On 24 Feb 2004 at 1:21, Michael L. Meyer wrote: > On 2/23/04 11:06 PM, "David W. Fenton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Of course, I can't quite conceive of why having dynamic marks and > > articulations in playback would interfere with aural proofreading, > > as one person said, or why you'd want to redo everything in the > > score from scratch in a hand-edited MIDI file, but I have very > > little imagination, I guess. > > I'm sending a PDF of this arrangement to the 16 or so people who will > be coming together to sing it in about two weeks. What I needed was a > MIDI file for them to listen to as they follow along in the chart and > learn the parts on their own (they're amateur singers with various > careers who run the gamut as far as music-reading ability). In this > case, all they need are the pitches and rhythms; the expressions and > articulations just end up being a distraction, especially considering > that (again, because I ignored them in the first place) they're not > set up to accurately play back what I meant when I put them in the > score. Well, let me just say that while reading this I went *boggle* several times. Since when are dynamics and articulations so incredibly unimportant that you wouldn't want musicians learning them *from the beginning*? As far as I'm concerned, *all* the music is in the non-notes/non- rhythms part of the music, and by leaving that out, you're guaranteeing, in my experience, that the performers will play/sing like metronomes/synthesizers, with no nuance, no shape, no *music*. > Actually, this leads me to another topic (perhaps members' answers to > this would start a new thread): as alluded to in my first post, I've > used Finale as an arranger and an engraver, through many different > applications - from musical theatre to contemporary a cappella to > marching band and many more - and have never found much use for > playback, except I guess as a quick-n-dirty aural proofreader. I'm > curious to know what specific applications any list members have had > that required use of the playback functions as integral, more > specifically applications that required _accurate_ playback. > Especially since, as I've been reading the posts on this list, getting > accurate playback seems to be a pain in the rear much of the time. I > guess I'm just wondering what I might be missing, or whether it would > be worth it for me to take the time to get better at it in the future. It's some work, but I don't see it as any more work than preparing MIDI performances in general. Yes, sequencers have better interfaces for doing certain kinds of things more quickly, but the main limitation is in the synthesizers, not in Finale. For those who are needing "performances" of scores they are responsible for, and who need the two to convey the same musical ideas, I see no alternative to using Finale's interpretive capabilities to keep the score and the MIDI file in synch. That is, if you find mistakes or revise the Finale file, then you've got to make the changes in the MIDI file, if you're maintaining it separately from the Finale file. I can see why someone who is preparing a MIDI file for a particular synthesizer (to produce a recording, for instance) would prefer to do most of the tweaking in a sequencer. But if you're just producing a general MIDI file for unknown synthesizers, Finale's output really ought to be sufficient, as you really don't know what your listeners are going to hear at all. Some controllers aren't even supported on some software synths (e.g., reverb and chorus), and, of course you have no idea whatsoever if the quality of the instruments is going to be very good at all. So, it seems to me there are two very different tracks for people creating MIDI files, and for one of those tracks, Finale suffices perfectly well (though I'll often clean things up in a sequencer that Finale is poor about, such as continuous data). One caveat: I've not used nor heard the results of the "human playback" feature. I think what I'd like is to have the hairpins performed (by key velocity where possible, with volume controller on held notes), but not anything else. Is that configurable or is it all or nothing? -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
