GPO playback in Finale 2007

[PeterG]

All,

I have Finale 2007 + GPO installed but cannot get the human playback to understand that left and right hand staves must be played with different dynamics when I entered them in the score. Apparently hte software sees both staves as one instrument with one dynamics setting. I tried to double the score (so that it appears to be a piece for 2 piano's and then deleted all entries on one hand for each piano score but that doesn't help either.

Help!

Peter

[reith]

Unfortunately I don't know enough about finale to answer the question so why am I replying? Just to ask if it matters as long as it prints things as you want them. The other possibility is getting into the midi list. Can you do that on finale? Then you can adjust the velocities of individual notes.

I've been deterred from finale (and sibelius for that matter) because I can't get a request for information answered. I want to be sure, with a piano part for instance, that I can set the dynamics separately for each hand and then two dynamics per hand - useful if working on a Lisztian type piece where the melody is suspended between left and right hand thumbs (etc). I wasn't particularly interested in how well it played in finale but since part of the price is about playback there seemed no sense getting a tool that didn't do the job.
Then I needed to know if I can break out into three or four staves (for a single piano part) if needed, and revert to two staves at will.

I also needed to know if I can write without bar lines initially and add them later. Seems not. (Plus about 20 other questions concerning orchestral score presentation).

So, I feel your pain.

[ttw]

Tutorial 6 should have something about this.

When entering dynamics, the tool does allow differeing dynamics on each staff. I'm not sure that splits the playback though. As above, if it looks right, the performers will play it right.

I'll do some more looking; if something turns up, I'll post it here.

[PeterG]

Thanks ttw !

[zman]

The midi tool in Finale allows you to change the key velocity of every note individually, by bar, by selcted bars and by staves, even if they're grouped. It also allows you to grade the key velocities over selected bars in order to create crescendos and decrecrscendos. It's too much to go into in one post, but that's where you need to concentrate your efforts: learning how to use the midi tool.

Reith, yes you can do all of those things with the staves on Finale. You simply start with a score that has four staves. Use two when you need to and four when you need to. Then "optimize" the systems in the page tool and the final layout will only include the staves that have notes in them. You also have manual control over every system in page format.

[PeterG]

Thanks Zman ! I''l give it a go (never thought about solving it this way).

[zman]

Peter: for starters,

1. Click on the midi tool. Notice that you now get a "midi tool" tab in the dropdown menu at the top of the screen.

2. Click to the left of the lower staff (not on it). This will select the entire staff.

3. Go to the dropdown menu and select "key velocities." Double click on the selected staff. You will get a dialogue box that says "Set to", and a field in which you can input digits from 1 to 128. It should be set to 64 by default.

4. Change it to 48 and click OK.

5. Now play the file and see if the left hand part is sufficienly softer. If not, you can repeat the above steps and set the key velocities lower until you are satisfied.

N.B. If you have Human Playback selected, it may override manually-inputed midi settings, so you may need to deselect it. I'm working with Finale 2004 and your version may be a bit different. I haven't seen 2007 yet.