On 27 Sep 2005 at 22:13, Kurt Gnos wrote: > Ok. I should not have said that, I should have added "easily" or > something like that. . . .
Well, "easily" is in the eye of the beholder. To me, setting pan and so forth is simple in Finale, as it works just the same as any other expression. Given that I don't have any need to vary pan in the middle of a piece, the mixer doesn't really offer me anything I need - - I just set pan at the beginning of the piece and leave it (I can't conceive of a piece of classical music where I'd want to change pan during the music). Now, channel volume or expression is a different matter. A mixer that allows you to set changes in those controllers in real time would be a vast improvement over Finale's older MIDI controller editing, which just doesn't work very well (the flaw is actually that the visual UI has to be aligned with the note as spaced in the score, which means that the horizontal spacing does not represent the actual time proportions. Perhaps it would be better to use time signature spacing when editing controllers, but the UI is still flawed and I don't think that would completely fix its inadequacies). The fact that Finale doesn't have good continuous data editing is why I don't do much at all in terms of setting crescendos/diminuendos. That's one area where HP would greatly improve my MIDI files, and it's definitely something I'd write into my MIDI files with the Apply HP plugin. But, for now, I'm satisfied with the results, given the budgets I have have and the time I want to spend on it. > . . . By the way, I just had a look at your side and > must say it's very interesting. And it's very nice you can see the > graphics and download the midi. I'm working on getting all the scores up there, but I have to rework all of them to bring them up to my current standards. The problem is that I began this project in 1991, with Finale 2.01, and my engraving standards have changed over time as I've learned more about Finale and gotten newer versions of Finale that make it much easier to get good engraved results. Also, I'm in the process of arranging a reading session with some professional string players (with me on piano), and I'm trying to get the scores that I intend to read through into shape for creating parts. This involves extensive editing to get my editorial emmendations into the score before I can create the parts. This is a lot of work, as you might well know, not least of which because I've got to decide what I'm going to add editorially, but also because I'm at cross purposes with myself, editing for a real performance (even if it's just a reading session), and editing for scholarly purposes. I haven't yet quite decided what I'm going to do. I'm keeping my editorial interventions clearly distinguishable from the source, but so far I'm not distinguishing things I want in performing parts but would not put in a scholarly edition (the last page of the Foerster is an example -- the "senza ritard" is a performance indication, and not part of the critical edition text. I want it in there for my reading session, but when I wrap this up for a performing edition, that will be made a non-printing expression. In other words, I've got a helluva lot of work before me, even just to prepare for the reading sessions this winter, let alone getting the web page completely done. And I've got nearly a dozen other pieces that aren't listed there or that I've not yet begun (or just barely begun) scoring up. It's all marvelous fun, but it is, nonetheless a helluva lot of work. In terms of the bigger picture, the quality of the MP3s is good enough for now. > I got a roland sound canvas about twelve years ago. It was about 800, > 900 $, I think. I have one at the school I work, too. Still works > fine, and sounds better than any soundcard I know. > > For some years there have been software versions out (Edirol/Roland) > that cost less than 100 $, I think, and the sounds are better (more > RAM) than the hardware. I should give them a try (Roland, Yamaha). You > can play your midi files through them, save wav files and convert them > to mp3s, it's not very expensive, it even doesn't need a state of the > art computer, but I think you might get better results than using the > soundcard. You don't have to change your playback files. I use the > Sound Canvas VST instrument if I really need a midi file as audio CD > or MP3. It's absolutly GM/GS compatible. And I am sure there will be > new versions out using more RAM, better sounds and more computer > power.... That's an excellent suggestion. I'll have to look into it. Do you know where I might find something like that for purchase on the Web? And will it overburden a 500MHz P4 with 768MBs of RAM? How many GBs of disk space is needed to store the samples? As to which soft synths, I did experiment with the first free Yamaha soft synth nearly 10 years ago, in the hopes that it would be downloadable and usable by people who didn't have wavetable synthesizers (that was back in days when people would have sound cards that had only FM synthesis and sounded like a 1970s video game). Because the samples were designed to be downloaded over dialup, they were very sketchy, and not too great, but what you're suggesting is a substantial step up from that. My only concern is the performance requirements. As I said, for a while, at least, I'm stuck with a 1999-vintage computer (it was a hot computer then -- how quickly things have changed!), and if one of these will work with it, that's good. Another concern is that the soft synth might work fine by itself, but will not record well, since there'd be so much hitting the CPU at once. Currently, I'm able to do my daily blog reading while recording MIDI to WAV, as long as I don't do anything that hits the virtual memory management system (that causes the MIDI playback to hiccup). Obviously, I could step away from the system and let it churn away by itself, but given how finely balanced things already are with the synthesizer processing already completely offloaded to a dedicated soundcard, I worry that capturing that output is going to be too much for a mere 500MHz PC. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
