on your computer speakers to compensate.) After setting the Master volume to an appropriate level, you can use the volume sliders on the mixer to fine-tune the balance between instruments during playback. If instruments are out of balance, it is usually best to reduce the volume for the instruments that are too loud, rather than increasing the volume for those that are too soft. It is also important to understand the difference between GPO’s dynamic/timbre control — which is controlled by the modulation wheel (MIDI controller #1) — and its volume control — which is controlled by the Mixer/Studio view (MIDI controller #10). Unlike modulation wheel changes, adjusting a staff’s volume slider does not affect timbre. It’s exactly like the mixer in a recording studio — instruments playing very quietly can be brought up very high in the mix, and vice versa. Also, just like an old-fashioned mixing board, the volume sliders in Finale’s mixer aren’t automated. Finale’s mixer works best as a “set it and forget it” situation. If you need to bring up the viola for just a few measures, you will have to drag the slider up yourself during playback, in real time. However, there are a couple of workarounds if you prefer not to “ride the mixer” during playback: You can add a (hidden, if desired) dynamic (or “Solo”) expression to the staff. This is like “fixing it in the room” during a recording session, by telling a musician to play louder in a certain passage. Of course, this will affect both volume and timbre.

Using GPO with Finale 2006 You can add a (hidden, if desired) expression defined to modify MIDI controller #7 (volume). For instance, here is how you would configure the playback options for a staff expression that sets the staff’s volume to 111 (out of a possible 127):

This is like “fixing it in the mix” during a mixing session, by adjusting the instrument’s volume slider on the mixing board. Assigning an expression defined to modify MIDI controller #7 is a bit like creating an automated slider move on a modern, motorized mixing board — in other words, this expression affects volume only, not timbre. Panning Panning refers to an instrument’s relative position in the stereo mix. An instrument that is panned left will sound mostly (or, if it’s panned all the way left, entirely) from the left speaker, whereas an instrument that is panned dead center will sound equally from both speakers, and therefore sound like it is coming from the middle of the sound stage. Choosing appropriate panning helps create a realistic stereo image and allows individual instruments to be clearly distinguished, even in large ensemble scores. When you create a score using Finale’s Setup Wizard, Finale tries to assign the best panning setup for the instruments you have chosen. However, if you are preparing an existing file for GPO playback, Finale uses the default panning (64 — dead center) for all newly created instruments. In order to obtain the best stereo image for existing files, after you have configured them for GPO playback, you should choose Set Panning from the MIDI menu:

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Using GPO with Finale 2006

You can also customize the panning for individual instruments by clicking and dragging on the pan pots in the Mixer:

Unlike the dials in the Kontakt Player (which are adjusted by dragging straight up or down), to adjust the panning dials in Finale, you drag the white dot on the dial into position using a circular motion. However, as you will no doubt discover as soon as you try this, it is extremely difficult to make accurate panning adjustments using the Mixer’s interface. Luckily, there’s an easier way — you can adjust the panning by typing numeric values in Finale’s Instrument List:

Using GPO with Finale 2006

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The important thing to remember when adjusting the panning in Finale’s Instrument List is that, unlike many digital audio applications, Finale doesn’t measure panning with a percentage value (like “33% left”, or “55% right”). Instead, it uses absolute MIDI values, from 0 (100% left) to 127 (100% right), with 64 being dead center. So if you are trying to choose appropriate panning values for individual staves, you may find the following table helpful: FINALE PAN VALUE TO STEREO POSITION TABLE FINALE PAN VALUE

POSITION

FINALE PAN VALUE

POSITION

0

100% L

70

10% R

6

90% L

77

20% R

13

80% L

83

30% R

19

70% L

90

40% R

26

60% L

96

50% R

32

50% L

102

60% R

38

40% L

109

70% R

45

30% L

115

80% R

51

20% L

122

90% R

58

10% L

127

100% R

64

CENTER

The final thing to remember about panning is that any panning value you set in Finale overrides the panning setting in the Kontakt Player. 1 When they are first loaded, all GPO instruments use their own default pan setting, corresponding to the traditional position of that instrument onstage when playing in an orchestra. You can see this default panning setting in the Kontakt Player:

However, this Kontakt Player setting is overwritten by Finale’s own pan setting as soon as you play back your score for the first time. If you don’t want this to happen, you can set the pan pots in the Mixer to “Not Sending” mode — this will preserve the GPO defaults. To do this, right-click (or on Mac, control-click) each pan pot in the Mixer. This displays a contextual menu:

1. Which, incidentally, uses percentages instead of raw MIDI values.

Using GPO with Finale 2006

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Selecting Not Sending prevents the mixer from overriding the pan setting used in the Konakt Player. In Not Sending mode, the amber “light” in the middle of the dial goes gray, to indicate that the pan pot has been disabled. There is no global Not Sending mode — you must right-click (control-click) on each dial individually and select Not Sending mode one staff at a time.1

STUDIO VIEW Studio view is very much like the Mixer, except that the controls are arranged horizontally instead of vertically, and there is no Master control. Also, there is an editable TempoTap map at the top of the score, which allows you to record custom tempo changes. (For more information, consult the entry on TempoTap in the Finale documentation.) Here’s what Studio View looks like:

1. It is also possible to right-click on the volume slider and choose “Not Sending” mode for volume as well, but this is not recommended.

Using GPO with Finale 2006

As you can see, anything you can do in the Mixer, you can also do in Studio View — with the exception of setting the Master volume or other Master settings. You may find Studio View convenient for playback because, unlike the Mixer, it doesn’t obscure the music notation during playback. You can make adjustments to most of the controls in the Mixer and Studio View even during playback.

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Using GPO with Finale 2006

Ambience Reverb Reverb allows your computer to model the acoustics of a performance space — for instance, a large concert hall, or an intimate jazz club. Reverb for GPO Playback is handled by a plug-in called Ambience Reverb. You can turn reverb on or off from the Native Instruments AU/VST Setup dialog box (accessed from the MIDI menu):

Note that this is the only way to turn reverb on or off for GPO Playback — the reverb control in the Mixer does not affect GPO instruments. Click the Edit button to modify the Ambience Reverb settings:

Using GPO with Finale 2006

The Windows version of Ambience Reverb has a different user interface, but the controls are the same:

The Factory Preset pull-down menu — located at the top of the Mac dialog box, but, unfortunately, absent from the Windows version (see Known Issues below) — allows you to choose from a number of preset room sizes — various ballrooms, concert halls, jazz clubs, etc. For information on customizing these reverb settings, consult the entry on Garritan Ambience dialog box in the Finale documentation. Applying Ambience Reverb during playback can be very demanding for even the fastest computers. If you are experiencing playback problems, you should consider reducing the Quality/CPU setting in the Ambience Reverb window — this

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Using GPO with Finale 2006 lessens the strain on your computer, at the expense of a reduction in reverb quality. You might also consider unchecking the Ambience Reverb checkbox in the Native Instruments AU/VST Setup dialog box — this disables reverb entirely, making playback completely dry.1 See the Performance Tips section for more information.

KNOWN ISSUES WITH AMBIENCE REVERB

Unfortunately, there is a bug in the Windows version of Finale 2006 which prevents the use of the Ambience Reverb factory presets, as well as the loading or saving of custom settings. There is also an Ambience Reverb-related bug in the Mac version of Finale 2006: users of full GPO who have downloaded the latest version of Ambience Reverb (v1.0.5) from the Garritan website must revert back to version 1.0 — which is found on CD 4 of your original GPO install discs. The Finale 2006 Macintosh default files do not support Ambience version 1.0.5.2

1. Some digital audio applications allow you to apply Ambience Reverb after the fact to a saved audio file. 2. In fact, if you have Ambience 1.0.5 installed and try to open any Finale document that was created on a computer with Ambience 1.0 installed, Ambience Reverb will become disabled for all Finale documents. The reverse is also true — documents created on Macs with Ambience 1.0 will disable reverb when opened on machines with Ambience 1.0.5 installed. Until this problem is solved, it is best to revert to Ambience 1.0.

Using GPO with Finale 2006

Player Variations Users who are new to GPO Finale Edition or full GPO often find themselves baffled by the sheer number of GPO instruments available. Most wind and string instruments in GPO Finale Edition come in at least four different versions — Player 1, Player 2, Player 3, and Solo — and full GPO has even more choices available. This section contains information that will help you choose the best GPO instruments for your score.

STAFF NAMES

First, an important disclaimer — when you choose Garritan Personal Orchestra or Garritan Personal Orchestra Finale Edition in the Setup Wizard, you are choosing GPO instruments, not staff names. Since you probably don’t want your solo violin staff to be called “Violin 2 Strad KS Solo” (for example), the Setup Wizard automatically assigns a more appropriate staff name (like “Violin”). You can, of course, edit these staff names afterwards if you are unhappy with the defaults the Setup Wizard selects for you.

PLAYER VS. PLAYER

GPO Instruments like Flute Player 1, Flute Player 2, and Flute Player 3, etc. are best used when your score has multiple instruments of that type — for instance, if your score calls for three flutes, you would probably want to assign the Flute 1 staff (or layer) to Flute Player 1, the Flute 2 staff(/layer) to Flute Player 2, and the Flute 3 staff(/layer) to Flute Player 3. These Player Variations all have slight timbral differences and are designed to be used together in a flute section — this way, unison lines played by two or three flutes sound like authentic unisons, instead of sounding like a single flute.

PLAYER VS. SOLO GPO Instruments like Piccolo Solo, Flute Solo, Oboe Solo, etc, are designed to be used when your score has only one instrument of that type — for instance, in a piece for wind quintet, you would normally use Flute Solo, Oboe Solo, Bb Clarinet Solo, Bassoon Solo, and French Horn Solo. The Solo instruments take up more memory than the Player instruments. This is because almost every note of a Solo instrument is a separate sample (i.e., recording of that note). On the other hand, each Player instrument is derived from a Solo instrument, and contains only a subset of all the samples used in that Solo instrument. 1 Moreover, each individual Player instrument uses a different subset of samples — in other words, none of the samples used in a Player 1 instrument are shared by the Player 2 or Player 3 instruments, etc. That’s why when Player 1, Player 2, and Player 3 are all playing in unison, it sounds like three different players — because each GPO Player instrument uses a different sample when playing the same note. However, since all the Player Variations are derived from a single Solo instrument, you should avoid mixing Solo and Player versions of the same instrument in the same piece. Again, if your score calls for one flute, it’s usually best to use Flute Solo. If your score calls for multiple flutes, use Flute Player 1, Flute Player 2, etc. Another difference between the Solo and Player instruments is that the Solo instruments often have a more, well, soloistic timbre — this is especially true of Flute Solo, which has a much more pronounced and expressive vibrato than any of the Player flutes. 1. When a Player instrument needs to play a note it doesn’t have have a sample for, it uses a pitchshifted version of a nearby sampled note instead. This all happens automatically behind the scenes, and is not something you need to worry about.

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Using GPO with Finale 2006 Finally, the Solo instruments all default to 1-note polyphony. See the entry on Performance Tips for more information about polyphony.

INSTRUMENT 1 VS. INSTRUMENT 2 In full GPO, there are sometimes multiple Instrument Variations as well as Player Variations. As discussed above, the Player Variations are all derived from the same Solo instrument — for instance, Bb Clarinet Player 1, Bb Clarinet Player 2, and Bb Clarinet Player 3 are based on Bb Clarinet Solo. On the other hand, Instrument Variations are literally samples of different instruments, often made by different manufacturers, and usually played by different players. This means the timbral differences between Instrument Variations are much more pronounced than those found in the Player variations.1 For example, in full GPO, you have Bassoon 1 Player 1, Bassoon 1 Player 2, and Bassoon 1 Player 3 — all derived from Bassoon 1 Solo — but then you also have Bassoon 2 Player 1, Bassoon 2 Player 2, and Bassoon 2 Player 3 — based, as you might expect, on Bassoon 2 Solo. The Bassoon 2-based instruments all sound very different from the Bassoon 1-based instruments — the timbral differences between these Instrument Variations are much more noticeable than the differences between Player Variations. Other full GPO instruments that feature Instrument Variations (as opposed to just Player Variations) include Oboe, English Horn, Contrabassoon, Horn, Trumpet, Bass Trombone, Tuba, Harp, and Violin.

KEYSWITCHED INSTRUMENTS

Keyswitched instruments have “KS” at the end of their name. They are instruments that contain multiple sample sets and can therefore play back using multiple performance techniques without having to switch instruments or channels — see the entry on Keyswitches for more details. When a keyswitched version of an instrument is available, you will normally want to use that instead of the “regular” version of the instrument — otherwise, many playing techniques that are normally automatically interpreted by Human Playback, such as “pizz.,” “arco,” etc., will have no effect. So you generally want to choose Viola Solo KS instead of Viola Solo; Cellos KS instead of Cellos Arco, etc. In GPO Finale Edition, only the harp, timpani, and strings (solo and section) come in keyswitched versions. In full GPO, flute, brass, and some percussion instruments also have keyswitched versions — again, see the entry on Keyswitches for more.

CHOOSING INSTRUMENTS Now that we’ve covered the difference between Solo instruments, Player Variations, Instrument Variations, and Keyswitched instruments, we’re ready to go over the process of choosing instruments for your score in more detail. GPO Finale Edition Instrument selection in GPO Finale Edition is relatively straightforward because you have fewer choices than full GPO. Here are some general guidelines to follow: Always choose the KS string instruments — for both solo strings and section strings. Use Solo instruments when your score calls for only one of that instrument — for example, if your score has only one flute, use Flute Solo instead of one of the Player Variations (like Flute Player 1).

1. Sometimes, instrument variations even have different ranges — compare full GPO’s Bass Trombone 1 Solo with Bass Trombone 2 Solo!

Using GPO with Finale 2006 Use Player Variations when your score calls for multiple players of that instruments — for example, if your score calls for two trumpets, use Bb Trumpet Player 1 and Bb Trumpet Player 2. Do not use Bb Trumpet Solo in this situation. Full GPO Full GPO gives you many additional instrument choices. Here are some tips that will help you choose intelligently: Use KS instruments whenever possible — this will give you the most flexibility and ensure that Human Playback can always interpret expressions like “pizz.” and “mute.” Use Solo instruments when your score calls for only one of that instrument — and use keyswitched solo instruments (like Flute Solo KS) when available. If the Solo instrument is available in several Instrument Variations (e.g., Contrabassoon, Tuba, Solo Violin etc.), choose the variation with the most appropriate timbre and/or range for your piece. When possible, use Instrument Variations when your score calls for multiple players of that instrument — for instance, if your score has two bassoons, use Bassoon 1 Solo and Bassoon 2 Solo. Or if your score has three bassoons, use a mix of Instrument Variations and Player Variations — like, say, Bassoon 1 Player 1, Bassoon 1 Player 2, and Bassoon 2 Player 1. Use keyswitched instrument variations (like Violin 2 Strad KS Solo) when available. Use Player Variations when Instrument Variations aren’t available — for instance, if you have two clarinets, use Bb Clarinet Player 1 and Bb Clarinet Player 2. Do not use Bb Clarinet Solo in this situation. Use keyswitched player variations (like Trumpet 1 Player 1 KS) when available.

RE-USING GPO INSTRUMENTS

Despite the many instruments and variations included in GPO Finale Edition and full GPO, you might still sometimes find yourself in situations where you need to reuse the same GPO instrument multiple times in a score. Here are some of the most common situations that require this: You are using GPO Finale Edition and you have a score that calls for first and second violins. (GPO Finale Edition has only one section violins instrument, Violins KS.) You are using GPO Finale Edition and you have four or more horns. (GPO Finale Edition has only three Player Variations for the horns.) Your score calls for multiple flutes, but you would prefer they all use the soloistic vibrato used in the Flute Solo instrument (both GPO and GPO Finale Edition). You are using full GPO and you have multiple flutes that require the “fluttertongue” or “n.v.” keyswitch. (In full GPO, only the Solo flute comes in a keyswitched version.) You are using full GPO and you have four or more horns, all of which use mutes at some point. (In full GPO, only the three Player Variations based on French Horn 1 Solo are keyswitched.) There are just some of the situations where you might need to re-use a GPO instrument. While this is generally best avoided, sometimes — as in the cases above — you have no choice. Just make certain Use a Separate Channel for Each Staff is selected in Page 2 of the Setup Wizard:

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Also make certain each staff is assigned a different pan value — the Setup Wizard does this automatically, but if you want to know about customizing pan values, see the section on The Mixer and Studio View. This will create some stereo separation between each version of the instrument. 1

1. You may also be tempted to try to slightly detune one of the duplicate GPO instruments to create more convincing unisons. Don’t. This tends to create very bad phasing problems.

Percussion

First off, if you aren’t already familiar with using Finale’s percussion maps to manage playback for unpitched percussion (drums, cymbals, triangle, etc), please consult the entries on the Percussion Map Selection dialog box and the Percussion Map Designer dialog box in Chapter 10-10 248 90 0 0 0 -10 1p4 0 -10 1p4 6 -10 0 o Tm (the)Tj0 0 0-1

Using GPO with Finale 2006

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ADDITIONAL UNPITCHED PERCUSSION — FULL GPO In addition to Basic Orch Percussion, the full version of GPO also contains several additional percussion instruments. The most useful of these are Bass Drum KS (which allows you to use a keyswitch between hand-dampened and l.v. notes),1 Percussion Toys (a collection of cowbells, shakers, tambourines, etc) and Wind Machine.2 Here are the note assignments for the additional unpitched percussion instruments in full GPO:3 BASS DRUM KS INSTRUMENT

MIDI #

PITCH

KEYSWITCH - l.v. KEYSWITCH - hand dampened

0 2

C -1 D -1

Bass drum hit - left hand

35

B1

Bass drum hit - right hand Bass drum roll (modulation wheel controls volume)

36 37

C2 C#2

MIDI #

PITCH

Cowbell 1 Cowbell 2

58 59

A#3 B3

Cowbell 3

60

C4

Gourd (guiro) 1 - scrape Gourd (guiro) 2 - scrape

61 62

C#4 D4

Shaker 1

63

D#4

Shaker 2 Tambourine - strike

64 72

E4 C5

Tambourine - shake

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C#5

Castanets - click Castanets - roll

74 75

D5 D#5

Clave 1

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E5

Clave 2 Ratchet

77 78

F5 F#5

Sleigh bells

79

G5

Mark tree (chime tree) Triangle - dampened

80 81

G#5 A5

Triangle - l.v.

82

A#5

MIDI #

PITCH

Wind machine - slow Wind machine - fast

95 96

B5 C6

Wind machine - variable speed (gusts)

97

C#6

PERCUSSION TOYS INSTRUMENT

WIND MACHINE INSTRUMENT

1. However, the bass drum included in Basic Orch Percussion does a pretty good job of handling long and short notes without using keyswitches. You may find it’s more practical than Bass Drum KS. 2. There is also an instrument called Snares and another called Cymbals, but these merely duplicate the snares and cymbals found in Basic Orch Percussion. 3 Again, in this document, as in Finale, Middle C = C4.

Using GPO with Finale 2006 PERCUSSION MAPS AND GPO — NEW SCORES N.B. The information in this section applies to newly created scores only. If your score already contains an unpitched percussion part defined for General MIDI playback (for instance, using Finale’s SmartMusic SoftSynth), or if you would like to be able to switch back and forth between SoftSynth playback and GPO playback, then jump ahead to the section on Percussion Maps and GPO — Existing Scores. In order to get the percussion instruments included in GPO’s Basic Orch Percussion (or any of the additional unpitched percussion instruments included in the full GPO) to show up on the correct staff lines in the score, you will need to use a percussion map designed for use with GPO. If you used the Setup Wizard to create your score, any percussion staves assigned to Basic Orch Percussion should already be configured to use the appropriate percussion map — called Basic Orch Percussion - GPO Finale Edition. Despite its name, this percussion map actually works with both the GPO Finale Edition and full GPO versions of Basic Orch Percussion. If you did not select GPO instruments in the Setup Wizard, or you did not use the Setup Wizard to create your score, or you have selected one of the additional percussion instruments from full GPO (like Percussion Toys), you will need to manually select the correct percussion map. Click on the percussion staff in question with the Staff tool, and from the Staff menu, chose Edit Staff Attributes. Next, make sure that Notation Style is set to Percussion, then click the Select button just to the left of that pull-down menu:

This brings up the Percussion Map Selection dialog box. Choose the appropriate percussion map — Basic Orch Percussion GPO Finale Edition (works with full GPO as well), Bass Drum Full GPO, Percussion Toys Full GPO, or Wind Machine Full GPO — then click Select:

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Next, click the Edit button, which brings up the Percussion Map Designer dialog box. Click the All Named Notes button:

After doing this, you can dismiss these dialog boxes by clicking Done, then Select, then OK.

PERCUSSION MAPS AND GPO — EXISTING SCORES

If you have an existing score containing unpitched percussion staves that you would like to convert for GPO playback — or if you have a new score but you would like to preserve the ability to easily switch back and forth between GPO Playback and playback using Finale’s SmartMusic SoftSynth (or an external playback device), then please read this section carefully. If you are used to playing back your scores using Finale’s SmartMusic SoftSynth, then you probably know something about General MIDI. When you are working with a General MIDI-compatible instrument or soundfont — like Finale’s SmartMusic SoftSynth — the unpitched percussion must always be assigned to MIDI Channel 10, and each MIDI note number triggers a different unptiched percussion sound (like a bass drum, snare, cymbal, etc). Consult the General MIDI Percussion Map Table in the Finale documentation for more details. Unlike the SmartMusic SoftSynth, GPO is not General MIDI-compatible. This means that the MIDI note that triggers (for example) a snare drum in the SmartMusic

Using GPO with Finale 2006 SoftSynth is not necessarily the same note that triggers a snare drum using GPO’s Basic Orch Percussion. In fact, if you compare the General MIDI Percussion Map Table in the Finale documentation with the table showing the keymapping for GPO’s Basic Orch Percussion, you will see that when using General MIDI percussion (like Finale’s SoftSynth), the snare drum is triggered by MIDI note #38, whereas in GPO’s Basic Orch Percussion, the snare drum is triggered by MIDI note #59 (for a left-hand hit), or MIDI note #60 (for a right hand hit). This means that if you have an existing score containing a percussion staff configured for General MIDI playback using the SmartMusic Soft Synth, and you want it to instead play back using GPO’s Basic Orch Percussion, you will need to create a custom percussion map that will make your existing General MIDI percussion part compatible with GPO. Let’s assume that your score has an existing percussion staff assigned to Channel 10, Program 1, and configured to use the percussion map General MIDI Entry and Playback. Let’s say the part includes the following instruments: bass drum, snare drum, suspended cymbal, and triangle (both dampened and open). You will first have to make a copy of the current percussion map, then edit it to assign new playback notes to those percussion instruments in order to get correct playback using GPO’s Basic Orch Percussion. First, double-click on the percussion staff with the Staff Tool. This brings up the Staff Attributes dialog box. Notation Style should already be set to Percussion (if it isn’t, do this now). Then click the Select button next to it:

This brings up the Percussion Map Selection dialog box. Our staff is currently configured for General MIDI Entry and Playback. Since we want to make our edits on a copy of this percussion map, you should click Duplicate:

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… and then Edit. This brings up the Percussion Map Designer. First, let’s rename our duplicate percussion map — we’ll call it “General MIDI Entry, GPO Playback”:

Selecting the “View Only Named Notes” checkbox will make it easier for us to edit the percussion map, so let’s do that now as well. Now, we only need to edit the playback notes for the instruments we actually used in the score — which, if you’ll recall, for this example, are: bass drum, snare drum, suspended cymbal, and triangle. Also, we only need to make edits when the playback note used in GPO’s Basic Orch Percussion is different from the one used in General MIDI. So, the first thing to do is find our first instrument — bass drum — in the list on the left side of the Percussion Map Designer. Click on “Bass Drum” (second instrument in the list):

Using GPO with Finale 2006

Take a look at which pitch is defined as the Playback Note for the bass drum — in this case, it’s MIDI note #36. Now consult the table listing the keymapping for GPO’s Basic Orch Percussion1 — you’ll notice that in GPO’s percussion instrument, MIDI note #36 is, in fact, a bass drum hit. Perfect — that means we don’t have to change anything! By a lucky coincidence, the note used to trigger a bass drum hit in General MIDI also triggers a bass drum hit in GPO’s Basic Orch Percussion. Let’s move on to the next instrument in our list — snare drum. In the Percussion Map Designer, select “Snare (Acoustic)”:

Notice that the Playback Note for “Snare (Acoustic)” is MIDI note #38. Again, consulting the keymap table for GPO’s Basic Orch Percussion, you can see that GPO has two snare drum hits (LH and RH) — but they are assigned to MIDI notes #59 and #60. That means this time, we weren’t so lucky — we will have to change the playback note to get correct playback in GPO. We could replace the General MIDI snare with either the left hand or right hand snare hit, but for now, let’s go 1. You’ll be referring to this table a lot, so you might want to print it out.

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Using GPO with Finale 2006 with the right hand snare — MIDI note #60. Double-click on the Playback Note box replace “38” with “60”:

Now we need to repeat this process for the rest of the instruments used in our score: suspended cymbal, dampened triangle, and undampened triangle. Again, consulting the GPO Basic Orch Percussion keymap table, you will see that you’ll need to change the Playback Note for the General MIDI suspended cymbal (”Ride Cymbal 1”) to MIDI note #90 (GPO’s “Suspended cymbal hit (w/stick) right hand”), change the General MIDI dampened triangle (”Mute Triangle”) to MIDI note #95 (GPO’s “Triangle - dampened”), and change the General MIDI undampened triangle (”Open Triangle”) to MIDI Note #96 (GPO’s “Triangle - l.v.”). After you have made these changes, click Done, then Select, then OK to return to your document. Your percussion part is now configured to play back using GPO’s Basic Orch Percussion. Just make sure that your percussion staff is set to the same channel as Basic Orch Percussion (use the Instrument List to modify the channel if necessary). Remember that because GPO is not a General MIDI library, you aren’t required to use Channel 10 for unpitched percussion in GPO — you can use any channel you like. But it will be easier for you to switch back and forth between GPO Playback and SmartSynth playback if you set GPO’s Basic Orch Percussion to Kontakt Player Channel 10. (See the entry on Channels for more information.) IMPORTANT: If you ever want to add additional notes to this percussion part, you will need to enter the pitches that correspond to General MIDI percussion, and not GPO’s Basic Orch Percussion. In other words, if you need to add some snare drum notes, you would add them using the pitch D2 (MIDI note #38, the General MIDI snare drum), and not C4 (MIDI note #60, the GPO snare drum). If you have MIDI Thru turned on, this will trigger the wrong instrument during Speedy Entry, but don’t worry — GPO playback will be correct. This is why we called our new percussion map “General MIDI Entry, GPO Playback.” If you wish to temporarily disable GPO playback and return to SmartMusic SoftSynth playback, you will have to change the percussion map back to General MIDI Entry and Playback (and, if necessary, change the channel assignment for the percussion staff back to Channel 10). You may wish to save the percussion map you just created for future use — from the File menu, choose Save Library and click Percussion Maps:

You may even wish to create a complete “General MIDI Entry, GPO Playback” percussion map by going through the entire General MIDI percussion map and

Using GPO with Finale 2006 re-assigning all of the playback notes for GPO compatibility.1 The you could load this percussion map into any of your scores that were configured for General MIDI percussion and easily prepare them for GPO playback.

ROLLS, GPO, AND HUMAN PLAYBACK If you are using any of the preset Human Playback styles (such as Standard, Baroque, Classical, etc) except Marching Band — or if you are using a custom Human Playback style and have Ornaments, Tremolos checked and Play 32nd Note Diddles Exactly unchecked — then whenever you have a three-stroke tremolo diddle (i.e., the articulation) attached to a note on a percussion staff, Human Playback will automatically create an unmetered roll for you. 2 This is the easiest and simplest way to create rolls for playback — simply enter the note as a normal single stroke, then add the articulation, and Human Playback will interpret the roll for you automatically. The rolls created by Human Playback are quite good — especially if you have Humanize Rolls and Trills checked in your HP Preferences — but many GPO percussion instruments also contain a selection of sampled rolls (i.e., recordings of a real player playing a drum roll, a cymbal roll, etc). These sampled rolls sound exceptionally authentic and you may decide you want to use the sampled rolls for playback instead of the Human Playback-created rolls. If so, you must first enter the rolls in the score using the pitches that trigger the sampled rolls in GPO — i.e., C#1 for bass drum rolls, C#3 for snare drum rolls, etc. If you have loaded the correct Percussion Map, these notes will show up on the same staff position as single strokes. Next, you need to create a custom version of the articulation that will trick Human Playback into not trying to apply its own roll to the sampled roll (which doesn’t sound very good at all). Fortunately, there’s a solution: Using the articulation tool, click on one of the notes to which you would like to attach a three-stroke diddle. This brings up the Articulation Selection dialog box. Scroll down to the articulation (number 34 by default) and select it:

Now click the Duplicate button. We are going to create a custom articulation that looks just like the three-stroke diddle, but prevents Human Playback from trying to add its own roll effect to the sampled roll.

1. Keep in mind that General MIDI percussion contains many instruments that aren’t included in GPO — like bongos, congas, etc — so you may have to make some substitutions. 2. Trill expressions and smart shapes also trigger percussion rolls. Two-stroke diddles also trigger unmetered rolls at fast tempos.

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Using GPO with Finale 2006 Make sure the duplicate three-stroke diddle you just created is selected, then click the Edit button. This brings up the Articulation Designer dialog box. Now click the Flipped button:

This brings up the Symbol Selection dialog box. Scroll down until you find the “tr” symbol (number 217), click on it, then click Select.

This brings us back to the Articulation Designer dialog box. In the Symbol Options section, using the pull-down menu next to When Placed Below a Note, Use The, choose Main Symbol:

Now, attach this custom articulation to all of the notes in your score that trigger sampled rolls. (You may want to assign the new articulation to a metatool to make this process easier.) You will also notice that the new articulation does not

Using GPO with Finale 2006 position itself correctly for downstem notes — this is an unfortunate side effect. You will have to reposition the articulation manually on all downstem notes.1 Finally, you probably want to save this articulation library for future use. N.B. You can also use the articulation you just created to trigger fluttertongue playback in flutes and piccolos (full GPO only). See the section on Keyswitches for more details.

1. If you don’t want to manually reposition the articulation, the best solution is to create two copies of the custom articulation: one that positions correctly for downstem notes, and one that works for upstem notes.

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AU/VST Playback vs. MIDI Playback Finale users without prior experience with sampling or digital audio software may be somewhat confused by the new and possibly unfamiliar terminology relating to GPO playback in Finale 2006.

AU, VST, AND GPO “AU” stands for “Audio Units,” Apple’s system-level audio plug-in architecture. Audio Units are software modules — for instance, virtual instruments or effects — that can be used by any audio application that supports AU plug-ins. “VST” stands for “Virtual Studio Technology.” VST is an audio plug-in standard developed by Steinberg (creators of the Cubase, a digital audio workstation application). VST plug-ins, like Audio Units plug-ins, can be virtual instruments or effects, which can then be used by any audio application that supports VST plug-ins. GPO supports both AU and VST. Finale 2006 was designed to take

Using GPO with Finale 2006 Purchase a Finale-compatible sampler. The full version of Native Instrument’s Kontakt can import a variety of sound formats, including soundfonts (like Finale’s SmartMusic SoundFont). This will allow you to use soundfont instruments and GPO instruments simultaneously, or import sample libraries that are not directly compatible with Finale. Use GPO Studio. This solution is only available to owners of full GPO. GPO Studio is a VST host application that works just like an external MIDI device. While GPO Studio’s performance is not as good as Finale’s integrated AU/ VST playback, this method does allow you to combine GPO instruments with external MIDI devices (like a synthesizer or soundcard), or a MIDIcompatible software synthesizer. For details, consult the full GPO documentation. Join multiple audio files. This solution only works with software synthesizers, like Finale’s SmartMusic SoundFont. Create two separate audio files, one including only GPO instruments, and one including only the remaining, non-GPO instruments. Then join the two audio files in a multitrack audio editor, like Audacity. For more details, consult the entry on Saving an Audio File.

SWITCHING BETWEEN GPO PLAYBACK AND FINALE SMARTMUSIC SOFTSYNTH PLAYBACK If you set up your score for full GPO or GPO Finale Edition playback using the Setup Wizard, it will automatically be configured to make switching between GPO playback and SmartMusic SoftSynth playback as simple as possible. Why might you want to switch back and forth? Using high-quality sampled instruments like GPO takes a lot of processing power and a lot of memory. If your machine barely meets the minimum system requirements for GPO, you may wish to use the SmartMusic SoftSynth for note entry and everyday playback, then switch to GPO playback when the score is complete and you’re ready to make an audio demo using the GPO instruments. There are, however, a few things to keep in mind if you would like to be able to switch back and forth with a minimum of fuss: On Page 2 of the Setup Wizard, you must select Garritan Personal Orchestra or Garritan Personal Orchestra Finale Edition as your instrument set:

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Using GPO with Finale 2006 You should do this even if you do not plan to use GPO during note entry. Once you have completed setting up your score with the Setup Wizard, then you can switch to SmartMusic SoundFont playback by deselecting Play Finale Through Native Instruments AU/VST in the MIDI menu:

If you don’t choose GPO or GPO Finale Edition in the Setup Wizard, it will be much more difficult to configure your score for GPO playback later on. If your score contains any unpitched percussion staves, you must set the Percussion Map for these staves to General MIDI Entry and Playback whenever GPO playback is turned off. When you want to switch to GPO instruments for playback, you must then assign those staves to a custom percussion map designed for General MIDI entry, GPO playback — see the entry on Percussion for details. Every time you switch between GPO Playback and SmartMusic SoftSynth playback, you must remember to also switch all unpitched percussion staves to the appropriate percussion map. If you are trying to prepare an existing score for GPO playback, but would like to preserve compatibility with the SmartMusic SoftSynth, then you should first consult Tutorial #2. Next, read the entries on Channels and Percussion for additional information, especially if your score contains unpitched percussion instruments.

Using GPO with Finale 2006

Saving an Audio File Unfortunately, in the initial release of Finale 2006, it is not yet possible to save an audio file directly from Finale when using GPO instruments. If you try to do this, you will encounter the following warning:

Until this Finale update is released, it is possible to record GPO instruments using a freeware audio editor called Audacity. Audacity is available for both Mac and Windows, and you can download it here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/ Windows users can record Finale playback directly from Audacity without installing any additional software. Simply choose “Stereo Mixer Input” as your audio source in Audacity:

Start recording in Audacity, then switch to Finale and begin playback. Audacity will record the sound output from Finale. Macintosh users can also record GPO Playback using Audacity, but they must first download and install an additional piece of software that allows Audacity to record the audio output from other OS X applications, like Finale. This system extension is called Soundflower and is available here: http://www.cycling74.com/products/soundflower.html

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Using GPO with Finale 2006 After installing Soundflower, from OS X’s Apple menu, choose System Preferences, then click Sound, click the Output tab, and choose Soundflower (2 ch) as your sound output device:

This routes all system audio (including Finale playback) to the Soundflower extension, allowing it to be captured by Audacity. Next, in the Audacity preferences, click on the Audio I/O tab and choose Soundflower (2 ch) in the Recording section, and Built-in Audio (or your preferred audio output device) in the Playback section:

Using GPO with Finale 2006

Start recording in Audacity, and then switch to Finale and begin playback. Audacity will record the audio output from Finale. N.B. Mac users, remember to go back to System Preferences - Sound and change your Output device back to Built-in Audio (or your preferred audio output device) after you have finished recording. Otherwise, you will not hear any sound from your computer at all!

PERFORMANCE DURING PLAYBACK

GPO playback is very demanding, and requires a lot of memory (at least 1 GB of RAM) and a lot of processing power (minimum 1.33 GHz G4 or 2.0 GHz Pentium 4/ Athlon). The more instruments you have playing simultaneously, the greater the demands on your computer. If your computer becomes overloaded during playback, playback may distort, stutter, or skip. If you are having playback difficulties, read the Performance Tips entry carefully. If, after following all the advice in that section, you are still having playback issues, you may need to record several passes through your score using a limited number of GPO instruments. After doing this, you can use Audacity to combine these separate “takes” into a single audio file — see below for details.

JOINING MULTIPLE AUDIO FILES IN AUDACITY

Audacity is a multitrack audio editor, which means you can use it to combine multiple audio files into a single stereo recording. This is especially useful if you want to combine recordings of multiple passes through the same Finale file. For instance, you may wish to combine GPO playback of some instruments with SmartSynth SoftSynth playback of other instruments not included in GPO. Or, if your score contains too many GPO instruments for your computer to play them all back simultaneously, you may want to make a recording of each orchestral section separately, then combine them into a single stereo audio file. Here are some tips that you should keep in mind when recording multiple audio files that you intend to combine later:

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Using GPO with Finale 2006 1) Use the Apply Human Playback Plug-in Just like real performances, no two performances of your score using Human Playback are exactly alike. However, if you are going to be combining multiple passes into a single file, you obviously need a way to make all of the individual “takes” match and stay in sync. Using the Apply Human Playback plug-in (located in the Playback submenu of the Plug-In menu) permanently writes all the Human Playback information into your score as MIDI data, giving you a consistent performance every time you play back your file. Just make sure the Apply Human Playback Preferences and the Style chosen in the Apply Human Playback dialog box match the settings you have chosen for your piece. (For more information, consult the entry on Apply Human Playback plug-in in the Finale documentation.) N.B. Remember to turn off Human Playback in the Playback window after invoking the Apply Human Playback plug-in. 2) Use a Countoff It is much easier to align multiple audio files in Audacity if you use Finale’s Click and Countoff feature to create a countoff at the beginning of each take. To do this, first select Click and Countoff from the Options menu. Then, from the Countoff pull-down menu, choose Always:

When using GPO instruments for playback, the following conditions must be met in order for the countoff to be heard: Source for your countoff must be set to MIDI Note. The Channel (Finale channel) selected in this window must have a GPO instrument assigned to it — see the entry on Channels. The Note (MIDI note #) must be within the range of the GPO instrument assigned to that Finale channel. Most users prefer a percussive sound for their countoff. If your score has a staff assigned to the GPO instrument Basic Orch Percussion, you may want to select the channel corresponding to that staff in this window. Then, for Note, choose 59 or 60 (GPO snare drum hits). If your score does not include an unpitched percussion staff, you may still want to load the GPO instrument Basic Orch Percussion into an empty channel so you can use it to perform the countoff. Remember that if you are also recording a take using the SmartMusic SoftSynth you will have to return to the Click and Countoff dialog and restore the default Channel and Note settings, shown above. 3) Use Only As Many Instruments Per Take As Your Computer Can Handle If your computer becomes overloaded while recording audio from Finale, playback may stutter or skip — and even the smallest skip will cause unintended tempo fluctuations that will make it impossible for you to sync multiple audio

Using GPO with Finale 2006 tracks later on. If you are recording multiple passes because your computer cannot play back all of the GPO instruments in your score simultaneously, you will want to use the Mixer, Studio View, or the Instrument List to solo only a few instruments at a time. For instance, if you have a full orchestral score, you might start by soloing just the woodwinds, and recording a “woodwinds only” take. Next, you might record a “brass only” take, a “percussion only” take, and finally, a “strings only” take. Then you can use Audacity to line up and combine the four takes into a single stereo audio file. The fewer instruments you include in each take, the easier it is for your computer to play back your score without a hitch. 4) Align and Combine the Saved Audio Files in Audacity It is beyond the scope of this tutorial to get into the nuts and bolts of using Audacity, but here is a general guide to get you started: From the File menu, choose New. From the Project menu, use Import Audio to add all the audio tracks you wish to combine. Align the first two tracks so that the countoff is in sync. Repeat with the other tracks until the countoff is in sync in all tracks. Choose Export as AIFF or Export as WAV from the File menu. The project will be mixed down to a stereo audio file. Open the file you just exported and delete the countoff. For more information, consult the Audacity documentation.

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Performance Tips Using high-quality sampled instruments makes a lot demands on your computer’s hardware, and the more instruments you use, the greater the demands. If your computer does not meet or exceed the minimum system requirements for GPO, you will probably get disappointing results. But even if you have the latest and greatest hardware, you may still run into situations where your computer is overwhelmed by the number of instruments playing at once. When that happens, you may hear pops, stutters, distortion… 03 Tm (the)49

Using GPO with Finale 2006

The number to the left of the slash indicates the number of notes currently sounding — if playback is stopped, it should be zero. The number to the right of the slash indicates the maximum polyphony. Click and hold on this number, then drag straight down to reduce the polyphony — you will see the number going down as you drag. When you have reached the value you want — for piano, you might try 16-note polyphony to start; for percussion, you might want to try 8 — release the mouse button. You can always increase the polyphony later if your computer is fast enough to handle it — just click and hold, then drag up. But if your playback still stutters in sections with lots of simultaneous notes, you might want to scale back the polyphony even farther. N.B. There is a bug in the Kontakt Player where the maximum polyphony you choose in the Kontakt Player does not always “stick” — if you click on a different GPO instrument in the Virtual Rack, then click back on the one you just adjusted, you will sometimes find that the actual maximum polyphony number turns out to be one note lower than the number you selected. For example, when you choose a maximum polyphony of 16, you sometimes get a polyphony of 15 instead. The solution is to always choose a number that is one greater than the actual polyphony number you need. For the same reason, you should never set the maximum polyphony to “1” — if you do, you could end up with a polyphony of zero instead, which means the instrument will not sound at all. N.B. In the section string instruments (like Violins 1 KS) each sounding pitch requires two units of polyphony. So, if you have a divisi passage in the first violins with double-stops in both parts — i.e., four simultaneous pitches — you will need to set a minimum polyphony of 8 in order for all four notes to sound.

5) REDUCE THE REVERB QUALITY, OR TURN IT OFF

Using the Ambience Reverb can make the GPO instruments sound more realistic by creating the illusion that they are playing in a concert hall or other performance space, but it also takes additional processing power to apply. You can lighten the load on your computer by reducing the Quality/CPU percentage in the Ambience Reverb settings (see the entry on Ambience Reverb) — or you could turn it off entirely by unchecking the Ambience Reverb box in the Native Instruments AU/VST Setup dialog box. Some digital audio applications will even allow you to apply Ambience Reverb to a saved audio file after the fact.

6) TURN OFF SCROLLING PLAYBACK

While it is very convenient to use scrolling playback to follow along on-screen, it also means your computer has to do two things at once — play back the GPO instruments and redraw the screen. By unchecking Scrolling Playback in the Playback Controls (and following along with a printed copy of the score instead), you allow your computer to devote 100% of its resources to playback..

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Using GPO with Finale 2006

You should definitely turn off Scrolling Playback when you are recording an audio file — see Saving an Audio File.

7) USE SMALLER INSTRUMENTS Full GPO contains “lite” versions of the piano and harp that do not require as much of your computer’s RAM as the full-sized versions. If your score has many instruments and you are running low on memory, you should definitely consider using the “lite” harp and piano (especially if you do not need harp harmonics, which are omitted from the “lite” version). Similarly, keyswitched (KS) instruments use more memory than the non-keyswitched instruments, so while normally it’s best to go with the keyswitched instruments, if you are absolutely sure you won’t need pizzicato or other keyswitched string techniques (see the entry on Keyswitches), then you may wish to load the non-KS strings to save memory. The same holds true of other keyswitched instruments, like the keyswitched brass in full GPO — if you never need muted brass, you can conserve memory by not using the KS instruments. Also, remember that the Player instruments use less memory than the Solo instruments, so if you are really short on memory, you may be able to squeeze by if you use the Player instruments exclusively — see the section on Player Variations for more information.

8) REDUCE THE NUMBER OF INSTRUMENTS

While ideally, you want to use a different GPO instrument for every instrument in your score, if you are trying to play back a large orchestral score on a computer with only 1 GB or RAM, this probably won’t be possible. It may be necessary for Flutes 1 & 2, Oboes 1 & 2, etc, to share a single channel and a single GPO instrument. This has several undesirable side effects — namely, it makes it impossible to have independent dynamics for each player, and makes unions sound like solos — but if you’re running out of memory, this may help you do more with less. Just make sure your polyphony is set correctly.

9) RANDOMIZE THE ATTACKS

Sometimes, you may notice pops or clicks during tutti passages (i.e., in sections where most or all of the instruments in your score are trying to attack a note at the same time). It is easier for Finale to play back GPO instruments if the attacks are very slightly staggered. Most Human Playback styles create slightly staggered attacks automatically, but you can increase the effect by using the MIDI tool to randomize the attacks even further — see the entry on the Randomize dialog box in the Finale documentation for more information. If you do this, just make sure

Human Playback is set to incorporate Start/Stop Time data in the User MIDI Data section of the Human Playback Preferences dialog box:

10) SAVE AND JOIN MULTIPLE AUDIO FILES In the event that playback is still unacceptable after trying all of the techniques above, don’t despair. You can still create a quality audio demo of your score by recording several passes through your score, each time using only as many instruments as your computer is able to handle — for instance, perhaps one pass for each of the four orchestral sections (woodwinds, brass, percussion, and strings) and then merging the four audio files using a multitrack audio editor, like Audacity. See the entry on Saving an Audio File for more information. Also remember that you can always revert to SmartMusic SoftSynth playback for everyday playback, only enabling GPO Playback when you are ready to create an audio demo of your score.

NON-PLAYBACK PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS

You may find that when you have many GPO instruments loaded, playback isn’t the only problem — sometimes, your entire system begins to slow down. You will also notice that every time you load a Finale file that is configured to play back -10 322.15527 278 Tm Tm (loas /F2.0 1 Tf (-10 322.15527 23at) Tj 10 0 0 -10 13 (Savo5527 278 Tm Tm (loasVb

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank Robert Piéchaud, the designer and programmer of Human Playback, for his invaluable assistance, insight, and encouragement at every stage of this project. This tutorial would not have been possible without his support. I would also like to thank Gary Garritan and Tom Hopkins, the creators of Garritan Personal Orchestra. Thanks to Aaron Sherber for the Windows screenshots and for providing information about the Windows version. Thanks to Chuck Israels for his insightful commentary and feedback. Thanks to David H. Bailey for his help with Finale’s percussion maps. Thanks to the participants in the Finale mailing list, the Finale forums, and the Northern Sound GPO forums.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR DARCY JAMES ARGUE is a composer living in Brooklyn, NY. He can be reached at [email protected].