On my last orchestral piece, I found the delay before playback got longer, and I found that if instead of pressing play, I used the SPACEBAR+Click method of playing it was much quicker. This wouldn't work if you had an accompanying audio file - it also wouldn't work for those using Human Playback. I never use Human Playback, so it wasn't an issue.
In terms of instrument changes, what I tend to do is set all the instruments I'm going to need on a separate channel (so, for 1st violin, I have perhaps on average 5 channels, sometimes a couple more). I find patch changes a bit more complicated to figure exactly which bank and number it's going to be, and I find the reliability of them varies on the VSTi in question. I use expressions with channel changes to change from one sound to another. I've been doing this for a couple of years now and I find it pretty reliable. I could see how some might think this is a crazy way to do it, but it works 100% of the time. On my current piece I have 8 VSTis running, with varying numbers of patches in each, from 1 to 16. I have 4GB or RAM and an i5 processor laptop, so not the fastest, but not the slowest either. I think VST instruments being somewhat RAM-intensive is just a downside of the technology. The upside is the immense amount of flexibility one has. All that said, one thing that really bugs the hell out of me about the Score Manager is that when you want to create a new instrument it generally inserts a new VST instrument into a slot previously held by one already set up, meaning I have to set it up again, sometimes more than one of them. This is infuriating and time consuming. I think this needs an additional step/option, such as "Create in [Existing VSTi]/Create New VSTi. C. -- Colin BroomComposer http://soundcloud.com/colinbroom -- > From: horton.raym...@gmail.com > Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2012 17:44:54 -0400 > To: finale@shsu.edu > Subject: Re: [Finale] Score Manager FAIL!!!!! > > One suggestion I have to reduce delay before playback, is to turn off Human > Playback. > > Last year, using FinWin 2011 and Garritan-Aria on a 20 minute dance score > for 18 instruments, I didn't have too much problem with delay at home with > my desktop computer. When I went to the commissioning site in another > state with a borrowed laptop which was newer but less powerful, the delay > every time I clicked playback with considerable. When I deselected Human > Playback it sped the process up immensely. > > Raymond Horton > Bass Trombonist, Louisville Orchestra > Minister of Music, Edwardsville (IN) UMC > Composer, Arranger > VISIT US AT rayhortonmusic.com > > > On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 4:13 PM, David H. Bailey < > dhbai...@davidbaileymusicstudio.com> wrote: > > > Henry, in addition to the questions Justin Phillips asks, I would add > > that the use of VST instruments can be very CPU and RAM intensive. The > > computer needs to read the data for each instrument into RAM so it's > > accessible when the file plays, and if you don't have sufficient RAM > > that can be a major bottleneck. Likewise, it takes a lot of processing > > power to put all the data together into a stream that comes out like > > music, so if your CPU is several generations old or doesn't have enough > > cores or is operating at too slow a MHz speed, that can be another > > bottleneck. If both CPU and RAM aren't up to the requirements of the > > library, then total frustration results. If you have instrument changes > > on some of the staves, that further complicates things. > > > > And it isn't necessarily MM's fault. It could be their fault, but it > > isn't necessarily their fault. Using soft-synths is nothing like using > > good old-fashioned midi hardware which had none of these issues. > > > > David H. Bailey > > > > > > On 7/17/2012 1:56 PM, Henry Howey wrote: > > > I'm trying to convert an old file to VST instruments. The computer > > FREEZES for several minutes for each one MM screws up again. > > > > > > Henry Howey > > > > > > Sent from my iWhatever > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Finale mailing list > > > Finale@shsu.edu > > > http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > David H. Bailey > > dhbai...@davidbaileymusicstudio.com > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Finale mailing list > > Finale@shsu.edu > > http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale > > > _______________________________________________ > Finale mailing list > Finale@shsu.edu > http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
