Finale 2005

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This is a tutorial for setting up Finale for GPO Studio playback.

Assumption: You have successfully installed GPO Studio and Finale.

Start GPO Studio. Studio must be up and running to get sounds from Finale.

You'll see 8 Players: Player 1, Player 2, ... Player 8. Click on one of the Player buttons and up pops an instance of the Kontakt Player. Inside the Player you'll see 8 slots. Slot 1 is just above the big LOAD button. Slot 2 is just to the right of Slot 1. Slot 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 go off to the right. That means you can potentially load up to 8 instruments in each Player.

Since you see 8 Players, and each Player has 8 slots for instruments, you can load up to 8 c 8 = 64 instruments.

In order to get a sound from Finale you must load at least one instrument into one of the Players. I think that it's logical to load up your first instrument into Slot 1 of Player 1. But as you'll learn, it is quite simple from Finale to reference any of the 64 instrument slots.

Review: GPO Studio must be up and running to play GPO Studio instruments from Finale. 64 max number of instruments.

Finale uses Channel Numbers to specify instruments in GPO Studio.

Conveniently, we'll make Finale Channel Numbers start at 1 and go to 64.

Finale Channel Number 1 = GPO Player 1, Slot 1.

So if you set up a staff in Finale that sends MIDI data on Channel 1 you will play the instrument you loaded in GPO Player 1, Slot 1.

Here's the planned relationship of Finale Channel Number to GPO Slots:

• Chan 1 = Player 1, Slot 1
• Chan 2 = Player 1, Slot 2
• Chan 3 = Player 1, Slot 3
• Chan 4 = Player 1, Slot 4
• Chan 5 = Player 1, Slot 5
• Chan 6 = Player 1, Slot 6
• Chan 7 = Player 1, Slot 7
• Chan 8 = Player 1, Slot 8
• Chan 09 = Player 2, Slot 1
• Chan 10 = Player 2, Slot 2
• Chan 11 = Player 2, Slot 3
• Chan 12 = Player 2, Slot 4
• Chan 13 = Player 2, Slot 5
• Chan 14 = Player 2, Slot 6
• Chan 15 = Player 2, Slot 7
• Chan 16 = Player 2, Slot 8
• Chan 17 = Player 3, Slot 1

etc.

Recognizing the mathematical pattern, we can draw up the following:

• Finale Chan 1 - 8, GPO Player 1.
• Finale Chan 9-16, GPO Player 2.
• Finale Chan 17-24, GPO Player 3.
• Finale Chan 25-32, GPO Player 4.
• Finale Chan 33-40, GPO Player 5.
• Finale Chan 41-48, GPO Player 6.
• Finale Chan 49-56, GPO Player 7.
• Finale Chan 57-64, GPO Player 8.

It is time to get this information into Finale.

• Open Finale.
• Create a new document with 3 staves for Flute, Trumpet, and Viola.
• Click MIDI. You'll see the "MIDI Setup" window.
• Click the "Advanced..." button. Note on the right side "MIDI Out". This is where we specify GPO Studio!
• Under the subtitle "MIDI Out" click the drop down list at "Device".
• Scroll down and select "Personal Orchestra: 1". [If you do not see "Personal Orchestra: 1\" I suspect that you'll have to reinstall GPO Studio.]
• Type a 1 in the tiny box under "Base Channel" just to the right of "Personal Orchestra: 1\".
• Recall what we saw earlier "Finale Chan 1-8, GPO Player 1\". That's what we've got now. You're set up to use channels 1-8 to access slots 1-8 of GPO Player 1.

We need to setup channels for GPO Players 2-8 next.

See the drop down boxes in the bottom half of the "MIDI Setup" window? Click the drop down lists and set the following

Personal Orchestra:

Base Channel.

2: 9.

3: 17.

4: 25.

5: 33.

6: 41.

7: 49.

8: 57.

Save your MIDI Setup by clicking the "OK" button.

If you are using Finale 2004 (like me) you must disable Human Playback. Human Playback uses MIDI data in a way different from GPO.

Click the speaker-looking button to open up the "Playback Settings".
If you don't see the speaker-looking button, click "Window", click "Playback Controls"
Click the drop down list next to "Human Playback Style" and select "None".

While still in the "Playback Settings" window, set "Base Key Velocity" to 95. The Base Key Velocity is the Key Velocity initially assigned to notes as you enter them in a staff from the typing keyboard or the mouse. Key Velocity determines how hard the attack is for the GPO Flute, Trumpet and Viola. I suggest a velocity of 95 just for now as a fairly strong clear attack. (I actually use a base key velocity of 64 for my work, but I adjust the key velocity by additional means. I don't want to get into that in this message.)

Save your changes to "Playback Settings".

We need to back up a bit and load instruments in GPO Studio now. Recall that we're planning to play a Flute, a Trumpet, and a Viola.

Open up Player 1.

Load a bowed Viola instrument into slot 1, Player 1.

Load a trumpet instrument into slot 2, Player 1.

Open up Player 2.

Load a Flute instrument into slot 1.

Channel 1 = Viola.

Channel 2 = Trumpet

Channel 9 = Flute.

GPO Studio has got our instruments loaded.

Back to Finale.

Change the first measure (only) to 1/4 time. I've discovered that I need some lead time in Finale before the music starts.

Make some Expressions to specify Channel Numbers.

Open up the Expression Tool.

Create a text expression "Viola" that plays back channel number = 1.

Create a text expression "Trumpet" that plays back channel number = 2.

Create a text expression "Flute" that plays back channel number = 9.

Create a mf (mezzo-forte) text expression that plays back Modulation Wheel (CC1) = 72.

(MW controls volume for GPO bowed Viola, Trumpet, and Flute.)

Save your expressions.

Viola staff, measure 1, place the "Viola" expression.

Trumpet staff, measure 1, place the "Trumpet" expression.

Flute staff, measure 1, place the "Flute" expression.

Place the mf text expression in measure 1 of each staff.

Summary: GPO has Viola, Trumpet, and Flute instruments loaded ready to play. Finale has a staff for each instrument, and each staff will play on a specific channel sent to GPO Studio, at volume MW = 72, and attack = 95.

Try it now.

You should be hearing your music.

If there is interest in what I'm doing here, I can go further and show what I've learned with Finale's Text Expressions, Shape Expressions, Articulations, and the MIDI Tool as they relate to GPO Studio.

Thanks to Richard N. for providing the graphics for this tutorial

Adam Burford graciously provided this tutorial on the GPO forum before he passed away in May of 2004.

[edit] Human Playback

Human Playback and GPO perform well together. Scoring in a notation program can be very mechanical and often lacks the feeling, phrasing and nuance of music that is performed. With Human Playback, an advanced set of algoriths enhances and "humanizes" the playback of notation files

Previously GPO users could not fully take advantage of Human Playback, a set of algorithms that dramatically enhance the playback of Finale notation files (see http://www.finalemusic.com/finale/features/ftr-human-playback.asp). With version 2005, Human Playback is now GPO compatible.

Specific GPO options are Finale Program Preferences found in the new Human Playback Preferences dialog box (part of Playback Controls):

Here is a description of these options:

Optimize for Garritan Personal Orchestra

This activates the subgroup of GPO options below.

Use Modulation Wheel for Volume

GPO uses a non-standard and original approach for dynamic variations on sustained instruments. Instead of Velocity, the Modulation controller rules the general dynamic is on these instruments (note that Velocity still is used for keyboards and percussions), while Velocity is used for the note attack. Volume still can be used for balancing instruments within the orchestra. In Finale, dynamic markings are generally Velocity-based (for example, pp is Velocity 36), and when this box is checked, Human Playback converts dynamic information into Modulation automatically; Velocity-based dynamics can also be combined with Modulation-based dynamics smoothly.

Smooth Velocities

This checkbox enhances the result on sustained instruments using Modulation: HP smoothes the Velocity information to avoid attack inconsistency.

Attack Base Value

This is the mean attack value used sent by Human Playback to GPO.

On top of these GPO options, other HP useful preferences can be used to finetune the playback in Finale 2005, using Human Playback:

HP can now incorporate existing MIDI data instead of just ignoring them. It covers Volume (and Modulation when Use Modulation Wheel for Volume is checked), Velocity, Start and Stop time and Tempos. HP has 3 modes: Ignore (as in Finale 2004), Incorporate (using interpolation algorithms) and No HP Effect (then, priority to user data).

Another important improvement is the possiblity to use the new Apply Human Playback plug-in to actually write HP data in the file as MIDI data. Remember that HP is a playback pre-process that creates virtual data (trill notes, volume changes, panoramic, etc) and doesn’t actually write these data in the file, unless you export your score as a MIDI file or a mp3 file. The new plug-in fills this gap.

Thanks to Robert Piéchaud for providing this tutorial.