Have been away from NWC and transcription in general. Been doing mostly Gregorian Chant and it is a SERIOUS pain in the neck.
For me the biggest problem with NWC has always been how it handles slurs. Yes I know that there are a number of messy work arounds, but there should be an easier way to place and edit them. My first time back doing anything with NWC has brought me back face to face with it again.
I figured I would ask to see if there has been any improvement in this area in the ear or so I have been away.
A little of both is seen here. Some people do use a midi keyboard attached to the computer, some like me just transcribe it by hand into the program. Either way works well. You do not need to be a composer to enjoy working with Noteworthy Composer. Though I have tried my hand at some limited composing, my main use for it was to do lead sheets that I could easily transpose for the different instruments I play. Good luck with your project and welcome to the forums. You will find they full of very helpful and knowledgeable people.
I wonder. If a human ends up playing marcato as "staccato", due to human technique restrictions, should not the computer play it as staccato, to emulate what a human can (and does) do, rather than what a robot might do?
If the human is playing a marcato as staccato they are playing it incorrectly. The notes played will both sound distinct, but the staccato note will be played at a shorter duration than a marcato note of the same duration. ie. half note, quarter, etc. When done correctly, the difference is in the force of the attack and that the note is held for it's full duration with the marcato.
You are very welcome. Glad I was able to help. Also the native .ODT format for draw is a vector format and can drag and drop or cut and paste into a Writer document very easily.
Bigoud47; Have you tried cropping it with Draw, the graphics editor that comes with OpenOffice.org. It is a vector graphics program and does export to wmf or you can just use the odt file it creates by default. You can also edit the image directly inside Writer by using the command edit/picture, then select the crop tab.
Evening All; Which is why Lawrie is the virtuoso and I am just a plain NWC2 User. I bow to his knowledge on this one. His solution is both elegant, producing a cleaner, more readable score, and very simple. This one definitely goes into my folder of tricks to remember.
Add a whole rest to the measure and set it to display never, then place the comp marks as a text string. be sure to check the preserve width box on the expression tab.
WMP has set the midi volume to zero. If you are using NWC2, there is an speaker Icon on the toolbar that will open the windows volume mixer, if not just open the volume control from the taskbar and set the midi slider back to about 50% or better. Should take care of the problem. It is a very old problem that continuously bites people.
Would help if I attached the nwc file to the post so you could see it. Don't even have the bad excuse of it being to late in the day to get around my forgetfulness.)
Greetings Micheal; You have certainly received a much higher caliber advice form Warren and Lawrie which I cannot hope to compete with. The one thing I will suggest is that as a vetern of many years of large and small choral groups of all types I have always preferred seeing my part with it's lyrics on a staff by itself. Just much easier to concentrate on, especial when sight reading a new piece. When that isn't possible I have always preferred having the lyrics above for the tenor voice, and below the staff for the bass voice, leaving the lead and baritone between the grand staff as they are. This avoids having to scan past the notes on the other voice to find the lyrics. Definitely makes a little more work for the arranger, but a great help for the performers having both the notes and the lyrics for there part in the same sight line. I have attached an example. It also show the use of a simple test entry for the (Tag:). Welcome to the forum and best of luck in your endevours.
Well before there was Boris Becker, there was Boom Boom Jeffrion (sp?). if I remember correctly he played for the Montreal Canadians of the National Hockey League. Thank you David for that trip back to my youth. Hadn't thought about Boom Boom in years.
I think there are 2 things that are playing into this. 1st, your transpositions are incorrect for the saxes. If you set them the way Barry originally suggested you should here a big difference in the ending. The other thing that I think is playing into it is the inherent difference in sound between a wave file and a midi one. Depending what you are using for a synth on your system that that difference can be augmented many times. Try setting the transpositions on the reeds as originally suggested and see if that doesn't make a difference.
I think this more a matter of preference. Personally I like Lawrie's a bit better. For me it is easier for my tired, nearsighted eyes to make out. I understand that smaller generally fits more onto a page and that can be good, but if the person it is intended for cannot read it then it is no good either. Again both get the job done well and it becomes a matter of personal prefference.
Good Evening Barry; Thank you very much for the succinct and clear explanation. I suspected that they were Most and Least Significant, but was struggling as to how they were applied.
Evening All; Tried a bit of experimentation based on both your replies. As expected when I changed the script file per Rick's instructions it reported the Bank and Patch as 5 sigits rather than 3 for this sf2 file it simply added leading 0's. May try it on a more complex file just to see the possible results. Rick as usual your script works flawlessly and your instructions to change it were succinct and accurate. I tested Lawrie's hypotheses by constructing a test itree file with 3 entries. One as Acoustic piano on patch 0 with no Bank(mmm,nnn) statement. One with a detuned EPS on patch 5 and bank 8 with Bank(0,8) and finally one the exact reverse with Bank(8,0). I than played a short section of an nwc file with each definition. As a baseline of what the detuned EPS would sound like I used the Creative Font Bank manager's on screen keyboard to approximate what the section played in nwc should sound like as far as tone and timbre.The winner of this decidedly short test was the construct of Bank(8,0) rather than Lawrie's proposed Bank(0,8). I will continue to conduct this same experiment on random instruments and effects as I go along. For know I am going to proceed with the winning construct from my first test. Will continue to report back as it becomes clearer. Thank you both for your insights and encouragement.
Regards Keith
PS Just for my own edification, can someone explain what MSB & LSB actually are and do in this context. Thanks and TTFN.
Morning All; I am attempting to write an itree file for the CHAOS8M sound font and am having a small problem. I have used Rick's excellent little script to dump the sf2 file, but am having trouble trying to derive the proper values for the MSB and LSB arguments for the BANK(mmm,nnn) property. Any light that y'all can shed would be greatly appreciated.
Norbert; Very nice tool there. I also noticed the 4th measure had more than 4 beats to it. I am happy to see that your script did just what it should have though. It could be a mistake, but it could also be intentional. To add to what Lawrie said about chord timing. As in much else in jazz it depends on the individual performers interpretation, or if you are accompanying a soloist, what they might prefer. As you practice, try it different ways and see what sounds best to you. Also if you can find a recording by someone you like that can be used as a clue. I have seen some lead sheets that use a slash or a slash with a dot on each side to denote that the preceding chord is repeated or sounds, but then again most do not so it is left to your discretion. For me that is the nice thing about jazz. It gives the performer wide latitude to interpret the music. One thing I use as a guide is the placement of the chord symbol in relation to the notes in the melody line. If it is noticeably before or after the note then I wil try that first. Sometimes it works sometime it doesn't. Keep at it and you will ind a style that works best for you. I look forward to seeing the finished script released as a user tool.
Changes in red
Just noticed that there is a problem in measure 16 where you change from C7 to B7. Your root should be B natural however because the preceding chord uses Bb, the root inherits the flat. You might consider having the script force the proper accidental unless it is already in the key signature. The other thing I would add is that when you are keying tunes into Noteworthy Composer you should always enter the Key signature even if it is in C. Key of see will show an invisible (grey) natural in the editor. That way if you want to transpose it to another key you can make use of the transpose routines built into the product.
Hi Norby; The files on the Scripto Richard pointed you to are a great beginning. One that is missing and you will see fairly frequently in jazz standards is the half diminished chord. It is usually written as something like Cmin7b5 or as Cø7. It is played as a minor 7th with a flat 5th. The other piece to understand is what is meant by the note that some chords use enharmonic spellings. It is most prevalent in the diminished chords where you have a double flat (bb) seventh where instead of showing say bbB it would be written as an A. It looks like the author of the files uses the enharmonic for the double flat seventh on all the diminished chords. I apologize if you know all this, I spent 20 years as a support engineer and I learned never to assume. A good resource is the chart at the following url. http://www.petethomas.co.uk/jazz-chord-symbols.html. It shows all the chords you are likely to dome across in jazz pieces, along with with a number of common ways of of writing them, such as a delta symbol for a major chord or a - for a minor etc. I wish you well with your endeavour and if you have more questions either about noteworthy composer or notation in general please ask. As you have seen there are a number of very knowledgeable people here who are more than willing to share their knowledge for the benefit of the rest of us.
Hi ntvh; Are you setting a particular tempo for the piece? If not it could be a difference in the default tempo setting between the two pieces of software. I believe NWC defaults to quarter note = 120 for 4/4 if no tempo is specifically set. You can add tempo by going to Insert/Tempo and then set the Base and Tempo. For 4/4 time Base would be quarter and then play with the tempo settings. the large the number the faster the tempo. Conversly the lower the number the slower the tempo. If you are already setting a specific tempo in both I am not sure why one would sound faster or slower Hope this helps a little, and welcome to the wonderful world of NWC.
[font=Arial Morning Lawrie; Of course confusion reigns my friend, we are dealing with computers here. I have a feeling at least a part of the latency problem on my system is the fact that it is an older Toshiba tablet/laptop combination with a 1.70GHz cpu. All in all an excellent job as usual on the intro. I will be interested in hearing how you make out with the problems you still face. If I can be of any further assistance I will be more than happy to do it.
Hi Lawrie; Have just recently completed setting up VST on NWC from your Dummies manual and it went like a charm. The instructions were clear, concise and easy to follow. The latency in the chase notes is indeed a problem. About drove me crazy, which for me is a VERY short trip. On my xp tablet, setting the advanced performance settings for background appeared to make the sound and latency worse. Course there is only 512 MB of memory and a 1.70 GHz processor to so I am sure that makes a difference. An interesting sidelight, when I set the performance setteing to optimize for background, whenever I clicked away from NWC to another task, it stopped NWC completely. I ended up having to do a system restore to get the settings straightened out. Could well be a problem unque to my old toshiba tablet. Anyway your write up was spot on as far as getting VST working. As usual a very professional job.
Hi Lawrie; Just browsed through real quickly and have a couple of quick comments: Page 2 Step 4: You give the following link for a sound font file. http://www.sccmusic.250x.com/sfont/genuser/download.htm. When I try to follow this link I get a 404 error. Also it is unclear whether this link is for the "Reality" sound font or for Mr. Collins's General User GS 1.4 sound font. Will try to follow the directions closer on my XP machine in the next few days. All in all a very good starters guide. Seems there is a mismatch between clicking the link in this message and clicking it in the pdf file even though I just did a copy and paste from the pdf to here. Clicking the the link in the pdf attempts to get the "Reality" sf2ark file that was posted in another topic on these boards. Clicking the link from within this post takes you to Mr. Collins's site for the General User GS 1.4. The wording of the sentence in that case makes more sense. Regards Keith
As a long time user of the dings fonts I heartily agree that they are indispensable. Congratulations my friend on the recognition you so richly deserve.
Lawrie; What device are you looking at? The Creative Sound Blaster Live 24bit External does indeed support soundfonts and ships with the soundfont bank manager on the cd. The old pci Soundblaster live also shipped with the soundfont bank manager on the CD. I don't see a download for it at the moment, but then again figureing out the creative sight can be a challenge sometimes and I just didin't see it. Mark; I hope that you are abe to find the version that you need. If you cannot let me know if it is the new live 24 bit external or the pci card one and I will check my cd's.
Hi David; I have used the leg routine before also and it does take a bit of dexterity. I will admit to being MUCH younger when I did either. I will be 57 in a few weeks and would not want to try either at this point in my life. I'sn't it amazing the things we will do for our art.
David; I found a short bit on muted woodwinds at this link http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/showthread.php?t=45335 it is at almost the bottom of the page at the end of the woodwind section. The first I ever heard of a mute for woodwinds. Rimsky-Korsakov does say that muting the clarinet is unnecessary. Personally I can't see a mute working real well on a woodwind either. The only time I have even tried anything close to it is an old trick of approximating a low A on a Barry sax without the low a key by stuffing your foot in the bell and playing a a low Bb.I used that technique on Flying Home.It only really works on a fast passage like that where the A is a quick passing note.
David; Do I detect a paraphrase of the eloquent Rumpold of the Bailey? If She who will be obeyed is anything like mine I doubt very seriously if you will get that one by to easily. <grin>
Hey Lawrie; I am surprised to hear of a problem with OpenOffice.org export to pdf facility. I use it extensively to do graphs for my ex's private practice to meet insurance regulations. I will look forward to seeing the changes when you are able to get them done. In the mean time the offer is there if I can be of service at any time in the future.
Cliff; Glad that you were able to get things worked out and I hope you are able to get typecase recompiled, it is a very helpful tool.
You are welcome Lawrie. Sorry about being the bearer of bad news about your *dings documents. I don't know what you keep the originals of the documents in but if I can be of help in updating them send me an offline message and I will be glad to give it a go.
Lawrie; I just tried the link you supplied for typecase and got a 404 error. Looks like the location has been changed to this. http://www.buckrogers.demon.co.uk/software/software.htm then click on the typecase entry to download the zip file.
David; I agree with you completely about the trumpets. The only saving grace for me as a bary sax player was that in our bands normal configuration I had the trombone players between me and the trumpets. They acted as a buffer of sorts.
Greetings Mazzeltov; The text is actually entered as lyrics on the corresponding staff. First you have to temporarily remove the layering to be able to select each staff. To do this click View/Allow Layering. This will show the 4 separate staves. Click on the first staff to select it then type <ctrl>l, press the Ctrl key and the L key at the same time. This will open the Staff Lyrics control. click on the lyric 1 tab and delete the test in the box. Repeat this procedure for each staff. TO reapply the layering click View/allow layering again and it will be restored. It can also be done by clicking the Page Setup icon which will open the Page Setup conrol and click the check box to Allow Layering. The icon looks like an open book and is on the left side vertical toolbar in the default setup. Hope this helps and welcome to the forum.
Dave; David has given you some excellent advice. I have a couple of things for you to consider. After a lot of years of vocal performances I have found it is often easier to read a new piece when each part is on it's own staff. That way all you are following are the notes and lyrics for your own part. The other is that you are asking a lot out of your male voices. Some of it is very low for a tenor and at measures 44 and 45 it is high for a bass. Just for future consideration you might think about doing separate parts for tenor and bass voices. I wish you well with the performance.
Regards Keith
PS David, you are correct, when writing two voices on a staff it is customary to write one part with all stem up and the other all stem down. When one voice is silent you still continue using the same stem direction and do not switch them.
Hi Dave; Many of the posters here are not from the U.S. and speak one form or another of U. K. English. What you are hearing is the methodology of refering to notes used by our friends "across the pond". I know there is a chart somewhere that shows the the equivalences. Just found it in the NWC2 FAQ.
in NWC English whole semibreve half minim quarter crotchet eighth quaver sixteenth semiquaver thirty-second demisemiquaver sixty-fourth hemidemisemiquaver
Hope this helps in the translation. ;o) Regards Keith PS I see Lawrie posted as I was typing. Thanks Lawrie, I forgot the breve.
Good Evening Rob; You have hit the nail right upon the head as usual. As the Lutheran pastor who gave that to me years ago put it; "Those things always sound better in Latin!"
How do Lawrie; Have been playing with your scripts trying to find approbriate chords for My Sweet Alyce. I must say it is an interesting experiance, and also a great learning one. Thanks for the great tool.
Regards Keith ------------------------------ Illigitimi Non Carborundum
Rick; I haven't seen one of those beasts for 30 years. Was all we had connected to pdp 8's when I started at digital equipment corporation in the mid 70's. For our connections to the time sharing pdp10 we had it's big brother, the ASR35.
Yes it could be that you stopped playing in mid stream and backed up. As I remember there is a setting in version 1 to start play back at cursor or always at beginning. I don't remeber were it was set in nwc 1 (I don't have 1.75 installed on this machine) and darned if I can find it on nwc 2. You might check Tools/options. Or hopefully somebody that has abetter memory than mine will ell us both the right spot.
Evening Folks; I also have experienced the problem, usually after a large cut and paste operation. I am using a Toshiba Portege tablet / notebook convertable runingXP Pro Tablet Version. As far as the rest of the items Lawrie mentioned nVIDIA G-FORCE™ FX Diplay and Driver, Lexmarx X3350 Scanner/printer with lexmark supplied driver, Logitec wheel mouse, display effects are off, modified windows classic interface. Has been more of an aggrivation than anything else. Though it would be nice to get it figured out and alliviated.
Good Evening John; It is a part of the properties of the object. Highlight the object, or objects, you want to hide and hit cntl^e to open the properties dialog. Click the visibility tab and choose how you want it to display under show on printed page. The dropdown box has four (4) choices. Default, always, top staff only, and never.
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