Klarinet Archive - Posting 000142.txt from 2007/12

From: Oliver Seely <oseely@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] Finale to Audio
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 20:02:05 -0500

Karl rather embarrasses me. The Bruch Eight Songs were sequenced
while I was still at the bottom of the learning curve of Finale. I
sequenced them with version 3.0 and didn't yet know how to transpose
a staff so that it would play in tune in Finale (I had to fix up the
MIDI files manually), and yet look right on the screen. Moreover, I
hadn't yet learned how to tie notes with accidentals from one measure
to the next, so when I listened to the MIDI file of the first song
just now, there is a bad spot between measures 20 and 21 in the
clarinet staff. It is horrible. To fix up the transposition problem
in the Finale file you unclick the "independent staff elements" for
the clarinet staff, then transpose to A using the staff tool window
and it sounds okay except for the bad ties on accidentals.

All that having been said, I think your problem can be solved
(reading the Finale file) by getting the "instrument list" window and
clicking the "send patches before play" button. At least try it to
see if your General MIDI presets are already in place. That ought to
do it. If not, we'll try something else.

As for playing back a MIDI file with appropriate mutes of various
tracks, you need a piece of software which shows the tracks. Even
there one sometimes needs to follow some "setup" procedure to make
sure the appropriate wave table has been selected (for example,
General MIDI presets). Two old programs which work just fine for me
are Cakewalk Home Studio and Master Tracks Pro 6.0. Master Tracks
went out of business years ago, but Cakewalk was bought by someone
else and the company seems to have some rather sophisticated program
offerings today.

I get comments from time to time about my clarinet page, but only one
person in 10 years has ever said that my Finale files sounded ghastly
because in some of my files the non-C instruments are shifted one way
or another. Either they are all Finale experts, are very forgiving,
or no one ever looks at my page! Good luck and get back so that we
can solve the problem.

Oliver

Gotta get back to some of those bad spots,learning how to use
finaleAt 04:22 PM 12/23/2007, you wrote:
>I've just downloaded several Finale .mus files from Oliver's website. I want
>to make my own "Music Minus One" files by removing the clarinet part in the
>.mus file and producing an audio file I can play on the Linux machine in my
>practice/teaching studio. Using SmartMusic format won't work, nor will
>playing the .mus files directly because Finale (MakeMusic) doesn't support
>Linux. I was surprised, when I tried today to output straight audio files
>(as .mid or, using "Export" as .wav or .mp3) of the first of Bruch's 8
>Songs, that the viola patch didn't get into the MIDI or audio output. It
>came over as a piano sound, which of course blends into the piano
>accompaniment.
>
>Maybe I just haven't spent enough time looking around for a setting in
>Finale that will solve the problem, but I haven't found one yet. Does anyone
>do this successfully? I want the correct timbres (General MIDI patches) to
>be included in the audio file - I'm not particular about which file format
>ends up working best so long as I can play it back on a Linux machine.
>
>I guess alternatively, does anyone run Finale under Linux using Wine or any
>other Windows VM? Seems like an unnecessarily complicated solution, but I
>don't want to buy additional licenses for either Windows or Finale for this
>purpose. Mostly, I use the machine to read PDF sheet music (OMCDRL or
>downloads) which works perfectly well under Linux.
>
>Thanks in advance for any ideas.
>
>Karl
>
>
>
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