Aria Player for Finale

How to get there

1. Choose MIDI/Audio > Audio Units Banks & Effects. 2. Click a pop-up menu for one of the channel groups and choose anAU plug-in, such as "Instruments for Finale2012." 3. Click Edit for that channel group. Or, 1. Choose Window > ScoreManager, and ensure MIDI/Audio > Play Finale Through Audio Units is checked. 2. Under the Device column for an Instrument, choose ARIA Player.

3. Click Edit Player in the slot to the right (under the Sound column).

What it does
Whenever you are using Audio Units playback (MIDI/Audio > Play Finale Through Audio Units) along with Finale's included Garritan instrument sounds, Finale assigns all sounds in the Aria Player automatically behind the scenes. For example, Finale does this whenever you start a new document with the Setup Wizard, or add or change a sound in the ScoreManager (as long as a Garritan Sound Map is prioritized highest in the Sound Map Priority dialog boxsee Sound Maps). You need to use the Aria Player to assign sounds manually if you are using a 3rdparty Audio Units instrument library (since 3rd-party sound libraries do not have corresponding Sound Maps). You may also want to deviate from the Sound Map's assignment for a particular Instrument. Or, you may simply want to reference the Aria Player to identify the range or the keyswitches of a sound. In any case, the Aria Player for Finale allows you tomanually assign Finale's included Garritan instruments to Finale channels, and also view the range of each instrument, its keyswitches, and make adjustments to the properties of the instrument sound. All manual sound assignments in the Aria Player are overwritten in favor of the Sound Map Priority whenever Reassign Playback Sounds is applied to the document. (See MIDI/Audio/Reassign Playback Sounds for details).

Ensembles. Save and load Ensembles to transfer your Aria Player setup across Finale documents. [Channels 1-16]. Each of these sixteen boxes represents the channel assignment for one bank of 16 Finale channels. You can load up to eight Aria Players in Finales Audio Units Banks & Effects dialog box, for a total of 128 instruments.

To load new Instruments, click empty (or the name of a loaded instrument) > GPO > Notation > then the instrument from the drop-down menu. The "Notation" instruments are specially designed for use with Finale's Human Playback feature. If you load more than one Aria Player, channel 1 in each player window will equal the first channel in its channel range. For example, if you select Garritan: ARIA Player for Channels 17-32 in the Audio Units Banks & Effects dialog box, channel 1 displayed in the Aria Player will equal channel 17 in Finale. The staff for this instrument will need to be set to channel 17 in the ScoreManager window.

[Volume]. You can use these sliders to adjust the MIDI controller data (#7 Volume or #10 Mod Wheel). Note that you can leave these controls alone and

use Finale's Mixer to manage the volume, panning, and other playback parameters. See Mixer.

[Keyboard]. The Aria Player virtual keyboard will allow you to audition the sound of each instrument in the document by simply clicking on the keys on the screen with your mouse. If you have a MIDI keyboard connected, you may play the samples using your keyboard as well. (To do so, MIDI Thru must be on. See MIDI Thru dialog box. Also, under the MIDI/Audio menu, Play Finale File through Audio Units must be checked. If you dont hear any sound when playing the keys on the keyboard, turn up the Mod wheel.Use the keyboard to reference the instrument range and the keys used for keyswitches. See keyswitches. Controls: Click the Controls tab on the right of the Aria Player to display these dials.

Porta (CC20): All wind and string instruments have this graduating slide function (CC#18). This is especially useful for instruments like the trombone and the strings where slides are a normal characteristic. It can also be useful with other wind instruments to simulate the way movement by larger intervals settles into the destination pitch. Length(CC21): This controller allows you to adjust the duration of notes. VAR1 (CC22): This controller allows you to introduce random variability in intonation. This can make a big difference, especially in fast passages where real players almost never achieve accurate intonation from note-to-note. VAR2 (CC23): This controller allows you to introduce random variability in timbre. The two variability controllers can go a long way toward eliminating the dreaded machine gun effect of rapid repeated notes. Proper application of

the VAR controls can also help the user create convincing double and triple tongued passages in the brass.

ModWhl(CC1): This knob controls the Modulation Wheel controller. About. Click About to view additional information about the Aria player and the impact of your computer's resources. You can click Get More Sounds to launch the Garritan website where additional sounds are available.

Note. To apply reverb to playback, use the included Ambience Reverb option in the Audio Units Banks & Effects dialog box.

Audio Units Banks & Effects dialog box

How to get there

Choose MIDI/Audio >Audio Unit Banks and Effects.

What it does
With this dialog box, you can load Audio Unit players for use with Finale and open the respective player for editing sound channel assignments. Finale includes theAria Player, which is designed to use Finale as its host sequencer and includes an accompanying library of Garritan Personal Orchestra sounds. You can use this dialog box to load any other Audio Unit instrument library, select and edit Audio Unit effects, and adjust the volume for each Audio Unit selection. Note. To automatically restore playback sounds based on your Sound Map priority, choose MIDI/Audio > Reassign Playback Sounds.

Finale generally assigns sounds to Instruments automatically, including assigning the included Aria or SmartMusic SoftSynth players to banks, and also assigning sounds within the player. For example, when you add or change an instrument in theScoreManager, Finale loads the necessary banks and instrument sounds (according to the priority of Sound Maps in theSound Map Priority dialog box). When you make manual changes to banks or sounds in the Audio Units Banks & Effects dialog box (and respective Audio Units players), you are adjusting Finale's automatic setup, which means you need to be aware of how these changes affect other sound assignments, for example, those made automatically in the ScoreManager. SeeEditing Banks and Players.

Bank (Fin. Ch.) Instrument Edit. Each one of these pop-up menus displays all the sound libraries installed on your computer. The Aria Player is included with Finale, which is used to load the included Garritan sounds. Click the adjacent button to open the selected player where you can add instruments and make other changes. The numbers to the left of each popup menu indicate the Finale Channels included in each bank. Finale offers 8 Banks of 16 Channels each for a total of 128 Channels.

Effects. Each one of these pop-up menus displays the Audio Unit effects installed on your computer, including the ones installed with your operating system. Click the adjacent button to open the selected effects interface where you can make adjustments to them. Finale includes Garritan Ambience reverb. Choose this option to apply Finale's included reverb effect to playback of Audio Unit sounds. To adjust reverb settings, click the Edit button.

AU Effects plug-ins are installed as dll files that usually appear in the same folders as the AU Instruments. If you do not see the one you are looking for, you can identify any AU plug-in installed on your system by choosing it from the Manage AU Plugins dialog box.

Bypass. Check this box to bypass the chosen effect. Volume Clip. This volume slider applies to the volume of the selected bank of channels and their selectedAudio Unit selection and effect(s). Finale illuminates the Clip indicator if clipping is detected. Clipping is detected if the signal goes beyond the bounds of a standard range. Click the clip indicator light to reset it. Master Effects Master Volume. Use these options to apply effects and volume to the master mix. Changes to this section apply to all Audio Unit instruments Close. Click Close to apply your settings.

Editing banks and players

When playing back using Audio Units, if you edit Finale's automatic bank assignments, your changes affect all Instruments assigned to that bank. (You can view your Instruments' bank assignments in the ScoreManager.) The following sections describe how Finale responds to manual adjustments to banks and players in the Audio Units Banks & Effects dialog box.

Swapping a player on a bank

If you change a bank assignment to a different player, the new device is assigned to all Instruments assigned to that bank. Sounds will need to be manually loaded in the new player respective to the channels assigned to those Instruments (listed under the Ch. row of the ScoreManager). For example, if you change Bank 1 from Aria Player to any 3rd party player, all Instruments assigned to Bank 1 (under the Bank column in the ScoreManager) are assigned to the new 3rd party player.

To assign sounds to channels after swapping banks to a 3rd party player

1. Open the ScoreManager (Window > ScoreManager). 2. Ensure the Ch. (channel) column is visible. If it is not, choose Customize View > Bank & Channel.

3. Note the channel assignments of all instruments assigned to the bank that has been changed. 4. Choose MIDI/Audio > Audio Units Banks & Effects. 5. Click the button next to the bank containing the new 3rd party player.

6. Assign the sounds to the slots of the respective Instrument channels.

Unloading a player from a bank

If you set a bank to none (---) in the Audio Units Banks & Effects dialog box, the Device column of all Instruments assigned to that bank will be set to None in the ScoreManager (with no Sound assigned).

Loading a player to an unused bank

For existing Instruments:

If you load a player into a formerly empty Bank, Instruments that are subsequently set to that bank will inherent the player's manually loaded sound assignments. Deleting the Instrument assigned to the Bank will unload the player from the Audio Units Banks & Effects dialog box if it is the only Instrument assigned to that Bank. Changing the Instrument will clear the manually loaded player (if it is the only Instrument assigned to that Bank) and auto-load a new Bank according to the Sound Map Priority. Selecting a Sound Map for an existing Instrument will clear the manually loaded player if it is loaded on the next available Bank.

If a Bank is not assigned to any Instruments in the ScoreManager, but loaded in the Audio Units Banks & Effects dialog box, new Instruments added to the document will skip over the manually loaded Bank.

See Also: MIDI/Audio menu

To load a Garritan Instrument into the Aria Player for Finale

When you choose from the list of Garritan Instruments for Finale in the Document Setup Wizard, Finale loads all instruments into the Aria Player automatically when the new document opens. On the other hand, when you use the Staff Tool to add staves (Staff menu > New Staves or Staff menu > New Staves (with Setup Wizard)), the added staves will not automatically load into the Aria Player. After adding a Garritan staff to an existing document (or to load a Garritan sound for any staff not created using one of the GPO choices in Finale 2011s Document Setup Wizard) the following steps are required to prepare for playback. 1. From the Window menu, choose Instrument List. The Instrument List appears. If you want to assign a new instrument (one not yet used) to a staff, you must first assign the staff a unique channel in the Instrument List. Even if you are using an instrument sound already used in the document, it is recommended to assign the staff a unique channel (especially if the staff is in the same range as another staff with the same channel). (A pitch on one staff is not distinguished from the same pitch on another staff if the staves share a channel. On/off messages apply to all notes of the same pitch which can disrupt playback). 2. In the row of the desired staff, click the drop-down menu under the Instrument column. Scroll to the top of this list and choose New Instrument. The Instrument Definition dialog box appears. 3. Enter the desired instrument name in the top text box. You might enter the name of the GPO instrument you would like to use here. 4. After Channel, enter a channel number not used by any other staff. Use the Instrument List as a reference. If you are assigning all new staves manually, number the channels consecutively from the top down (e.g. 1-16). 5. Click OK. The Instrument Definition dialog box closes. Repeat steps 2 through 5 for any other staves. Leave the Instrument List open. 6. From the MIDI/Audio menu, choose Instrument Setup > Instruments. The VST Instruments Setup dialog box appears. 7. Click the drop-down menu for the range including the channels you want to assign and choose Instruments for Finale 2011 (if its not chosen already).Then click the Edit button to the right. The Aria player appears. Any instrument already defined (for this bank of channels)appears within the interface. 8. Click the top slot (channel 01) and choose the desired instrument. The instrument appears in the slot. If you clicked the Edit button next to Finale Channel 1 -16 in the VST Instruments Setup dialog box, the sixteen slots in the Aria Player are equivalent to Finale channels 1-16 (as shown in the instrument list). If

you clicked the Edit button next to Finale Channel 17-32 in the VST Instruments Setup dialog box, the sixteen slots in the Aria Player are equivalent to Finale channels 17-32 (as shown in the instrument list). 9. When you have finished loading instruments close the Aria Player. Playback the document to audition the results. Note that each instrument occupies a different amount of RAM. For example, the Garritan Flute Pla1 sound uses only 1.17 MB of RAM whereas the Steinway Piano uses 10.55 MB. If you are experiencing choppy playback or missing instruments, VST instruments may have exhausted your computer resources. If this is the case, try loading the Plr# instruments instead of the Solo instruments to conserve RAM. Note also: When you save a file configured to playback using the Aria Player, the absolute path to the folder containing the sounds is stored with the file. If this file is opened on a computer whose sounds are stored in a different location (or if the names of folders or drives are different) anAuto Load message will appear which will allow you to search for the folder.