Need help w/Finale 2008, GIFF saxes, trumpet

[disshartha]

Hi all, I'm a new user working with Garritan Instruments for the first time.

I'm musical directing a show and am attempting to use Finale 2008 with Garritan Instruments for Finale to convert the Conductor's score into tracks. I'm scanning the score w/smart score lite, cleaning it up, splitting out the individual instruments, assigning them thru Kontakt player to the GI, then recording to a .wav, all through Finale.

The piano sounds fine as is, exactly what I need. After looking at the JABB Finale Human Playback Tutorial I was able to get the trombone to where I'm happy with it just through the use of articulations and expressions. I'm also content with the way the concepts in that tutorial applied to the clarinet lines.

Here's my problem, and since I don't have any brass background, I'm not really sure how to say this intelligently: the sax sounds like a kazoo.

Both tenor and alto saxes and the trumpet have the sort of harsh, dead, synthesized sounds that remind me of the electric keyboard my Mom got me at Costco; the one that when I'd bump the wrong button would start blaring Livin' la Vida Loca.

How do I fix this? After the JABB tutorial and listening to various demos I'm assuming it's not the quality of the samples, just that I don't know what to do with them. I don't know much about MIDI, so I don't know if I have to fiddle w/cc#s or modwheels or the like. Vibrato? Air flow? I dunno. Have any of you had success using the GIFF alto sax, tenor sax, and trumpet sounds?

[Leaf]

Hi Disshartha, welcome to the forum!

Hopeful someone more knowlegable than i will post a solution, but since i have seen posts with this suggestion, i'l pass it on to you.

On the controller for the sax, left of of the stave, click the "edit virtual instrument" to open the Kontakt Player.

Look to the right of where it says "Kontakt Player" at the top and you'll see some buttons. Press the one that reads "Outputs" and a panel will appear, those are your output channels.

Ok now, for each chanel, for example st1 and st2, there will be four buttons that say "empty." You can dropdown a menu of effects from the arrow that is beside the word empty.

All those are cool effects that you use by clicking on one (replacing "empty" with the name of that effect).

At the bottom of that list is "filters" which has yet another dropdown menu. On that list is 1,2, and 3 band EQ's.

After choosing an EQ (i would try the 3 band) by clicking it, click on its name (that button that used to say empty) to highlight it. Then while it is lit, press the button above that says "Edit Effect." It's to the right of where it says "Outputs" on that outputs panel. That will open a panel of your EQs control knobs.

I don't know exactly how to use them, but it was posted that you can get the sound you want by using those controls.

Try it and i hope i have relayed this info accurately, pretty sure it was the EQ, they said to use. I haven't played with it much, but was able to tell you where it is because i'm getting ready to play around with it and see, but was sidtracked playing with all those other effects.:)

If you need to for more info, go to General Discussion Forum and send a private message to "rbowser-" without the quotation marks, he is a moderator and will be glad to help, plus i think it was him who told about using the EQ to adjust the sound of the instruments.

Best of Luck
David:hp:

[disshartha]

Thank you, Leaf. I'm finding the virtual knobs awkward to manipulate with the mouse. Is there a better way to control them?

[Leaf]

Thank you, Leaf. I'm finding the virtual knobs awkward to manipulate with the mouse. Is there a better way to control them?I was hoping that there was but i haven't found one yet. I'm doing it on a trackpad of a laptop and getting better, however sometimes it wants to do increments of 2/10ths rather than 1/10. I was hoping there is a way to do it with the numpad or the arrow keys, but if there is i don't know.

[disshartha]

Actually, I think I've got the knob thing figured out; click on it & drag straight up and down, like a slider. I was trying to "turn" it by clicking on it and making a circle w/the mouse pointer. Oops.

The eq thing seems to be what I need, but now I've run into an additional problem. The eq levels I'm setting are being applied to all instruments, which is really dulling them, especially the piano. I think this is because the levels are being applied to the entire output, which I'm assuming is how Finale is "reading" the instrument sounds for playback. When I try to switch the other instruments to st. 2 or surr 5.1, I don't get any sound.

Is it possible to have the eq settings apply to a single instrument?

(Also, I've tried pming rbowser-; his mailbox is full.)

[Nickie Fønshauge]

If you press SHIFT while manipulating knobs, value fields and sliders, you get much smaller increments.

[Nickie Fønshauge]

The eq levels I'm setting are being applied to all instruments, which is really dulling them, especially the piano. I think this is because the levels are being applied to the entire output, which I'm assuming is how Finale is "reading" the instrument sounds for playback. When I try to switch the other instruments to st. 2 or surr 5.1, I don't get any sound.

Is it possible to have the eq settings apply to a single instrument?
Put the EQ on an Aux channel insted (Output module) and be sure to set the Aux channel Config. to the same channel pair as "st. 1". At the right side of each instrument's GUI there is a (very) tiny button called Aux (below "x" and "+"/"-"). Click it to reveal the Aux level sliders. This is where you specify each instruments FX amount. The Aux volume slider sets the overall FX (wet) level for that channel and each effect has dry/wet sliders to balance the individual effect.

Important: K2/KP2 didn't/doesn't (don't know the present status of this design flaw) save the Aux level slider positions. You may have to do this manually each time you reload a file.

[Leaf]

Put the EQ on an Aux channel insted (Output module) and be sure to set the Aux channel Config. to the same channel pair as "st. 1". At the right side of each instrument's GUI there is a (very) tiny button called Aux (below "x" and "+"/"-"). Click it to reveal the Aux level sliders. This is where you specify each instruments FX amount. The Aux volume slider sets the overall FX (wet) level for that channel and each effect has dry/wet sliders to balance the individual effect.

Important: K2/KP2 didn't/doesn't (don't know the present status of this design flaw) save the Aux level slider positions. You may have to do this manually each time you reload a file.Thanks, Nickie Fønshauge! Do you mean save it as a preset, from the edit effect panel (which saves it Kontakt's preset folder), or save as a user patch from that Load/Save button at the top?

[Nickie Fønshauge]

I mean, when you save your Finale file or when you save the multi. Aux slider settings were not saved then. I don't know, if NI has fixed this.

[Leaf]

Thanks Nickie, they announced a soon release of Kontakt 3, maybe it will be fixed it that... without breaking something else.

[Nickie Fønshauge]

Thanks Nickie, they announced a soon release of Kontakt 3, maybe it will be fixed it that... without breaking something else.
I like optimistic people :p

[disshartha]

Thanks all, this seems to be exactly the information I needed. Now I just need to figure out how to manipulate the settings to get the sound I want.

If anyone would like to share levels they've used for various instruments, that would be awesome.

Also, I saved the piece I was working on and when I reopened it, the aux levels were still there. I'm not sure what exact steps I used, but perhaps the issue you ran into has been addressed.