HELP! Trying to use DP as an AU playback device with Finale

musikmik · Post by **musikmik** » Wed May 16, 2007 4:54 pm

I am doing a project on my Macbook Pro with a ton of MIDI tracks and VI's, and when i tried to do the project simply using DP as a sequencer and loading the sounds into Kontakt, I started getting cracks and pops just after adding in a third instrument. However, when I used Finale as a sequencer and loaded in several instances of Kontakt with it, for some reason I was able to get near flawless playback even with a gig of samples loaded and up to 30 tracks in a song. Why that is the case is another topic entirely! However...

I own Kick A** Brass, and it is a VI which is not UB compatible yet, so I have to load it into DP as an AU to get it to play. It works just fine, but I have been trying to route MIDI channels from Finale to play through the loaded AU in DP alongside the sounds I have loaded into Kontakt, and can't get it to work. I can't tell if I am missing a setting on Finale to route it to the right output, or if something is set wrong in my MIDI thru in DP to get them to talk. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!

zaster · Post by **zaster** » Wed May 16, 2007 5:07 pm

Hmm.. I've never tried using DP as a "sound module" for Finale and it doesn't feel possible, to my intutition. But there are several things I could address in your post. First- on a MBP there is no reason you shouldn't be able to run Kontakt efficiently as a VI plug in DP. Probably your buffer settings are just very low. (Configure Hardware Driver) If you up it to 512 or 1024, you will probably fix the problem. Second- finale isn't a proper sequencer and you'll never get the kind of detail in your MIDI writing that would make, say, a convincing violin solo. So if you need it to prepare scores, for example, my recommendation would be to do the sequencing in DP then export the MIDI file to Finale and clean up the resulting score. Surely some of the bigger players around here have a more elegant solution.

EDIT:
Another thing I don't understand is how if your VI isn't UB compatible do you expect it to work at all, even as an AU- is the AU UB compatible but the standalone not? (Sorry I don't know the specifics of the KA Brass)

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Wed May 16, 2007 5:10 pm

I do know that some things work better when they are incorporated into Finale-- such as GPO, which has a version specifically for Finale.

But, you said that you've gotten KAB to run on your MBP even though it's not UB. That could be part of the problem. Non-UB software was not "intended" to run on the Intel, and where users luck out with getting things to work at all, there may be limits in the performance department where a non UB version may indeed slip through, but is not optimized for that purpose.

Not sure.

I've had a load of issues trying to get Finale and virtual instruments to cooperate with mixed results, and had to surrender to using DP for more complex MIDI-audio routing and note entry while using GM sounds in Finale just to help proofread.

If you do find a solution elsewhere, please post it here! (Thanks!)

Were you able to glean any advice from the Make Music forum on this?

zaster · Post by **zaster** » Wed May 16, 2007 5:20 pm

Frodo wrote:I do know that some things work better when they are incorporated into Finale-- such as GPO, which has a version specifically for Finale.

Now just wait a cottonpickin... GPO fan here! Not so, Mr. Frodo! The GPO player has all of this expressive potential built in, you should ideally write controller data curves for 4 or 5 parameters: mod wheel, legato, portamento, var1 (intonation variation), var2 (timbre variation), or miscellaneous others, reandomize the velocities and so on. I don't recall the area for this in Finale. Plus, if you check out the GPO forums at Northern Sound, you'll see when people are submitting orchestrations for review which they've created in Finale, they're always told you won't really get realistic results this way. Lastly, the special GPO that comes with Finale is a stripped down version, like the VSL that comes with Kontakt. It's just meant to aid in composition/notation by providing a better bunch of banks than the old GM variety.

GPO in DP is lovely, it's just not UB yet and my PPC GPO and DP set up is stuck on a 1GHZ processor with 1 G of ram.

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Wed May 16, 2007 6:19 pm

Zaster-- I wasn't at all putting down GPO. I was referring to basic technical functionality where *at one time* it was easier to get the Finale integrated version of GPO working smoothly than it was to get the full version or a third-party VI going.

That may have improved by now, but I was struck by the thread when I saw that it echoed some of my tech issues. It wasn't even an issue of getting a more realistic performance or making a qualitative judgment of any kind.

It was strictly a matter of getting MIDI and audio to run smoothly without the pops and clicks, which I've acknowledged that I've failed to do.

I don't know what else to say.

zaster · Post by **zaster** » Wed May 16, 2007 6:50 pm

No offense taken! But, doesn't it make sense that Finale doesn't really use instruments in such intensive ways- I mean, I can still get it to crap out on my Powerbook once I have one too many patches loaded, but Finale just doesn't seem to be sending MIDI data to the VI in as much detail as DP. The dynamic variation, etc is sort of flattenned out of it. But generally speaking, even In DP, for example, if you have a modulation curve drawn with 10,000 points on it, versus a straight line, I imagine it's going to tax the system more.

musikmik · Post by **musikmik** » Thu May 17, 2007 1:31 am

Actually, Zaster, the AU DOES happen to be UB! (They have a beta tester you can download.) They just haven't made the actual standalone VI engine in UB. When run as an AU, it has practically all of the functions of the VI.

I agree that using Finale as a sequencer seems archaic, and it does limit your use on controllers, although it does receive the info and you can edit multiple controllers graphically in 2007. (Still, it definitely isn't built for it!) Frankly, the "human playback" function, while not nearly as perfect as my own programming (I'm very humble!) does dirty things up enough that it doesn't feel completely static, and with the Garritan stuff (which is part of my gear) it makes some very musical choices that I never have to write in such as tounging, phrasing, and dynamics. But if the choice is having my machine crash every five minutes or a track with no clicks and static, it's a tough call! (I just need to buy a few quad cores and I'll be fine!)

Back to my original question, it just seems if you can play the DP sounds with a MIDI keyboard, there must be a way to route MIDI, whether Finale or not, to play that MIDI channel in DP. Right?

zaster · Post by **zaster** » Thu May 17, 2007 8:31 am

It seems unlikely to me but if you figure it out, let us know. It's true I haven't gotten too into the new Finale (2007)- I mostly use it to prepare scores and I haven't needed to for a little spell.

zaster · Post by **zaster** » Sat May 19, 2007 6:20 am

OH RIGHT! I bet you can use Bidule to do it! (Just came accrose in another thread someone saying they were using Bidule to route Finale to DP)

sinkd · Post by **sinkd** » Sat May 19, 2007 10:08 am

If you turn on Multi Record in DP then you can route Finale's MIDI through IAC into DP. You need to enable Interapplication MIDI in Finale's MIDI setup. Actually, you can use Finale's outs to DPs inputs (you have to create them first in DP) or create inputs in DP and they will show up as outputs in Finale.

Seven ways from Sunday!

DS

Eleventh Hour Sound · Sat May 19, 2007 11:42 am

KAB is now Universal Binary....