Instrument volume per patch, not per staff?

[mrfunk]

I'm transcribing an existing funk song as an exercise.
In the kind of pop music sheets that you see around, the usual minimum is to have a single staff for vocals, lyrics and chord markings, then a grand staff below it to describe how the chords are actually played and what's going on with the bass. Even though there tends to be more instruments or sounds than that, this simplified way keeps the score nicely compact and the kind that you can casually pick up to jam with a piano. So I created this kind of document to start with.

But there are multiple synth sounds that play important lines, and as they partially overlap, it makes the upper grand staff appear a bit too busy for my taste and especially, the whole thing very painful to play back when it's all with the same sound; Can't hear what I'm doing. In the making of this, I realized that I'd like to assign different MIDI sounds to differentiate the instruments that are clearly different, even though they might be written onto the same staff.
I noticed the layer option and thought that I should use it, but I'm not too familiar with it as I've only used it once before to make a bit more sense of vocal harmonies. I managed to move the lines to different layers and assign different sounds for them in the score manager window, but the sounds have surprisingly huge differences in volume, some playing so loud that they make the quietest ones almost inaudible. And no, I'm not mixing different virtual instrument systems or using fancy third-party instruments. In the mixer window, all I have is a volume for the vocalist staff, and another one for the entire grand staff. The layers and instrument differences happen in the grand staff, so those sliders aren't very helpful. If you can assign different synth sounds for the layers, can it really be true that you couldn't also adjust their volumes individually?
If I make a new staff for every different sound, I'll end up with a visually bloated score with most of the staves running empty for a lot of time, the kind of sheet that is no longer "nicely compact and the kind that you can casually pick up to jam with a piano."
Am I missing something or can you see a workaround?

[Peter Thomsen]

Welcome to the forum!

I suppose that you already have each instrument on a separate channel, right?

In the ScoreManager’s chiclet “Instrument List” you can customize the view so that the Mixer volume values are shown.
To customize the view, use the pop up menu at the lower right.

You can expand the view of a staff by clicking the little triangle.
When you have expanded the staff view, each layer is displayed in its own line.
When the Mixer volume values are shown, you can adjust each value - just double-click the value, and type.

[mrfunk]

Oh I didn't know that I can customize the view! I searched the forum at first but to a thread I found, someone had responded that you couldn't change volumes without adding new instruments.

Turns out, what I thought was oddly silent had its volume at 60 for some reason, while everything else was at 101. Is 128 the maximum of that scale, 100 sort of being "like zero" ?
No, I had everything on the same channel, but it had automatically assigned some tracks to channel 2 for whatever reason. I manually typed channel numbers in subsequent numbering just in case. If I'm correct, I can theoretically go up to 16, although that definitely isn't necessary in this case. Now that I have different channels for each instrument, will the customized volume values stick even if I used the same instrument (but different patch), visible in the "device" column? Is there a reason why the device column has SmartMusic SoftSynth from number 1 to 8, and the different numbers appear to be arbitrarily assigned for the layers of my document? What's the difference of these identical yet different devices?

For the developers if they are reading this: Would definitely make mixing a lot easier if you could actually have the contents of score manager exported to the visual mixer instead of having to first click around the triangles to reveal what you need to see, and then click and type in number values to blindly test what volume might be good for each instrument. Not only are you shooting numbers blindly, you'll have to stop playback every time before you can change any of those values, and since there's a delay in processing both, starting and stopping the playback, it does become an incredibly tedious job! Also in the score manager instrument list, a simple button "expand all" would help. For the grand staff alone, upon opening that window it's three clicks every time just to see what's on its layers.

Now that I know that this can be done but is quite tedious, next time I'm starting a similar project, I'll make sure that I assign the volume levels early on as I create new stuff, so I won't have to jump to and fro to try to make sense of this mess that can't be adjusted during playback.
Thanks Peter for answering my question so quickly, the issue was indeed addressed and I can actually carry on working without having to take the rest of the evening off!

[Peter Thomsen]

… Now that I have different channels for each instrument, will the customized volume values stick even if I used the same instrument (but different patch), visible in the "device" column? …

The customized volume value is not “locked” to the instrument; i. e. the customized volume value will not automatically stick to the instrument if you change the patch.

… Is there a reason why the device column has SmartMusic SoftSynth from number 1 to 8, and the different numbers appear to be arbitrarily assigned for the layers of my document? What's the difference of these identical yet different devices? …

There is no difference between them.
You have 8 independent instances of SmartMusic SoftSynth.

[mrfunk]

… Is there a reason why the device column has SmartMusic SoftSynth from number 1 to 8, and the different numbers appear to be arbitrarily assigned for the layers of my document? What's the difference of these identical yet different devices? …

There is no difference between them.
You have 8 independent instances of SmartMusic SoftSynth.

Okay. Is it known what the practical benefit of this is? It auto-assigns differently numbered devices for the layers, which of course doesn't matter to me, but I'm casually curious about why that is.

[Peter Thomsen]

The practical benefit is that they are truly independent => you can do whatever you need to do:
- position an instrument geographically (panning left/right), without affecting other instruments
- apply expressions to an instrument, without affecting other instruments
- &c.

which is what you would expect from a program like Finale.

[mrfunk]

Oh okay... But now I find it a bit confusing: So I needed to assign instruments to different channels when I want their volume controls to be independent of one another. Are you saying that channel independency does not also grant panning and expression independency, but those are values tied to the device instead?

When it comes to expressions, so far in the current piece I find myself utilizing staccato dots and ties; The dots are playing back as expected but tied patterns of multiple notes are getting played back as individual notes, the tie is ignored. But now that I think of it, I it might actually just be a characteristic of the primitive general midi instrument – you'd have to modify the synth patch itself to act like a mono synth that latches the notes to play legato during specific phrases.

[Peter Thomsen]

… Are you saying that channel independency does not also grant panning and expression independency, but those are values tied to the device instead? …

Oops, sorry, I was thinking of channels rather than devices.
Channel independency does indeed grant panning and expression independency.

… When it comes to expressions, so far in the current piece I find myself utilizing staccato dots and ties; The dots are playing back as expected, but tied patterns of multiple notes are getting played back as individual notes, the tie is ignored …

My guess is that you are confusing the tools.

Staccato dots are articulations; they are edited with the Articulation Tool (they are not expressions, not edited with the Expression Tool).

Ties are added/removed with the entry tools (= Speedy Entry Tool & Simple Entry Tool).
You can edit a tie with the Special Tools Tool (sub-tool: Tie Tool).
Also, you can edit the default look of ties, in Document Options - Ties.

From your description it sounds like you are using slurs in place of ties.

Slurs are used to show legato, and phrasing, and bowing for string instruments.
Slurs are smart shapes; they are edited with the Smart Shape Tool (they are not expressions, not edited with the Expression Tool).

Ties connect two consecutive notes of the same pitch.
If you tie notes together (with ties, not with slurs), then they play back as one long tone.

[mrfunk]

Ah I see.
Well, so far I have always used ties in the entry tool to extend notes that don't change in pitch, and especially when the note extends over into the next bar. In such case, Finale indeed manages to play the notes uninterrupted, hence understanding the tie.
You're correct, I have made slurs from the smart shape tool window, because the icon of that tool contains a slur and a dynamics marking so I intuitively thought that it would be the correct way to do it. It will look great and be very easy to place, but it just won't play back as a legato.
Testing out what you're saying; If I go to the entry tool and without any note selected, just select the tie tool and click on an already existing note head, it places the tie as usual but what's new to me is to then go into the Special Tools tie editor. The short-by-default tie can indeed be taken from the handle and pulled across to span a duration of more than just two notes. But it still won't play back as a legato that way, and actually, if I do it that way, it doesn't seem to understand why I'm dragging the tie around like that, it ends up with an appearance of being "unaware of where the notes are". In contrast, if I use the slur tool as I've usually done, pulling the handle to stretch the span results into the note heads being painted (like if they were being selected with a mouse, but they actually aren't), and if you release the handle when a note is painted, the slur will automatically adapt a shape that makes visual sense like it understood which note heads are the extreme ends of the span.
I'm still pretty sure that it's indeed slurs that I want: In this type of music, the vocalist does a fair amount of melodic decorations while sustaining the same vowel. Also guitar or bass lines contain occasional slides from pitch to another without re-plucking the string in between notes. Usually not connecting more than two notes because a guitar string can only oscillate for so long, but the point is that the pitch changes mid-way.
Isn't slur the correct thing to use? Is there a workaround for getting it play back as legato?

If I was merely performing with a midi instrument, I wouldn't have an obvious answer to how to make a polyphonic synth play longer legato phrases.
But in case of a guitar, if the pitch slide isn't too wide, I would emulate that by turning the mod wheel; It proves that the synth program is capable of sliding ±1 whole steps, but I wouldn't know how I'd order Finale to do even that, if, "real" latched legato is an absolute no-no because of the limitations of general midi sound bank instruments.

[Peter Thomsen]

… Well, so far I have always used ties in the entry tool to extend notes that don't change in pitch, and especially when the note extends over into the next bar. In such case, Finale indeed manages to play the notes uninterrupted, hence understanding the tie …

Yes, that is what a tie means.
In playback you only hear one, long tone - even if more than two notes are tied together.
NB:
As long as the pitch is not changing, you can use ties to connect the notes two by two.
A tie only goes to the next following note; to tie three notes together (to get only one long sounding tone), use two ties.

Ties.gif (1.34 KiB) Viewed 4095 times

Playback of tied notes is not what the word ‘legato’ means.

If the pitch is changing, then you can use a slur to span a stretch of multiple notes.
The slur indicates that the notes should be performed ‘legato’ = without an audible pause after each tone.

… I'm still pretty sure that it's indeed slurs that I want: In this type of music, the vocalist does a fair amount of melodic decorations while sustaining the same vowel …

This is called a melisma:
Multiple tones sung after each other on the same syllable.
In vocal notation it is common to show the melisma with a slur.
This helps the singer distribute the syllables on the sung tones.

… Also guitar or bass lines contain occasional slides from pitch to another without re-plucking the string in between notes. Usually not connecting more than two notes because a guitar string can only oscillate for so long, but the point is that the pitch changes mid-way.
Isn't slur the correct thing to use? …

No, slur is not the correct thing to use, but you are in the right tool.
Instead, use the sub-tool Tab Slide Tool (for plucked string notation), or the sub-tool Glissando Tool (for vocal notation).

… in case of a guitar, if the pitch slide isn't too wide, I would emulate that by turning the mod wheel; It proves that the synth program is capable of sliding ±1 whole steps, but I wouldn't know how I'd order Finale to do even that …

Finale was originally developed as a notation program that understands how musicians think (rather than how programmers think).
Hence the earlier Finale versions could only play back what was written.
The earlier versions could not interpret the music notation.

Today we have Human Playback.

If you use items such as ties, slurs, glissandi, tab slides, ornaments, text expressions &c. correctly, then you will discover that Human Playback can interpret all these items.