Is there a way for me to set up multiple instruments on one stave?  I use Finale 2005a, VDL2, eMac 1.25GHz w/786MB RAM.

My idea was to set Layer one to Xylo. Channel 1, Layer 2 to Suspended Cymbal on Channel 2, and Layer Three to Tambourine on Channel 3.  Does this sound like a plausible idea?

My next question is this, where can I find a map that tells which sound is which?  There are no patch change maps in the manual.

Jim

OK, I discovered that you can't do the multiple instruments on one stave like that because they don't have the key maps associated with them.  The percussion and Xylophone don't work together because the percussion pitches look like xylo.

David Ratliff told me that I don't need to bother with the patch change map.  Set the channels in Finale and in VDL2.

Learn something new everyday.

Jim

Yeah I think that's the case in the Finale world.

If you are using a program such as Kontakt that supports instrument banks you can have multiple instruments in one stave with Sibelius and its ";Staff Type Changes"; and program change MIDI messages.  I know notation program choice is more of a religious matter than a practical one, but if you typically need multiple instruments in one staff you might want to download the Sibelius demo and check it out.

Justin,

You ";religious choice"; reference made me laugh out loud simply because it is true!  I am actually wavering between both Finale and Sibelius right now as I have a few clients that I arrange for that want the scores to be in one or the other.

Jim,

Sorry I could not be more help.

Leave the ";Dark Side"; of tools, and you'll never look back...

Haha yeah definitely.

I mean most of us started out on Finale (I started using it sometime in the mid 90s-I don't think they had went to the year versioning scheme yet) and we learned all of its quirks and stubbornities and became pretty quick with it too.  If anyone remembers an older percussion website I used to run (Planet Chops) I even went so far as to write up a 30 page document about making percussion maps so that you could write pit and battery parts and have it kind of sound ok with MIDI. 

I was hesitant to go to Sibelius because I was really slow with it.  I didn't know where things were and I was frustrated so I gave up on Sibelius 2 entirely.  When 3 came out I gave it a serious try and forced myself to write an exercise packet with it, and I've never looked back.  I think that's usually the case for most people.  Once you finally give Sibelius a serious try you never want to do it any other way.  I'm sure Finale will eventually copy enough of Sibelius to where it'll be about as easy to use (and 2006 has some pretty snazzy features it looks like) but for my money you can't beat Sibelius. 

Not to derail this topic or anything :-).  Looks already closed to me.

Hey I've been behind, and haven't checked on the post for awhile.  I haven't explored that aspect of Finale enough to know whether I can have multiple instrument staves.  If anyone knows about this ";fess up!"; 

I have been using Finale since around 1987.  I used a program before that called Professional Composer.  Here's the deal, I have been able to do anything I want with Finale up until now.  This is a problem I haven't solved, yet.  My main reasons for sticking with Finale are 1) I already know how to use the program, 2)I save time because I don't have to relearn another program, 3)I don't want to spend the money buying a whole new notation program that I want to learn, 4)Finale does everything I want it to do and more. 

BTW, Finale 2006 DOES have some cool new features.  I think I'll address the multiple percussion staves with the developers and see what they say.  I may already have the capablilities and just not know it yet.  However, Sibelius was designed by a Mac person, apparently.  I have seen some of what it can do and I think it's cool.  I just haven't seen enough to convince me to switch.

Thanks for your posts.

Jim

I think I started using Finale around '98.  Finale is like writing music with MS Word- ugly, clunky, bloated...  Sibelius feels like an actual ";music"; program to me.  I bought Sibelius 2 a few years ago and every time I open up a file in Finale to convert it to ETF or MIDI I almost gag.  I have used Sibelius on both Mac and PC and it is solid. 

It didn't take long to switch programs, and Sibelius came with a nice keyboard shortcut mousepad.

MS Word--BLEH!  Man, Sibelius must be cool for you to make THAT comparison!  My friend Dave switched to Sibelius and says it's cool.  I should get a demo and look at it, but rarely have the time to mess around like that.  I have heard people say that it is more intuitive (more ";Mac-like";), but that's not an issue for me because I already know Finale which is now trying to be all things to all people.  It is becoming quite large.  I also teach summer technology seminars using Finale, so I do have to stay abreast...

The keyboard shortcut mousepad is the coolest idea!  You can tell they gave THAT some thought!

This is a loosely related question to the original question, but for Finale (2004):

Let's say I want the timpani to play the brake drum for
one measure. I'm getting the correct sound by changing
channels for that measure. So that's working.

The question is, do I have to switch the staff 'type' for that
measure to get the correct notation. Do I also have to pick
the brake drum map for that measure?

I'm pretty sure the answer is yes. And I've tried to do it, but I'm
not sure I'm doing it right. It always draws a blue line above the
measure. Is this supposed to happen? What does it mean?

I know this isn't a Finale forum, but I've read the Finale help
and it's not great. If anyone here can give me a simple reply,
I'd greatly appreciate it.

[quote author=mcp link=topic=730.msg3012#msg3012 date=1123534671]
This is a loosely related question to the original question, but for Finale (2004):

Let's say I want the timpani to play the brake drum for
one measure. I'm getting the correct sound by changing
channels for that measure. So that's working.

The question is, do I have to switch the staff 'type' for that
measure to get the correct notation. Do I also have to pick
the brake drum map for that measure?

I'm pretty sure the answer is yes. And I've tried to do it, but I'm
not sure I'm doing it right. It always draws a blue line above the
measure. Is this supposed to happen? What does it mean?

I know this isn't a Finale forum, but I've read the Finale help
and it's not great. If anyone here can give me a simple reply,
I'd greatly appreciate it.
[/quote]
MCP - I'm pretty sure that's right (the blue line). That blue line tells you there's been a new ";staff style"; applied to that measure (or measures). The one thing you may need to spend some time manually setting up however, is the ";definition"; for the desired staff style. Most of the mapping work is already done for you via the staff attributes, percussion notation style dialogs. However, if you want to change these mid-score, you'll have to create ";staff styles"; out of those mappings.

Select the Staff Attributes tool.
Click a bar so it's highlighted.
Go to the ";Staff"; menu, select ";Apply Staff Styles";

You'll notice, in the window that appears, none of the VDL2 mappings are available here, so click the ";define"; button to get the ";staff styles"; dialog to appear (which is very similar to the ";staff attributes"; dialog). Here, give your staff style a name (i.e. ";VDL2 Sus Cymbal";), select PERCUSSION under ";notation style";, and select the desired VDL2 mapping from the list of percussion maps.

Note - not ALL the VDL2 instruments have a map, but many of them do. Some instruments may work fine on just a regular ";pitched, non-percussion"; staff type (like Timpani or marimba) by entering the appropriate program change, and placing the notes on the staff on the same pitch their mapped to in the VDL2 instrument.

Hope this helps.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what I did last night, and it's not working.

I'm writing parts for my one and only aux. player. She'll start on Rack combo A, switch to tambourine, and then chimes, all in the same piece. The first part on rack combo A is looking fine. (by the way, I was having trouble with this about a month ago, and I checked the 'use all named notes', and that fixed it - thanks for that!)

I then switched the staff style for 4 measures to 'Normal Notation' (a default choice), which shows it using a treble clef, for my chime notes. That didn't work - it's still writing with the RackCombo A notation. I also created a style for tambourine and choose the orch. tambourine map, but the notes all showed up on F as opposed to B, as they're shown in the map.

So it seemed simple enough, but I'm not getting it. Any more ideas?


One more thing - is the keyboard layout in the book for orch. tambourine incorrect? Unless I'm mistaken, it didn't match up with the notes I was able to play on my keyboard.

Hmmm - my dissolving Finale chops are showing as I'm a little stumped on this one. Perhaps if you intend to write a staff this way, you have to start by NOT assigning a percussion notation to the staff in ";staff attributes";, but rather need to simply dictate phrases/durations where staff styles are assigned to x, y, z, etc. You might try that. Sometimes it baffles me the way Finale thinks. But still, there's usually a way to get the job done.

I checked the Orch Tambourine keymap. Seems fine to me. What exactly is the problem?

I though I was pressing keys and getting sounds where
the map shows no notes. I'll double check that.

Also, another thing I might be wrong about, but
I didn't notice a map for the other (rock?) tambourine.

Can you tell I do most of my work at night?

I'll screw around with the staves more and see if I'm
missing something. But, at least I'm using the
correct approach, right?

From what I can tell, it sounds like you're doing everything right. You may not be hearing the tambourine correctly if your keyboard is set in the wrong octave...you might want to check that. As far as Finale staff styles, I'm sure there's more to learn on that topic. It may be worth some fishing and detailed inquiring on the Finale forums.

You're right about the rock tambourine - there's no printed keymap in the user guide. The majority of VDL2 instruments have keymap diagrams in the user guide, however not all of them are there. The missing maps are generally ones that can be easily figured out audibly with the ";hunt and peck"; method. Most libraries don't come with this level of visual (keymap) detail, so by eliminating some keymaps, it allowed for a faster release on the product. The library itself was a long process, but you'd be amazed at how long even the VDL2 manual took to produce as well. It is possible that the missing maps may be released in the future as a PDF download as an added convenience.