Finale Forum

I'm working on an orchestral piece, and I need a sustained tone in the woodwinds with an extremely gentle attack and release -- I want the note to start from nearly nothing, sustain for a while, and evaporate to nearly nothing. I've tried editing the pppp dynamic and setting it to velocity = 1, then marking the note initially pppp with a 1-beat crescendo to pp, then a one-beat decrescendo back to pppp at the end. But no matter what I do, the note starts and stops like a brick.

I'm imagining two possibilities for what might be going on: (1) Human Playback has its own idea of what pppp means regardless of what I tell it to set the velocity to; or (2) GPO5 instruments just don't scale down that far in velocity -- like Garritan decided that nobody could possibly want a velocity less than, say, 10, so anything less than that is just set to 10.

Is there some way I can get the fine control that I want? Enlightenment appreciated.

You need to use the MIDI Tool

the Garritan instruments are a budget library, so while they are an excellent first choice for a beginner, or a stop-gap measure for someone who just needs a moderately convincing mock-up, they were not recorded with that great a dynamic range.

the reason they don't have the "dal niente" level of dynamic is the same reason they don't have an extreme fortissimo. They were recorded to cover the broadest base, moderately soft, to moderately loud. To record more would require more sample layers, thus increasing the cost.

You could use the MIDI tool, or simply set actual volumes (I've done it in the past with invisible volume expressions), but the effect is not really of an instrument playing extremely softly. Rather it sounds like an instrument where the volume was turned down.

Thanks Michel R E, but can you provide some more depth? "Use the MIDI tool"-- OK, but use it in what way? "Set actual volumes"-- sounds reasonable, but how do you do that? I searched the manual for "volume expression" and got nothing. And yes, I understand that GPO5 is "a first choice for a beginner". I was hoping it would be substantially better than GIFF, but apparently not. I've used Finale's notation capabilities for decades but I'm a novice to the playback aspects. If I need something better, where would you recommend I go next?

Have you read this thread?

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=19783

tss-music wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 21, 2021 12:13 am

I was hoping it would be substantially better than GIFF, but apparently not.

GIfF is a sub-set of GPO5, they're not separate libraries. GIfF contains instruments from multiple Garritan libraries, like the jazz one, concert and marching band, world instruments, and the orchestral library of course.

create an expression, in the MIDI definition of that expression (I believe it's the 3rd tab?) and select the MIDI controller number that changes the volume (if memory serves, it's CC:7). Just set it to a lower volume than the one you've established as your baseline in the instrument controls.
So for example, if your baseline volume is 100, set this softer dynamic to 70 or 60. And don't forget to also create an expression that resets the volume to whatever your baseline was (100, I'm going to presume).

tss-music wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 21, 2021 12:13 am

Thanks Michel R E, but can you provide some more depth? "Use the MIDI tool"-- OK, but use it in what way? "Set actual volumes"-- sounds reasonable, but how do you do that?

Jon Burr's "Add dynamics with the Midi Tool in Finale" video should help you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jzJZgfuCmk

Thanks all. Setting controller 7 to a lower value temporarily and then letting HP perform the dynamics gives me a workaround I can live with for the time being. Although I see what you mean about it sounding like an instrument with the volume turned down rather than an instrument being played more softly.

Setting controller 7 to a lower value temporarily and then letting HP perform the dynamics gives me a workaround I can live with for the time being.

Because Garritan uses CC#1 for volume/dynamics/sample crossfading control, simply lowering CC#7 won't produce the realistic effect with GPO5 instruments that you're looking for, as you've discovered. You need to select the notes/section in question, open the MIDI tool, select Edit Continuous Data, select Controller, and enter 1, which is Modulation by default but in Garritan, as mentioned, this is what controls volume and expression. Then click OK, click Scale from the MIDI Tool drop down menu, and then inside the Scale dialogue box enter From and To numbers from 0 to 127 corresponding to the decrescendo you want. For example, to go from mf to niente (nothing) you would enter From 75 and To 0. Then click OK and test your playback.

Understanding the effect that moving the mod wheel/CC#1 has (either by literally physically moving it on your MIDI keyboard, or by sending a MIDI command to have the Aria player do it automatically) on the sound of Garritan instruments is critical to becoming good at getting realistic sounds out of them.

If you haven't already, watch this video by Jon Burr - it directly addresses some of what you're looking for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jzJZgfuCmk

Thanks everybody, especially David, for the advice here. I've tried to apply the MIDI tool, but I'm running into big differences between what I think it ought to be doing (and what I see it doing in John Burr's video) and what it actually does on my computer. For instance:

1. I can't control how many measures I select to be affected by the MIDI tool. I can select one bar, and the tool opens up showing one bar. But if I select more than one bar and then double-click on the first bar, I get a whole bunch of bars opened in the tool, way beyond what I wanted.

2. This would be OK if I could then select the bars I wanted to edit in the tool. But that doesn't work right either. Say the tool is displaying 8 bars and I want to scale the Mod data from 127 to 0 over the first 3 bars. I select the first 3 bars and tell it to scale from 127 to 0 absolute with increment of 1, and I get a diminuendo that WOULD go all the way to zero by the end of bar 8, but stops happening at the end of bar 3. In other words it doesn't diminuendo very far because the rate of the scale is being calculated based on the 8 bars it's displaying rather than the 3 bars I wanted.

3. For added fun, sometimes on playback I don't get a diminuendo at all but a random wuh-wuh-wuh in-and-out of the volume. It goes away if I reset the Mod data to zero so it's not my audio.

4. Oh, and for even more added fun, if I use the left-right arrows in the tool to move forward and backward, then the continuous data display above loses alignment with the notation display below.

Hope there's something I can do about this other than just file a bug report...

tss-music wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 22, 2021 9:44 pm

1. I can't control how many measures I select to be affected by the MIDI tool. I can select one bar, and the tool opens up showing one bar. But if I select more than one bar and then double-click on the first bar, I get a whole bunch of bars opened in the tool, way beyond what I wanted.

Yes, you can. The trick is to click once on the measures, or click and drag ACROSS the measures, as you would with the Selection Tool, and not to DOUBLE click on them. Go back and look at Jon Burr's video and notice how he does it. Double clicking on the measures seems to be your problem here. That opens the graphic representation of MIDI data window and you don't want to (or need to) do that.

2. This would be OK if I could then select the bars I wanted to edit in the tool. But that doesn't work right either. Say the tool is displaying 8 bars and I want to scale the Mod data from 127 to 0 over the first 3 bars. I select the first 3 bars and tell it to scale from 127 to 0 absolute with increment of 1, and I get a diminuendo that WOULD go all the way to zero by the end of bar 8, but stops happening at the end of bar 3. In other words it doesn't diminuendo very far because the rate of the scale is being calculated based on the 8 bars it's displaying rather than the 3 bars I wanted.

You CAN select the bars you want to edit in the tool. Click on them once, or click and drag across them instead of double clicking on them. It sounds like you're opening up the MIDI Tool's lame graphical representation of the MIDI data, which will produce nothing but headaches (trust me). You don't want "the tool to display 8 bars." You don't want it to display anything at all. Don't use that part of the MIDI Tool. After you've clicked on the MIDI Tool, click on the measures, or click and drag across the exact notes, you want to deal with, then click on "MIDI Tool" on the menu, select "Continuous Data," set it to "1: Modulation," exit that box, then click on "MIDI Tool > Scale," then enter the numbers as Jon Burr does in the video. What you've entered into the MIDI Tool will then affect whatever notes/measures you have selected/highlighted on your screen.

3. For added fun, sometimes on playback I don't get a diminuendo at all but a random wuh-wuh-wuh in-and-out of the volume. It goes away if I reset the Mod data to zero so it's not my audio.

See the attached photos of my Human Playback Dynamics/Volume tab and MIDI Data tab settings. Compare to yours and make adjustments and see if that helps.

4. Oh, and for even more added fun, if I use the left-right arrows in the tool to move forward and backward, then the continuous data display above loses alignment with the notation display below.

As you have learned by now, totally ditch the pain in the ass Continuous Data Display "feature" of the MIDI Tool and just click on (or click & drag across) to select notes/measures for the MIDI Tool to deal with.

NOTE: I see you use a Macintosh, and I use Windows, so it's possible something is going on unique to your OS and its version of Finale that I can't help you with. Just a thought.

Hope this helps -
DG

Thanks David, that helped... although it took multiple tries and fighting with the HP settings. Eventually I did get the modulation scale that I wanted. But too bad that the answer is "Don't even try to use that tool, everybody knows it doesn't work!" Given that one can't rely on the MIDI tool's graphic display, what do you recommend for looking at the MIDI data just to verify it's what it should be?

Tom

tss-music wrote: ↑

Sun May 02, 2021 7:37 pm

Thanks David, that helped... although it took multiple tries and fighting with the HP settings. Eventually I did get the modulation scale that I wanted. But too bad that the answer is "Don't even try to use that tool, everybody knows it doesn't work!" Given that one can't rely on the MIDI tool's graphic display, what do you recommend for looking at the MIDI data just to verify it's what it should be?

Tom

I don't recommend looking at anything, I recommend listening and using your ears. Your ears will tell you if sounds change the way you want them to. That's where the music is. If you really, really, really need to look at something, watch the virtual mod wheel in the lower left corner of the Aria player after highlighting the instrument you want to check. After you start playback, the wheel should move up and down the way you expect it to for the volume changes you're expecting. That's how I check these things when using Garritan instruments (or any instruments that use CC#1 for expression/volume/timbre).