Giga and Finale

[notemover]

I was wondering if anyone out there uses Finale for sequencing? I have gotten acustomed to how Finale triggers different velocities and dynamic layers and would prefer to stick with it. I see Dan Dean\'s librairies have up to 8 dynamic layers. Will I be able to control them just like I can control them now on my sound modules? Thanks all!!!
notemover

[Jamieh]

I have never found Finale useful as a sequencer. It\'s a great music notation program, but I\'ve never gotten music that sounded natural out of it as a sequencer.

[esperlad]

I have used Finale for years for notation and sequencing. I think the performances sound fine. It works for me.

[Jamieh]

I guess that depends on what you are sequencing for. If you are just looking for a general-idea mockup then maybe Finale will work. However if you are trying to to create a realistic sounding performance, IMO it just isn\'t a useful program. Stuff played through Finale sounds very mechanical and not realistic at all. It plays things too perfectly.

In my experience, every instrument has to be played slightly different in order to make it sound realistic. Some instruments need to be triggered right on the beat, some right before, some right after. It depends on the instrument. You really have to get a feel for it and play the lines in yourself. Usually when I look at the generated notation of my sequenced files it looks like a bunch of muck because the notes don\'t necessarily line up exactly on the beats. All of this doesn\'t play to the strengths of Finale at all and is much easier to do in a sequencing program.

I\'ve been using Finale as a notation program since 1990 and it is extremely powerful and versatile. But I don\'t ever use it as a sequencer.

[This message has been edited by Jamieh (edited 03-24-2002).]

[astrt4]

We should keep in mind that Finale does allow you to make the music less mechanical by adjusting start/stop times, accents on certain beats, the ability to record the performance in from the keyboard, and virtually any MIDI parameter that a dedicated sequencer can. The interface is not as good for this type of thing as something like Cakewalk, but you can definitely make it work without too much effort. I generally prefer Finale for doing large orchestral pieces, whereas I like the dedicated sequencers for doing music with fewer parts.

[notemover]

I have learned how to make finale sound less mechanical with the modules I use and was wondering if it would be any differnt with giga. I like Finale because it lets you trigger any velocity layer, lets you impliment articulations, do key switches by notation, put in accels and ritards, lets you layer complex rhythums and runs I would not have been able to play on a keyboard, lets you tryout different patches to see how they fit in a mix with a click of a botton, and gives you a file you can keep and tweak forever. Now you have to keep in mind that you notated files with found Very unrealistic because you need to do some tweaking. You should keep a \"score\" file and a \"performance\" file. I like Finale the best out of any sequencer/notator I have tried and would prefer to stick with it when I use Giga. So the playback of samples will be fine? No known bugs? By the way does anyone know how to get Finale to playback the patches? Does Giga have a MSB/LSB program change option? And how do you config Finale and Giga for multiple midi ports? Thank you all.
Notemover