Can anyone out there give me detailed instructions for setting up Kontakt to play at the same time as the onboard sounds with Finale? The idea is to play battery sounds through Virtual Drumline/Kompakt and the pit and winds through Finale 2004. I know its possible I just don't know the steps to set it up. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

I think there's a way to do this, but I'm not exactly sure how. It's very simple in Sibeilus which is what I'm more familiar with...

If any of the Finale experts here have any advice, I'd be curious to learn more about this too.

In the meantime, it may be worth asking at the finale forum here:
http://www.finalemusic.com/forum/

Let me know if you learn anything as this is always a bit confusing.

Did I mention that killer competitive upgrade deal on Sibelius for Finale users? :wink:

jim

Here is the answer from the Finale forum. I'm still going to give Sibelius a try this spring though. One of the bands I'm working for is insisting I give it a shot and buying it for me. Thanks.

[i][color=blue]In MIDI > MIDI setup, click on the advanced button and you will see that you can choose a number of different MIDI outs.

So say you want soem output to go to your Soundcard Synth, and some to an external MIDI device through the MIDI port:

In the top MIDI device selection box (base channel 1) select Soundcard Synth (or whatever yours is called) from the frop down menu, then in the next MIDI device selection box - one which is at the top of the seven slots that appeared when you clicked advanced - (base channel 17) select Midi Port (again whwatever your MIDI port is called).

Then you have to open up the score you want to playback and goto Windows > Instrument list.

In the Channel column, everything on channels 1-16 will playback through your Soundcard Synth (channel 10 - percussion); everything on channels 17-32 will playback through whatever is connected to your MIDI port (channel 26 - percussion).

You can extend this for upto 8 MIDI devices.

Good luck.[/color][/i]

Great info gte. Thanks!

This post is for MacOSX 10.2/Finale/Kompakt users who want to use there Virtual drumline sounds with other sound sources - for example, a person who wants to hear Virtual Drumline sounds with their synth mallet sounds, wind instrument sounds, or both.

It is not for people who use sound cards for playback - the "internal speaker playback- ON" setting in Finale Midi options - but for people who want to use midi devices for playback, or "internal speaker playback- OFF".


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I arrange for winds as well as pit and battery. For my playback, I have always used my Korg X-3 in "combi" mode. This basically means that I created a combination of 8 different sounds (flute, clar, sax, brass, perc, etc) in my keyboard/synth's databank. Each sound was a midi channel. 8 was the limit because there are only 8 channels in a midi chord.

In Finale, I would use the "instrument list" under the "window" menu to set each staff to a midi channel (if "trumpet" was on channel 6, I would set each individual staff - Trum. 1, Trum. 2, Trum. 3 - to channel 6).

This meant for all of the different sounds I needed - brass, woodwinds, percussion, etc. - I only could pick 8. So, I used one trumpet sound for all trumpets and trombones. I would use 1 clarinet sound for all Flute, clarinet, and saxophones. I would have to skimp on speciallty percussion sounds such as Xylophones (just used Marimba sounds) and Chimes (just used a Bell sound).

This was the technique that I learned back in college in 1993 when midi was just starting to grow. Now, times have changed. Computers are more powerful and software is more flexible.

However, things can also be more confusing!

I know it's hard to find good information, so I'm going to describe my set up and explain how you can use something similar.

First let's start with my keyboard/synth. I use an old Korg X-3 music workstation - which means it is a midi controller and a synth in one. It is hooked up to my mac with a roland UM-1 midi cable (USB port). When the new Finale 2004 came in, I had to download another UM-1 driver for MacOSX since the new Finale 2004 now works in MacOSX. It's a free download online.

As I mentioned above, my synth is old and can only play 8 sounds at a time. I assign sounds to each of the 8 midi channels and create a "combi".

How does this hook into Finale? First, make sure that your computer is recognizing your midi device (a midi device is a synth, keyboard, midi controller, etc.). In "Audio Midi Set Up - MIDI Devices" (found through "MIDI setup" OR in the utilities folder in your OSX Applications folder), make sure that your device is scanned and recognized. You should see an icon labeled with your device name in the big setup window(Mine says EDIROL UM-1 - it recognizes the MIDI cable, not the keyboard/synth).

Here is the first major concept to grasp - Finale recognizes instruments in groups of 16 midi channels. You can see this when you open "MIDI setup" under the "MIDI" menu in Finale. You will see "Finale channel", then "1-16", "17 - 32", "33 - 48", and "48 - 64". There are 4 groups of 16 channels, which means that you can hook up 4 different midi devices.

After each group of 16, there are pull down menus for "input device " and "output device". For Finale channels "1 - 16", both of my input and output are set to "EDIROL UM-1", which is my Roland UM-1 MIDI cable (really, this mean that "1-16" are hooked up to my KORG X-3 workstation).

Now, all I have to do is open "instrument list" under the "window" menu and set each staff to the channel (for me, my options are channels 1 thru 8, even though there are 16 total channels, where in my case 9-16 are wasted) of the sound I want to play back for that staff. If I were setting up a score for a marching band show where I was arranging winds, drumline, and pit, I would set up all of my wind and pit percussion sounds using my Korg X-3 knowing that I can get battery percussion sounds from my virtual drumline software.

Now, for my Virtual Drumline (VD) set up. First, you need to load your VD sounds into your 3rd party software, which for me is Konpakt. I ordered Kompakt from tapspace with my VD software. In Kompakt, hit the browser button. A window should shoot out of the left side of Kompakt. Locate you VD sounds, and click on the name of each bank (Giga of Soundfonts). Drag a snare sound, a tenor sound, bass, etc. into the empty banks. Save the "group" as "VDrumline" or something like that (make up a name to call it). Each time you open KOMPAKT, you need to pull up your "VDrumline" group.

Now, here's the part that the PC sound card users can not tell you - the info you've been looking for. First, you need to download "MIDI Patchbay" from

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/13721

(I got this information about how to use "MIDI Patchbay" and the link to download it off of the Tapspace website)

You need this program so that Finale recognizes Kompakt as another MIDI device. "MIDI Patchbay" is like your MIDI cable from Finale to Kompakt.

(NOTE - If you have OSX 10.3 Panther, I don't think you need "MIDI Patchbay", for it has a new MIDI system. I believe that you can use the "Enable Inter-Application Ports" check box. I only read about it, so I couldn't tell you.)

When you open up MIDI Patchbay, you should allready see your Keyboard/synth on the left listed under "patches" (mine again says EDIROL UM - 1).

Click the "Add Patch" button. In the MIDI output" and MIDI Input" pull-down menus, you need to hit "edit virtual inputs/outputs" and make new ones other than your keyboard/synth. Name then whatever you want, for example "Midi Patchbay 1" or "MIDI Patchbay 2".

Now, go back into Kompakt. In the File menu, pull down "set-up" (should be the only option). In the window that comes up, hit the "MIDI" button. You should see in the "input interface" and "output interface" windows your keyboard synth (for me, again EDIROL UM-1) as wel as the NAME OF THE MIDI PATCH BAY that you just made up ("MIDI Patchbay 1"). Make sure that both are "ON".

Now, you have to set each VD sound to a MIDI channel. When you first load a sound, the default MIDI channel is "OMNI", which means the sound plays on all channels. Chose your first sound (mine is snares) and set it to Channel "1". Set your next sound (mine is tenors) to channel "2", and so on.

Next, go into Finale "MIDI setup" again. Under the "17-32" Fianle channel set ups (input and output), pull down your MIDI Patchbay device names, the ones that you made up (MIDI Patchbay 1, etc.).

(I hope you can see a pattern here with MIDI devices. My Korg X-3 workstation is the actual midi device, but the programs recognize and list the UM-1 MIDI cable that hooks up the keyboard to the computer, not the actual keyboard. Same thing with the "MIDI Patchbay" program. Kontakt is the actual MIDI device, but the programs list and recognize the "MIDI Patchbay" that hooks up the soundfonts program (Kompakt) to the Finale program. As one thinks of my UM-1 MIDI cable as a link between my keyboard sounds and my Finale program, one can think of MIDI Patchbay as a cable/link between my VDsounds/Kompakt and my Finale program.)

Remember, I said that Finale recognizes midi devices in groups of 16 channels. So, since I have my Korg X-3 workstation set up for Finale channels "1-16", I now should use Finale channels "17-32" for my VD sounds/Kompakt, right?

Right. But I just set my VD sounds in Kompakt to MIDI channels 1, 2, etc!

That's how Finale works. It will recognize Kompakt channel "1" on it's Finale channel "17", and Kompakt channel "2" on Finale Channel "18", and so on. The trick is in your "instrument list" window in Finale. In Finale's instrument list, you will use midi channels 17-32 for your VD/Kompakt instruments on channels 17-32 (Which are channels 1-16 in Kompakt).

Confusing!?!?!?!

Simply,

If ...

you linked Kompakt and Finale using MIDI Patchbay on Finales channels 17-32 like I just told you to ...

than...

... Kompakts channel 1 is Finales channel 17.

So, to review: I have my "MIDI Patchbay" as a link from Kompakt to Finale using Finale Channels 17-32. I have my snare staff in my Finale score set to channel 17, which corresponds to the channel "1" setting in Kompakt/snare bank.



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odds and ends -



Remember, now you have 2 sources of sound output - one coming from your keyboard's speaker set up (channels 1-16), and one coming from your computer's speaker set up (Kontact on channel 17-32). You can link those sounds into one with some sort of head amp or such, but it's not that important.

As far as working with Finale's "speedy edit tool" and your keyboard/MIDI controller, you are now going to have 2 sounds coming out of channel 1 (sound on channel 1 and channel 17, because 17 is only 17 in Finale, but in Kompakt, it is channel 1 ) When have my keyboard/MIDI controller set to play the channel 1 sound, and then press down on a key, I get a Flute sound AND my VD snare sound at the same time. Remember that I just mentioned the 2 different sound outputs (computer speakers and Keyboard speakers)? I just turn the volume down on the sound I'm not using at the time. Of course, in playback this is not a problem.

Lastly - there are 32 channels left! (33-64). You can hook something else up if you have it. I don't have that kind of action going on right now, but maybe in the future.

There you go! I hope that heps someone with a similar situation. I'm sure that all of us are not just using the Virtual Drumline sounds alone and without pit sounds/horn sounds. And, I'm sure that all of us are not on a PC/Windows OS, using soundblaster sound cards.


LC

Larry,

Great post! You've obviously spent some time dissecting, and it sounds like you've found a great setup that works for you. You are correct in that Panther users no longer need to download MIDI patchbay. In Panther, Audio Midi Setup has an new driver called IAC (inter application communication) that basically acts as a virtual midi cable between finale and kompakt (or any two midi programs: sibelius, reason, kontakt, etc).

AB

Can someone go through this if I have finale 2004 and panther? I have a power mac G4 with over a gig of RAM, a 800mhz processor and if I have 4 or 5 KOMPAKT sounds at the same time, the sound completely cuts out. I want to play the finale pit sounds with the VDrumline sounds

[quote="jj.pipitone"]Can someone go through this if I have finale 2004 and panther? I have a power mac G4 with over a gig of RAM, a 800mhz processor and if I have 4 or 5 KOMPAKT sounds at the same time, the sound completely cuts out. I want to play the finale pit sounds with the VDrumline sounds[/quote]

JJ,

When do the sounds cut out during playback? I'm running finale with reason on an older G3 PB. My sounds, regardless of whether they are softsynth or sound module begin cutting out during screen redraws. The process of playback and graphics grounds everything to a halt momentarily. The only solution I've found is to specify that playback not scroll through the score. Mind you this is a problem only in Fin2k4 regardless of OS, doesn't matter if I'm in 9 or X. Makes mine a hardware issue. I believe there is a way to monitor CPU usage in OSX. This could help determine if in fact it is a hardware or software issue. Keep me posted, I'd be more than willing to help in any way possible.

Ted Boliske

JJ - you might want to try asking the people at NI if they might have some suggestions for any Kompakt/DFD settings that will give you better performance. Typically, I think it's a little more sluggish on Mac than it is with Windows, but I don't know that for sure. NI's forum can be found here: http://www.nativeinstruments.de/index.php?id=forum_us

It's also very likely that Finale's slow screen re-draws may be taxing your processor. Audio takes a lot of CPU resources, as do screen redraws. Do you get the same problems when Finale isn't scrolling during playback?

AB