---

Warren Barnett

 

Finale 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 

Garritan Personal Orchestra

Garritan Personal Orchestra 4.01,
Jazz & Big Band

Jazz & Big Band 2

Jazz & Big Band 3

Concert & Marching Band

Concert & Marching Band 2 

Tapspace Virtual Drumline 2.52

File Attachment :
CAMB Custom Cymbals.xml   4KB (text/xml)
File Attachment :
CAMB Custom Drum Lines.xml   7KB (text/xml)
File Attachment :
CAMB Custom Percussion.xml   13KB (text/xml)

 

Finale 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 

Garritan Personal Orchestra

Garritan Personal Orchestra 4.01,
Jazz & Big Band

Jazz & Big Band 2

Jazz & Big Band 3

Concert & Marching Band

Concert & Marching Band 2 

Tapspace Virtual Drumline 2.52

File Attachment :
CAMB Custom Single Drums.xml   5KB (text/xml)
File Attachment :
CAMB Custom Layouts.lib   7KB (application/octet-stream)

 

Did you load the instruments into Aria yourself? (MIDI Channels 10 and 26). Can you hear them then?

---

Warren Barnett

 

Finale 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 

Garritan Personal Orchestra

Garritan Personal Orchestra 4.01,
Jazz & Big Band

Jazz & Big Band 2

Jazz & Big Band 3

Concert & Marching Band

Concert & Marching Band 2 

Tapspace Virtual Drumline 2.52

 

Finale 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 

Garritan Personal Orchestra

Garritan Personal Orchestra 4.01,
Jazz & Big Band

Jazz & Big Band 2

Jazz & Big Band 3

Concert & Marching Band

Concert & Marching Band 2 

Tapspace Virtual Drumline 2.52

Post Edited (warrenbarnett) : 7/31/2010 4:03:16 AM (GMT-5)

File Attachment :
VDL 2.5.2 Custom Accessories.xml   51KB (text/xml)
File Attachment :
VDL 2.5.2 Custom Bassline.xml   9KB (text/xml)
File Attachment :
VDL 2.5.2 Custom Cymbal Line.xml   4KB (text/xml)

---

Warren Barnett

 

Finale 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 

Garritan Personal Orchestra

Garritan Personal Orchestra 4.01,
Jazz & Big Band

Jazz & Big Band 2

Jazz & Big Band 3

Concert & Marching Band

Concert & Marching Band 2 

Tapspace Virtual Drumline 2.52

File Attachment :
VDL 2.5.2 Custom Cymbals Gongs Drums.xml   25KB (text/xml)
File Attachment :
VDL 2.5.2 Custom Drumline Battery for Finale.xml   8KB (text/xml)
File Attachment :
VDL 2.5.2 Custom Effects Percusssion.xml   15KB (text/xml)

 

Finale 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 

Garritan Personal Orchestra

Garritan Personal Orchestra 4.01,
Jazz & Big Band

Jazz & Big Band 2

Jazz & Big Band 3

Concert & Marching Band

Concert & Marching Band 2 

Tapspace Virtual Drumline 2.52

File Attachment :
VDL 2.5.2 Custom Percussion Layouts for Finale 2010.lib   31KB (application/octet-stream)
File Attachment :
VDL 2.5.2 Custom Pit Percussion.xml   48KB (text/xml)
File Attachment :
VDL 2.5.2 Custom Rack Combos Vocals.xml   31KB (text/xml)

---

Warren Barnett

 

Finale 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 

Garritan Personal Orchestra

Garritan Personal Orchestra 4.01,
Jazz & Big Band

Jazz & Big Band 2

Jazz & Big Band 3

Concert & Marching Band

Concert & Marching Band 2 

Tapspace Virtual Drumline 2.52

File Attachment :
VDL 2.5.2 Custom Snareline.xml   16KB (text/xml)
File Attachment :
VDL 2.5.2 Custom Tenorline.xml   19KB (text/xml)
File Attachment :
VDL 2.5.2 Custom World Percussion.xml   20KB (text/xml)

 

---

Jim

-------------------------------

Sorry that it took so long to respond. I had a local power outage for half a second and my motherboard fried. I had to get a new motherboard for my new computer. Sucks big time. I also bought an Uninteruptable Power Supply so that (hopefully) it doesn't happen again.

 

In Finale 2010, the XML files beolng in the C:\Program Files\Finale 2010\Finale MIDI Devices folder and the .lib files go in the C:\Program Files\Finale 2010\Libraries folder

 

In Finale 2011 the .xml file goes in the C:\Users\your user name\AppData\Roaming\MakeMusic\Finale 2011\MIDI Device Annotation and the .lib file goes in the C:\Users\your user name\AppData\Roaming\MakeMusic\Finale 2011\Libraries folder. This is for Windows 7 or Vista. For XP the folder is C:\Documents and Settings\your user name\Application Data\MakeMusic\Finale 2011\MIDI Device Annotation.

 

Go to the Kontakt 2 or Aria player and make sure that you chose the insrtument that you want in the player. You can use any MIDI Channel that you want, you don't need to use channels 10, 26, 42, etc. the way that you used to. Click on File - Load Library. It should take you to the Libraries folder for the version of Fnale that you are using. Scroll down and choose the appropriate library. Don't forget that my Custom Libraries contain the word "Custom". Make sure that the staff you are using is set up as a percussion staff. Now go to the Instrument List. Create an Instument name in the Instument List  and make sure that the MIDI Channel that is selected is the same as the MIDI Channel that the instrument is using in the Aria or Kontakt 2 player. Over on the right side is a drop down list under Perc. MIDI Map. Click the down arrow and find the same instrument in the list that you loaded into the Aria player and click on it so that is shows at the right side in the Instrument List. Once again, all the instruments contain the word "Custom". Close the Instrument list. Select the Staff Tool. open the Staff Attributes window for the staff. In Finale 2010b you can either right click the staff handle, or double click on the staff itself. In Finale 2011, you must double click the staff, you cannot right click the staff handle because it doesn't do anything.Click on the "Select" button beside Notation Style: Percussion. (If it wasn't already set as percussion here, you would not have been able to choose the Percussion MIDI Map earlier). At the bottom of the percussion Layout Selection List (They have renamed EVERYTHING) you should see all the "Custom" layouts that I created. (Don't forget, mine all say "Custom") Click the layout that coresponds to your instrument, and then click EDIT. That opens the Percussion Layout Designer Window. Now you should see, on the left, all the Note Types that are named the way that they appear in the JABB or CAMB or COMB documentation, plus "(Custom xxx)" added to the end of the Note Type name. Every Note Type Name in my layouts says "(Custom xxx)". This is something that Finale imposes on every name that you create yourself (Hopefully they will stop this in the future, but I suppose it has some sort of advantages in certain default situations, but not when every name is custom, as in this case. Perhaps an option to turn this on or off would be in order). Where you see  "(Custom xxx)", the "xxx" refers to the Finale MIDI note number, in case you might need to know. In the case of longer names and the "xxx" does not show, you can highlight the Note Type, click on the Note Type dropdown list near the top right, and that open up a list of every name that Finale already has in its database, listed according to the names in its existing Instumentation of Rowloff sounds General MIDI Percussion Maps etc. Since these all suck when it comes to complicated names that occur in JABB and CAMB, ignore them and choose the bottom option which, once againg is Custom. It should show with a check mark beside it already. When you click the word "Custom it should bring up the list of every Custom name in the Instrument that you have chosen with a check mark beside the appropriate "Custom Name (Custom xxx)". The xxx is the MIDI note number. (I have requested that the MIDI note number be displayed somewhere on the Percussion Layout Designer window. It used to be there before, and some people use it). If you cannot see the complete list (and I bet that you can't) it is because I don't think that anyone at Finale ever tested this feature with actual custom names in the list, or they would have noticed that once you get past a certain number of custom names or the size of the names gets too long, or some combination of the two or even something else altogether, it messes up the list, without continuation arrows or anything like that. Fortunately, I discovered that if you click on the list that you can arrow down the list off the screen. No one at MakeMusic knew of this problem, which is why I am fairly sure that no one else in the world has tried to do this stuff or they would likely have brought it to MakeMusic's attention. This list-running-off-the-page issue occurs on EVERY list in the new percussion method at this time. But I digress. Anyway, get out of this list and back to the Percussion layout Designer. You can change the position of the notes on the staff in this window, as well as change the noteheads if these don't please you, the same way that you could in versions previous to Finale 2010. However, now you can add or delete Note Types to a degree that you couldn't before, and you can easily rearrange the order that the Note types appear which you could do bfore, but it took a whole lot of fiddling about to do it. Anyway, close the Percussion Layout Designer, click SELECT to close the Percussion Layout Selection Window, and then click OK to close the Staff Attributes window. Now when you enter notes on the staff, you should see the note names appear above the staff as you enter them, and the names change as you up or down arrow in Speedy Entry, or as you mouse over in Simple Entry.

 

I find that once there are a couple of notes entered in some other staff, the measures condense to an optimum size for that measure, or the measure with the requiring the most space so far. However, this chops off the name of the notes so that perhaps all that you can see is "Snare Section R" instead of the complete "Snare Section RH Hits (Custom xxx)" Are you entering a rimshot, rim, RH Hit, or what? You can't necessarily tell. I have put in a request with support to lay this entire info above the staff whether the measure is condensed or not. My personal workaround is the click on Document - Document Options - Music Spacing and change the Minimum Measure Width to at least 3. That keeps the measures nice and wide so that you can continue to see the entire name (or at least most of it). You can always turn this feature off by resetting it to the original alue once you are finished entering all your pecussion staves.

 

I have also found that most percussion notes are preferred to be stems up, and a bunch of stems will obliterate the Note Names as they display, so I turn all the stems down while entering notes. You can also fix this once you are done. Once again, I have requested with support that something be done about this, such as the abitity to move the Note Names further above the staff, or possibly below the staff.

 

Let me know if you have issues.

 

 

Finale 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 

Garritan Personal Orchestra

Garritan Personal Orchestra 4.01,
Jazz & Big Band

Jazz & Big Band 2

Jazz & Big Band 3

Concert & Marching Band

Concert & Marching Band 2 

Tapspace Virtual Drumline 2.52

Post Edited (warrenbarnett) : 7/31/2010 11:06:04 PM (GMT-5)

 

Finale 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 

Garritan Personal Orchestra

Garritan Personal Orchestra 4.01,
Jazz & Big Band

Jazz & Big Band 2

Jazz & Big Band 3

Concert & Marching Band

Concert & Marching Band 2 

Tapspace Virtual Drumline 2.52

 

Hi Ron

 

 Asuming that the percussion instruments play back correctly in the Aria or Kontakt 2 player, then we will assume that the Aria or Kontakt 2 player is installed correctly, and that the JABB3 or CAMB or COMB2 is installed correctly. If the sounds do not play back correctly in a Standard Notation staff, then there is something wrong with the "link" between Finale and JABB2, JABB3, CAMB or COMB2. No amount of fiddling with the percussion setup is going to make it work. If the bottom 2 notes don't play even on a standard staff, then you need to talk to Finale support, but don't let them lead down a path having anything to do with percussion mapping. Any percussion instrument should play back in a standard staff, just like any piano, or violin, or trumpet. A percussion staff just lets you place a particular note on any staff location that you prefer, and doesn't deal with accidentals on the page, just like any written percussion part.

 

Try this. create a standard staff that you might set up for a piano. Create an 8 Octave chromatic scale on the staff. Go to the Aria player and choose the Concert toms. Don't do anything with percussion maps. Just playback the chromatic scale and see if those two toms play anywhere in the chromatic scale. If they don't, there is an issue of some kind. Any percussion library that you change the Aria player to point to, SHOULD playback every note in the that exists on the Aria Virtual Keyboard, in all of the correct locations. That's the way that I got the percussion sounds to work years ago, before we had percussion sound libraries. The Finale percussion system was too daunting to even think about exploring to me. I just used the General MIDI percussion snare that is about 17 leger lines below the staff. and it required an accidental. C1# I think.  

---

Warren Barnett

 

Finale 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 

Garritan Personal Orchestra

Garritan Personal Orchestra 4.01,
Jazz & Big Band

Jazz & Big Band 2

Jazz & Big Band 3

Concert & Marching Band

Concert & Marching Band 2 

Tapspace Virtual Drumline 2.52

Here is my explanation for why they changed it, and why I think that it will make sense IF they ever finish it.

 

They started out trying to make it easier for Joe Average to use percussion in Finale. Since the previous percussion mapping system did not tell you, in any way, which percussion note that you were entering on a percussion staff, a casual percussion note entering person, assuming that he/she had set up a suitable percussion staff using the Setup Wizard, had no idea what notes that he/she was entering into the staff. If you choose the Rowloff percussion sounds in Finale 2009 or earlier, you can enter notes to your heart's content, and have no idea whatsoever, which notes that you are entering. Sure, it sounds like a snare drum, but which sound is it? Right hand? Left hand? Rimshot? There was nothing to tell you. I can't tell you how many people that I know using the standard Finale 2007 Rowloff Marching Percussion sounds, would complain about the way that it sounded, but still were happy that they had any sort of snare drum sound, that "kind of" sounds like a snare drum. Since the sounds as they appear on a MIDI keyboard, have the left hand snare sound at MIDI note 48 (C) and the right hand snare sound at MIDI 50 (D), if you want both sounds to playback on the same staff position, the lower MIDI pitch will be entered before the upper MIDI pitch (becuase of the methodology used to enter different note on the same staff position). The lowest MIDI pitch at that position is the first to be entered. To enter any other pitches at that location, you first had to enter the lowest pitch and then press the up-arrow to get to the other sounds. For example to get a snare right hand hit, you had to enter the snare left hand hit, and then press the up arrow once to get to the snare left hand rimshot, and the once more to get to the snare right hand hit. At no time is there any indication which sound that you are at. You have to have a chart in front of you, a great memory, or open the percussion map, and scroll throught he list of sounds, counting which of the sounds are at the same staff position, and starting at the lowest (top of the map) count down until you reach the sound that you want, and assuming that you didn't miss one, or mis-count, you would go back to your origial note, and press the up-arrow key the appropriate number of times, hoping that you had not pressed tha up arrow previous to opening the percussion map and then pressing the up-arrow the correct number of times and getting the wrong sound, deleteing the note and then start over again, by entering the lowest pitch and the pressing the up-arrow a bunch of times, but realizing that you have now forgotten how many times that you were supposed to press the up-arrow, and have to go back to the percussion map and count it all over again, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum. The old percussiom mapping system was incredibly daunting to any new percussion entry person, and there used to be a myriad of questions on the forum, looking for explanations as to how the damn thing worked. So, to go back to my friends complaining about the sound of the snare drum, they did not realize that they were only entering snare left hand hits. Even if all they had done was change them all to right hand hits, they would have found the sound so much more pleasing (although I don't think that the "Award winning Rowloff percussion sounds" should every have won any awards). It make lots of sense on the MIDI keyboard to have the left hand sounds to the left of the right hand sounds, as are ALL lefthand/righthand instruments, but the Finale percussion mapping system, unless you really know how to fiddle with it, will ALWAYS give you left hands first.

 

The ability to create a custom percussion map was a selling feature for many years.

 

Now for the new method.

 

When Finale 2010 first came out, The new percussion mapping system was completely different. Joe Average can actually use it now. Enter ANY note on the staff, and just press the up-arrow untill you find the instrument/hand combination that you are looking for, and then press enter, and miraculously the note appears on the staff in generally the correct position, with generally the correct notehead. You can have discussions until you are blue in the face about which staff positions are standard, and which note heads are appropriate, but the point is, there is a method of putting the sound that you want on the staff where it is generally expected to go. You can easily go to the Percussion Layout Designer and change noteheads to your heart's content, and change positions on the staff to your heart's content, but now you can even change the order that the notes appear on a staff position. For example, if I want the snare right hand hit to be the first sound that I hear on a staff position I can press the up-arrow button in the Percussion Layout Designer (not the up-arrow key on my keyboard) and move the snare right hand hit to the top of the list, and put the snare left hand hit right after it so that it be the 2nd sound that will appear on that staff position. Easy as pie. An amazing improvement in the entire system. Like I said, you could always change the ordering on the staff before, but it was an incredible pain in the butt to accomplish.

 

Enter the weathered old percussion map users. "What? I spent ages trying to figure it out and now you have buggered up what I could do so easily before?" Well it really wasn't easy. We had just learned the ins and outs of how it worked. What MakeMusic seemed to have completely forgotten about was the concept of the Custom Percussion Map. When I contacted MakeMusic support 5 minutes after installing my shiny new copy of Fnale 2010, the reaction was pretty much "But we have now made it so perfect for you. Why would you need anything custom?" Well for starters, you told us for years that we could create a custom percussion map, and we spent ages trying to figure it all out, and not that we are masters at it, you have given us nothing to be masters of!!! So they spent ages trying to figure out how to possible allow us to change it. And unfortunately it has turned into a convoluted mess. However, once you grasp the concept it really is easy to understand and create new maps. 

 

In the old system, the ONLY place that you named a sound was in the old Percussion Map Designer. You could name it to whatever you wanted. However, now that window is called the Percussion Layout Designer, and allows you to do just about everything EXCEPT re-name the sounds. The new method relies on a simple list which is contained in the appropriate .xml file, which you must select from the Perc. MIDI Map in the instrument list. The .xml files are basically text files. If you double click any of them (but not one of mine with the word Custom in it), they will open in Internet Explorer, and you can see the contents of the file. It show the MIDI pitch, and the note asscociated number from the Finale 2011 database of possible note names. Since MakeMusic never expected us to do anything with these files, it is just a list of numbers that point to the actual name in the database which the new Percussion layout designer uses to display the name. If you double click one of my Custom .xml files, then you will see every custom note name that I have given to the sounds. Essentially this is the difference between the two methods. There is just this one extra file with a list of names, or in the case of a Finale suppiled file, a pointer to some .dll file that contains the actual names. That's all. No biggie.

 

Creating the .xml file is actually simple. Click on MIDI/Audio - Device Setup - Edit Percussion MIDI Maps. You can select an existing map to EDIT or create your own. You can't actually do much with a Finale created map so don't bother with them. You can however do anything that you want with a custom one. Lets say that you want to name the Concert Toms in CAMB. Click on NEW beside Select a MIDI device to edit, then make name the new XML file whatever you want it to be called. It moves to "New Map" and asks you to name the new map that will be in the .xml file. (If you noticed when you clicked on the .xml file earlier, each .xml file can contain several maps). Click on "Selecte a note type to add". (Yes now there are note "types") and ignore all the nice names that already appear. You could choose them but you will run into the dilema that MakeMusic had when it came to using those names ONLY since they don't contain a complete and useful and intuitive list (No Bass Drum 2 RH, although there is a Bass Drum 2 and a Bass Drum 2 LH). Just skip down to "Custom" and it opens a list from Custom 1 to Custom 128. Pick one, but I picked the number that was the same as the MIDI note number. The octave numbers in the Finale MIDI keyboard to MIDI Note Numbers are 1 octave different from the Garritan MIDI Keyboard, but the Garritan documentation does not have a MIDI keyboard to MIDI Note Numbers chart. This is useful to be aware of. The MakeMusic supplied .xml files were all created using the Finale version of the MIDI keyboard to MIDI Note Numbers chart, and were therefore ALL incorrecrt, except someone else may have noticed and the VDL Marching Percussion ones were actually correct, but still used the stupid names from the existing Finale database, and when a custom would have been required, because they ran out of stupid names, just left it blank, as were ALL the MakeMusic created CAMB.xml custom name entries. Anyway, once you have selected the Custom xxx, you must click on Add Note Type, and then enter the actaul MIDI Note number that it will use, and then at the bottom, enter your Custom Note Type name. Now you can go back and enter the rest of the note types that will need, but don't forget to enter the MIDI note number and give it the name that you want. This has been a long paragraph , but the entry method actually takes about 3 seconds per note type. If you click OK to close this all up, then you will find that you can select this New MIDI Map in the Instrument list. (Don't forget, in order to choose the .xml file in the instrument list, the staff must already be designated as a percussion notation staff in the Staff Attribute dialog box). That's it. Now you have your list of names.

 

Go to the Staff Attributes dialog box for the staff that you want to use.  Down at the bottom beside "Notehead Font" click "Select" and choose the font that you want to use, usually Maestro Percussion". (This is the same as before). Beside "Notation Style: Percussion" click on "Select". Click on "Create". Name the Layout name. (This is the same as before). Click on the "+" button in the lower left hand corner. This gives you a blank "Note Type" with the default note types in the defaul location. Select the blank Note Type. Click on the "Select" drop down list on the right and go down and choose "Custom", and you can see that it opens the barand new .xml file that you created and then chose in the instrument list. Choose one of the custom note names that you created and you will find that the previously blank note type now has been renamed to the one that you chose. (This was not as before). Now you can select the noteheads and the staff position. (This the same as before).

 

So as you can see, although I have given a long winded explanation for clarity (I hope), it really isn't all that hard. Before, you would have had to choose the MIDI note in the Percussion Map Designer, given it a name, chosen the noteheads, and chosen the postion on the staff. Now you are just creating the note name and chosing the MIDI note number in a different operation. 

 

With any Custom map, if you are going to send a file to a friend, you must now also send the .lib file and the .xml file that was used. I have made a request with MakeMusic support, that this be included in the .mus file, just as all that info used to be included in the .mus file.

 

I hope that this explains SOMETHING and will take some of the anxiety out of the entire thing. 

 

 

 

 

Finale 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 

Garritan Personal Orchestra

Garritan Personal Orchestra 4.01,
Jazz & Big Band

Jazz & Big Band 2

Jazz & Big Band 3

Concert & Marching Band

Concert & Marching Band 2 

Tapspace Virtual Drumline 2.52

Post Edited (warrenbarnett) : 8/29/2010 12:06:59 AM (GMT-5)

 

Oh my gosh!!!! Hurray!!!!!! I was getting ready to jump in my van and trundle down the road to see if I could fix you up in person. (I live in Toronto)

 

You still don't have an excuse for why it didn't work in Finale 2010. Finale 2010 kept them all C:\Program Files\Finale 2010

---

Warren Barnett

 

Finale 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 

Garritan Personal Orchestra

Garritan Personal Orchestra 4.01,
Jazz & Big Band

Jazz & Big Band 2

Jazz & Big Band 3

Concert & Marching Band

Concert & Marching Band 2 

Tapspace Virtual Drumline 2.52

The new method lets different people with different account names keep different libraries in their own directories. Sounds like a nightmare when you need to back up your files when you have several users on the same computer.

---

Warren Barnett

 

Finale 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 

Garritan Personal Orchestra

Garritan Personal Orchestra 4.01,
Jazz & Big Band

Jazz & Big Band 2

Jazz & Big Band 3

Concert & Marching Band

Concert & Marching Band 2 

Tapspace Virtual Drumline 2.52

 

 

Finale 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 

Garritan Personal Orchestra

Garritan Personal Orchestra 4.01,
Jazz & Big Band

Jazz & Big Band 2

Jazz & Big Band 3

Concert & Marching Band

Concert & Marching Band 2 

Tapspace Virtual Drumline 2.52

 

Finale 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 

Garritan Personal Orchestra

Garritan Personal Orchestra 4.01,
Jazz & Big Band

Jazz & Big Band 2

Jazz & Big Band 3

Concert & Marching Band

Concert & Marching Band 2 

Tapspace Virtual Drumline 2.52