Here's how Sibelius does the patch-switching trick. Each playback device has its own "soundset" within Sibelius. This is just a text document that lists every patch on the instrument with all of the bank/patch numbers to locate it in the device.
Following the patch list are "groups" that list which devices appear under which headings in the instrument assignment drop-down within Sibelius. At the the end of the file are "best instrument" assignments that contain defaults for every imaginable instrument (including that old favorite "muted bass bugle in G"). When you add instruments to your score, Sibelius consults this list to find what it should play. Within the "best instruments" list are "specializations" that define instruments for "special effect" playback: "mute:trumpet in Bb", "spiccato:Violin I" ... When Sibelius sees "mute" on a "Trumpet in Bb" staff, it pulls out the patch assigned here. (Sidebar: "Arco" isn't a "specialization." It's just an internal command that tells Sibelius to revert to the original patch for that staff. I'm not sure I agree with the assumption behind this, but it has its uses--"arco trumpets" is a fast and dirty way to get back to home base, though the marking has to be hidden before printing!) The neat thing about this is that it is all editable by the user. To be honest, it's not a pretty job, but it is doable. What I did was to load a default set of about 75 patches into my GigaStudio rig, saving them as a performance file for future use. (Yes, it takes a while for everything to load when Giga is turned on, but I'm willing to put up with it.) Then I copied the Sibelius soundset for General MIDI, changed its name, and replaced its list with my Giga instrument assignments, so that instrument 2 is now "flute" and instrument 4 is "Trumpet (jazz)". Then I created groups to display instruments the way *I* want to see them, and replaced Sibelius' default assignments with my own. It took some work to set this up, but the result is that I now get exactly what I want in instrument assignments without the tedium of tweaking every damned patch in every damned score, or littering my disk with thousands of templates. It should also be easy to work up several different configurations of this file if I want to, one for big band jazz, one for symphony orchestra, and to go through and change defaults for other devices in other soundset files, so that my Proteus 2000 box gives me my favorite bass guitar and drum kit automatically. I also suspect, though I haven't tried it yet, that I could create bogus devices in FreeMIDI on the same channels as the Giga rig but with different names, a "big band giga" and a "symphony giga," and that Sibelius would find the proper default patches for each without my having to fuss around too much. Now, where the real power comes in is that Sibelius has included a "reset instruments" command, so I can create a file using my preferred patches, and when I send it to you, you can click a button to reset everything to play back on your preferred patches. (Philip, did you read this far? There's a playback trick I don't think you can get Finale to do!) Maybe this is all possible in Finale, but I've never figured out how, and being able to do it in Sibelius has removed a major source of frustration for me. Richard Walker Yokohama, Japan on 02.7.10 11:28 PM, David H. Bailey at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > What is not addressed in the statements from the Sibelius users is what > happens to the arco and pizz patch changes if I choose to use a non-GM > midi module, or if the arco and pizz patches I prefer are in higher > banks than the basic 128 patches of the GM standard? > > > Would I be able to assign my own patch numbers to those "type-in-score" > expressions, or would I be limited to sounds I might not like? > > At least in Finale I can define my own expressions to give me exactly > the sounds I want. > _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
