On 4 Jul 2005, at 23:18, Lon Price wrote: As I said in an earlier post, I got it to load, but the key switches didn't work. I also updated GPO and Kontakt Player per your suggestion, but still got no results. How are these switches supposed to work? The flute N.V. switch is set to in playback to "dump," with "Number of Units: 3" and "Data: $90, $32 and $40." I have no clue what any of this means. Is it setting itself to actually load a sound, which would never work in real time? It seems to me that these switches need to instantly switch to a pre-loaded sound, and that is far easier to accomplish by simply setting playback to the channel that contains the desired sound (mentioned in an earlier post). The problem with this method is that you'd have create new switches for every new project, or else create every new project from an existing template with exactly the same sounds loaded in exactly the same places. I'm beginning to think this is getting to be more trouble than it's worth, as Johannes said: "Perhaps I would have to spend more time on the Finale files, but that's precisely what I hoped to avoid with GPO."
Also, I downloaded the GPO Template document, but that won't work for me either, since FinMac has only four outputs, each with 16 channels. I take this to mean that GPO2-1 would be output 17 on a Mac, instead of 9. Which brings up the question: why do we only get four outputs on a Mac, when PC users get 8? The more I get into this stuff the more I begin to realize that Finale MIDI implementation is still behind the times. What I really want Finale for is to print out my music. I use Digital Performer for everything else. Getting decent playback in Finale is a nice luxury, if it can be accomplished without much fuss, but when all is said and done, I don't really need it, other than to check for errors.
Sorry for the rant,
No need to apologise for the rant, we all get frustrated with computers at times -- well I certainly do. When I was struggling with GPO, Darcy kindly sent these detailed instructions on how you get 8 outputs on Mac:
In *Finale* MIDI Setup -- *not* in GPO studio -- in the first "Output Device" box (the one for MIDI Channels 1-16), first select "GPO Studio: 1". Then, while holding down the "shift" key, in that same box, select "GPO Studio: 2". The Output Device box should now say "GPO Studio: 1, GPO Studio: 2."
You can continue to do this for the following three Output device boxes, so that the second one contians "GPO Studio: 3, GPO Studio 4", etc. That way you can load all 8 GPO Studio "players," for a maximum of 64 instruments on 64 MIDI channels.
Now, this is *important*, so listen up: for this to work in Finale, you have to have to take two additional steps.
1) You have to go into GPO Studio and edit the channel assignments for all the *even-numbered* players. So, go to GPO Studio Player 2 and change the MIDI channel for the first slot from "1" to "9". (Do this by clicking and holding on the little MIDI icon just below the "CPU Usage" box.) Go to the second slot in Player 2 and change the channel from "2" to "10," go to the third slot and change the channel from "3" to "11" and so on all the way down the line. Now do the same thing in GPO Studio Player 4, GPO Studio Player 6, and GPO Studio Player 8.
2) Now, for *Finale* purposes, you have to remember that the MIDI channels Finale uses are *NOT* the same as the ones you just set up GPO Studio. In GPO Studio, once you have completed step 1, all of the odd-numbered players will have instruments on channels 1-8, and all of the the even-numbered players have instruments on channels 9-16. But for *Finale* purposes, in the Instrument List, every instrument needs its *own* individual MIDI channel which is not shared by any other instrument. To make this happen, in Finale's MIDI Setup, you already told Finale to assign MIDI Channels 1-16 to GPO Studio Players 1 & 2, Channels 17-32 to GPO Studio Players 3 & 4, Channels 33-48 to GPO Studio Players 5 & 6, and Channels 49-64 to GPO Studio Players 7 & 8.
That means, in *Finale's* instrument setup, if you want a staff to play back using the instrument you have loaded into the first slot of GPO Studio Player 1, you assign that staff to Channel 1. If you want it to play back using the instrument you have loaded into the first slot of GPO Studio Player 2, you assign that staff to Channel 9. If you want the first slot of GPO Studio Player 3, use channel 17. If you want the first slot of GPO Studio Player 4, use channel 25. If you want the first slot of GPO Studio Player 5, use channel 33. And so on.
I've posted the following chart before -- I will post it again, but you may want to save it for future reference:
GPO STUDIO FINALE MIDI CHANNEL Player 1 1-8 Player 2 9-16 Player 3 17-24 Player 4 25-32 Player 5 33-40 Player 6 41-48 Player 7 49-56 Player 8 57-64
You say that the keyswitches don't work for you. Sorry if this is obvious, but are you sure you've loaded the KS Instruments? eg, for Violins I: Vlns 1 KS Combo; and for Flute: Flute Solo KS.
You don't need to create new switches for every project. If you import the library into your default Finale file, they are always there. You can edit them to your liking even if you don't understand the computer jargon. In GPO you can save various ensembles as .gpo files. What you do need to do for every project is to assign channels to instruments in Finale. That shouldn't take very long.
I know you only want a rough-and-ready polaroid snapshot playback from Finale, but I have found that GPO can do this better than SmartMusic SoftSynth and just as easily.
Best of luck John
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