George, The programs you mention (Finale, PowerTracks, BIAB etc) do not generate the sounds - they simply send instructions to something called a "MIDI Device", which converts the instructions into sounds. MIDI devices can be either a piece of hardware (such as a soundcard inside your computer or an external box of electronics) or maybe a special software program. You can see which MIDI device Finale is using if you click on MIDI in the top Menu bar and click on MIDI Setup... The sound you are hearing is being made by the device listed in the box marked MIDI Out.
If you click on the little down arrow at the right of the MIDI Out box you will see a list of the devices installed on your machine. You can try choosing any of these and then play your file to see if the sound it makes is any more to your liking. If they all still sound like a piano then the problem is probably in your file - you may not have set up instrumental sounds for each of the staves in your score. To do this, click on Window in the menu bar and choose Instrument List and you'll see a list of the staves and the instrument sounds for each one (if not, click on the button View by Staves at the bottom of the screen). Make sure a guitar sound is selected for your guitar staff (for example enter 25 in the column marked Prog to get a Nylon Guitar sound), check the box at the bottom marked "Send patches before Play" then click on the X box at the top right corner to close the window. Hope this solves the problem! Peter ----- Original Message ----- From: George Ports To: Finale Forum Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2007 5:46 PM Subject: [Finale] Getting a good guitar sound I want to notate a song in Finale, save it as a midi that has a good guitar sound. All of the different programs I've tried to import the midi file to such as Finale 2006b, PowerTracks version 11, and Band in a box 2004 don't seem to have a good guitar sound. They all sound like a piano trying to sound like a guitar. I was hoping someone might know of a way to get a good guitar sound without actually having to play the guitar into the computer to achieve this. I have winXP. Any help I can get would really be appreciated. Thanks, George Ports _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale -- This email has been verified as Virus free Virus Protection and more available at http://www.plus.net _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
