I'm now using Finale 2011, and had notice that in the middle of my score, the marimba sound all but disappeared. I put a ff at that point and they were still barely audible. Then I deleted the hairpin decrescendo in the previous measure. Still didn't work.

Then cleared the measure and re-entered without the hairpin. Works fine. It used to be that the hairpins didn't effect playback ( with human playback off, which it currently is in my score)

Has Finale or VDL changed how this is handled? If so, how can use it effectively so the sound doesn't almost completely disappear?

mcp -

I'm currently working with Finale 2010b but to my knowledge there hasn't been any change in how Finale handles volume in 2011 and its certainly not VDL (KP2) causing the problem.  I have experienced the ";drop-off"; in volume in the past, for no apparent reason, and my solution ultimately was to do what you did.  I am wondering if you had perhaps used the HP plug-in for the hairpin measure in the score at some point and then tried to change it, or did you copy that measure from somewhere else in the score, or did you have a ";p"; expression at the end of the decrescendo hairpin at some point.  The reason I ask is that it has been my experience that Finale sometimes has what I will call ";stray midi"; information that you think should be cleared but somehow remains in a measure or is copied in from another measure.  This happens most often to me if I use the HP plug-in for a measure or passage, then change the passage and re-run the plug-in.  Based on what you have described, it sounds like it could be something similar.  For what its worth.

Todd

I'm pretty sure HP was off the whole time. I'll be starting a new score tonight from
the template, so I'll see if the same issues persist.

Kind of on the same subject - is there a way to get hairpins to playback in newer
versions of Finale? I know in 2007 it didn't use velocity, so I could never get it
to play back.

I'm not sure that I understand the question.  I started with Finale 2008.  Three ways come to mind - first you can use the HP plug-in, which is actually versatile since you can control exactly what you want HP to do (and more importantly NOT do) and you can also control how it interprets the hairpin expressively (I believe from within the HP options menu - may need to check that).  If I recall correctly, HP uses velocity change only.  Or you can use the TGTools Plugin which will allow hairpin dynamics.  Either of those options you can just highlight the phrase and run the plug-in.  You will also need to have dynamic expressions at the front and back end of the hairpin(s) to control the plug-in valuation.  The most versatile way to control hairpin dynamics is using the Midi-Tool.  Using the Midi-tool you (to Scale the Velocity) you can create a more precise change and are not limited to preset velocity values associated with the dynamic expressions.

Doing this from memory since I am not near a computer with Finale available but I think that's all correct.  Maybe someone else on the forum knows of another way as well?

I'll play around with the midi tool. I never realized it did that.

While were talking hairpins, is there anyway to assign multiple at one time, such
as everyone has a crescendo in measure 3?

I haven't tried it yet, but it seems to me that you could ";select"; a stack of measures in multiple staves and then use the midi tool to create a crescendo/decrescendo for playback simultaneously.  Visually, you would have to create the smart shape and then mass copy it to the staves.  I'd create and copy the smart shape first, then apply the midi-tool, since copying typically wipes out other things in a measure that are not selected.  I suppose you could try editing the copy filter so that it copies only the midi data and the smart shape only(?).  I haven't tried that yet either.

Todd