Is it possible to remap Midi CC's in Finale before exporting Midi file?

Discuss playback problems, including VST, Garritan, MIDI, etc.

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danielleoh
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2022 8:04 pm
Finale Version: 27
Operating System: Windows

Post by danielleoh » Tue Mar 29, 2022 11:51 pm

This is perhaps a subtle one, but it would be great if someone can help me to get through it. I typically compose in Finale and then use it for any scores/parts I need to send to ensembles or soloists that might be performing my music.
Frequently the goal is to create a virtual orchestration, either for use as a mockup or to place in online libraries, for placement on television shows. I've had a little success with the latter and always like to do the former, since it gives me a higher quality mockup to send to a performer, to demonstrate how I want the music to sound.
Through painful and bitter experience, I have determined the following common threads with nearly all Orchestral libraries (I have been using Personal Orchestra 5 in Finale, but higher-quality libraries like Spitfire Audio's BBC Symphony Orchestra for mockups).
1. It is standard practice to switch between layers of a sampled instrument through Midi CC1, Modulation
2. It is standard practice to switch continuous volume using Midi CC11, Expression
3. It is standard practice to set and forget relative volume--the overall mix--using Channel Volume, CC7

While Finale does use CC1 to switch between dynamic layers (the difference here, by the way, is that most libraries, even Garritan's, use multisampling to capture the color changes between softly and loudly played instruments in a particular articulation. This is not precisely the same as perceived volume, as it is possible to pull back on CC1 but set CC11 high, making an intimate sound that is louder than it would be in real life, unless you were sticking a mic into the bell of a softly-played trombone, for example).
Finale's developers have chosen to map volume to Channel Volume, CC7. This results in a pretty messy sound as compared to using Expression, although I don't fully understand why.

To get everything mapped out the way I want it in my exported Midi files, I have to go through the following, somewhat painful steps.

1. Apply Human Playback before exporting the Midi file. This will imprint the Modulation data onto CC1 so that it's already there when you pull up your Midi file in the DAW of your choice. Oh, and for unknown reasons, sometimes it takes a couple of tries before this works.
2. In my Daw--and the method will vary depending on what you use so this is going to be very general--select an entire Midi track for one instrument or section, switch to the CC editor, CC7, and "cut envelope". Then switch to CC11 and "paste envelope." If you somehow misalign it when you paste? You end up with the swells mapped to the wrong portions of the notes, which is again very painful...
3. Set volume using the DAW's mixer, although setting a static Midi Volume level is also doable.

I'm sure I can write my own Midi tool to translate CC7 to CC11 (I've already written similar tools in Max for Live, since I use Ableton Live, that map Aftertouch to any CC I want to be able to control from my keyboard). It'd be great though to be able to change this within Finale, because then I could just use the better libraries there and could count on some consistently better results. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?


danielleoh
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2022 8:04 pm
Finale Version: 27
Operating System: Windows

Post by danielleoh » Wed Mar 30, 2022 5:34 pm

I'm not sure if anyone is checking in on this since, as I already noted, it's kind of obscure. But...
I ran a few experiments to find out why it seems that sometimes CC7 is modulated but other times it seems like CC1 is (as noted, CC1 is the default in nearly every DAW/library, so it is smoother to use it to change dynamic layers, then use CC11 to change loudness. CC7--Channel volume--is typically set and forget, like an overall mix level).
What I've found is more than a bit surprising. When you apply the human playback option "21st Century" you will get a track that has a set volume level on CC7 and modulating dynamics on CC1. Nothing is done to CC11, Expression.
For all of the others I tested so far (Romantic, Standard, Classical, Viennese Waltz) CC7 is modulated to control dynamics and nothing is done to CC1 or CC11, at all.
Still looking for a way to control this, as I have to believe that there's an option to determine which CC controls what...

danielleoh
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2022 8:04 pm
Finale Version: 27
Operating System: Windows

Post by danielleoh » Wed Mar 30, 2022 7:02 pm

Captain's log, final (?) entry.
In the HP Preferences dialog, there's a dropdown to select "Dynamic Approach for Sustaining Instruments." The options are "Automatic" (which is the default and how mine was set), then Midi CC 1, 7 or 11; plus Velocity. I guess it was too much to ask for more than that, so I'll set my defaults to always use Midi CC1 and Velocity, then manually play in the Expression data. This, by the way, is a good approach to get more realistic playback, since switching between the velocity layers (the colors of notes played at one of three different velocities, in most Libraries) creates an artifact as you switch over from one to the next. CC11 adds a bit of obfuscation by separately altering the volume of the note.

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