On 3 Nov 2005 at 19:56, Chuck Israels wrote: > On Nov 3, 2005, at 6:06 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: > > > On 3 Nov 2005 at 16:13, Chuck Israels wrote: > > > >> Well, that is true of me, but Gary is a neighbor (on an island I > >> see from my window), and I benefitted from that and the fact that I > >> recorded jazz bass samples for him. Still, I'd have been glad to > >> get the GPO "lite" that comes with 2006. It's such an improvement > >> over what Andy Homzy calls "the little kazoo band" we used to have > >> to hear, and it requires little fussing. What fussing it allows is > >> pretty transparent in how it works. > > > > I don't understand remarks like this. No one was ever limited to the > > soundfont that Finale started providing with Finale 2004. especially > > when you consider that Finale *didn't* provide it before then. > > We all have different levels of interest and ability at "attaching" > things to Finale. . . .
Decent playback before the inclusion of the Finale soundfont or GPO required *nothing* to be "attached" to Finale. It just required the relevant hardware/software to be on your computer. Since the vast majority of people using Finale would already be people who would have MIDI-driven sound modules or soft synthesizers available to them, the only question was how much you wanted to invest in your synthesizer(s). To me, any properly equipped computer comes out of the box with the ability for pre-soundfont Finale to play back in some form, however poor. So the question is simply what you want to do to get something better than a "little kazoo band." Nobody was required to wait around for Finale 2006 for something better than that. > . . . That's what made the sound improvements attractive > to someone like me. Maybe you have to have some empathy for > different experience and "courage" about this kind of thing to > understand the remark. That I am ignorant of some things, or > reluctant to get into the necessary new learning to make them work, > is clear. . . . So far as I can see, there would have been no learning required at all for you to have had better sounds before Finale 2006. You'd only have needed to add a synthesizer that was better than the one(s) offered by the default configuration of your computer. > . . . That doesn't make me hopelessly flawed because I have > different attitudes and experience than you. I am probably among the > oldest folks on this list and have come to computer work quite late > in life. I have some intuition and am not dumb, but there's a lot I > don't know and a lot that is daunting to me. I do my best. I don't understand your reaction. I didn't say *you* were flawed or ignorant or anything. I just took issue with the idea implicit in the "little kazoo band" phrase that Finale 2006 is some kind of revolution that makes possible what was not within easy reach before. That's patently untrue, and it's not at all something that was available only to the technically savvy. > > I don't believe it's Finale's job to provide good playback sounds. I > > understand *why* they feel they have to provide good playback, but I > > don't support it myself. > > I'm OK with that, and didn't care that much when there was hardly any > playback, and it was klunky. . . . This is where I just have a breakdown of understanding. Yes, before Human Playback, what you got required some tweaking to make it sound like an acceptable performance form the standpoint of timing and agogics, but the pitches and rhythms were always as notated, and the quality of the sound samples was as good as you provided in the synthesizer for Finale to use. Human Playback certainly makes it easier to get something that sounds better, but it still sounds *nothing* like a real human being, even the most mechanical of human musicians. If Finale with GPO is satisfactory for your auditory requirements, I just don't see why a decent sound module (not even a very expensive one) would have suited your purposes before GPO was integrated into Finale. It's not like playback was difficult once the MIDI setup was in place. > . .. Still, easily used integrated playback > improvements are attractive to me, and probably many others who are > not posting to this list. Finale has *always* had integrated playback, just not integrated sounds. This is where the disconnect lies for me. You seem to me to be confusing the inclusion of the soundfount and GPO with the ability to play back files, which has existed as long as I've known anything about Finale. The only difference is that you had to provide the sounds yourself. Since around 1995 or so, every PC has come with sound support (however poor), and my understanding is that *all* Macs have always had sound support (though my understanding is that they've tended to be soft synths like QuickTime Musical Instruments more than hardware sound cards as was the norm on PCs until the last 5 years or so; after about 1995 or so, wavetable synths on soundcards were so cheap that you could get reasonable playback for well under $200 and plug'n'play installation). There was no reason that you could not very easily have had playback that would have been of utility to you for the purposes you use it (which you admit are more on the order of proof of concept/proofreading, rather than for the production of demos that aspire to replace live performance). > > GPO integration with Finale is a complete non-issue for me -- it > > neither makes me want to upgrade nor discourages me from doing so. > > But that's because I've had sounds available to me for a long time > > that I consider superior to the "little kazoo band." > > Good for you, and my bad that I waited for Finale to do this before > doing it myself. I used to like manual transmissions too, but the > automatic in my very good car has improved to the point that it > shifts better than I do. It wouldn't have been that much of an issue, I think. And, frankly, I'm not all that impressed with the basic quality of the GPO demos that I auditioned on the Garritan website back when Finale 2006 came out. Yes, the integration with Finale makes certain aspects of creating playback that uses different bowings and different toungings and the like substantially easier than the alternatives, but the basic sounds are not that impressive to me -- they'd really have to be substantially better to justify the investment required for me to be able to use them. > > I'd much rather > > MakeMusic were investing their time and energy in something else, > > but, as with so many things, I'm not the target audience. > > OK, and I'm not the target for auto harmonizer. But auto harmonizer > is probably not very useful for many folks, and I believe GPO is. I'd tend to agree with you that GPO is useful. I'm just disputing the assertion that it's useful as a huge improvement over the "little kazoo band" precisely because you were never at any point limited to the "little kazoo band." > I'm happy there are things that others can use that I don't happen to > need, and that they keep MM in business. That doesn't keep me from > understanding and agreeing that there continues to be room for > improvement in the music prep end (or beginning) of Finale. As you might guess, the "little kazoo band" remark is what set me off. Nobody had to put up with that, ever, and the assumption behind the remark that people *did* have to put up with it just annoys the hell out of me. BTW, I'm completely sympathetic with your "admission" that you find composing hearing the sounds easier than composing in your head. My reaction is that anyone who claims the opposite is probably lying to some degree. It seems to me that it's indisputably better to hear in your head plus hearing through the ears than just to hear in your head alone. I don't see how anyone with any common sense could argue otherwise. Music is, after all, about making the air vibrate, not about sitting around in solitude and exercising our brains. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
