When I press 1 (or 2 or 3 or 4), nothing happens (when the problem is happening). If I type an X to enter a text element, then the numeric keys act as normal and the keys activate the correct characters.
Incidentally, I just spent several hours working on a different score (with no looping metronome staff) and had no problems... Everything worked as normal...
Windows XP Professional, all current updates, Kaspersky Anti-virus, standard PS/2 keyboard. I haven't had any problems either...and I am a long time user. This is something very new to me...and it is very strange that that particular function is happening. I am wondering if it happens after you play a song that has a very long looping track. In the piece I am working on, there is a metronome track that has a repeat of 200. I never let it actually get there, nevertheless, it is out of the ordinary...
I have noticed that after a period of time Noteworthy stops responding to the numeric keypresses (above the letter keys) as a shortcut to change note duration. I am baffled as to what could cause this. I have tried adding a text element containing numbers when this is happening and the key presses work as expected.
Hi Rick. Many thanks for your prompt reply and willingness to help with my situation. I have color 7 set to a light grey to try to make the beams and slurs not look so out of place. My grand hope would have been to use grace notes, but having the notes have no value makes it difficult as they all clump together and don't line up with their regular counterparts on other staves. I simply want to show the notes for the musicians to follow along...but know that they don't need to play. In this particular instance, clarity of intent what I am going for (not wanting to put in the additional complexities required for significant workarounds). It may be that as my example stands is simply good enough. Thanks again! Here is a clip:
When changing the color of a notehead (note properties, visibility, item color) it does not affect the color of the attached slurs or beams (though ties are affected). It ends up looking strange to have colored notes with black beams and slurs. Is there any way to change the color of slurs and beams along with the noteheads without changing the staff default color? (I am using colored notes as cue notes in a section as an alternative to "hacking" through grace notes...which don't have timing values to line up with other notes in a multi-part score.) Thanks in advance for your insights...
I am working on importing a MIDI file into NoteWorthy Composer 2.5.3 (same result with 2.5.2). When I work through the process, I set the note and rest resolution to be an eighth note. However, the resulting import shows many 64th notes. I understand why the MIDI file would have notes shortened by fractions (to get appropriate articulation), but I don't understand why the NoteWorthy import process is not rounding the values of the notes to the nearest eighth note. I have even checked the individual import settings for each track (after completing the wizard style interface), and they all reflect the eighth/eighth settings for notes and rests.
I don't import MIDI that often, and I am sure I must be missing some check box or some other critical step. Thank you in advance for any comments you would feel helpful...
I know that there have been some different line drawing methods implemented in NoteWorthy Composer and NoteWorthy Viewer. Perhaps more in Viewer than Composer. I am having an issue in which the horizontal staff lines are printing (from Composer) in a weight that really too thin for easy viewing. They simply look faint (micro-thin). I am using a Dell laser printer (3100cn) and Windows XP. The printer is a 600dpi printer. I believe I have posted in the wish list previously a hope for a user adjustable weight for the lines. With all of the enhancements that have been made in 2.5, is there a way to change the line thickness? (If not, can someone point out where the wish list is at this point? I never used to have trouble finding it, but the location is currently escaping my view.) Thank you in advance for your help/comments.
I tried working around the problem by creating the Fermata as a text item (from the NoteWorthy font). The problem is the same when inserting a text item. However, you can then fool around with adding spaces and changing the justification. In my fiddling, I still can't get it to center over the rest exactly, but I can get it a bit closer. I definitely think this is a bug of some sort.
It seems to me that there is a problem with Fermata placement when it happens over a whole rest at the first measure of a staff (whether the first staff of the piece or after a staff wraps).
Simply create a new NoteWorthy document. Add a treble clef and a whole rest to the first measure. Add a Fermata to the whole rest (and make sure that the properties are Place at next note/bar, and Centered). Everything looks correct when looking at it on the screen, but in print preview, and when printed, the Fermata will NOT be aligned above the rest. This works ok EXCEPT when it happens in the first measure of a line.
Thank you both for the insightful comments on both solutions.
Thank you Carl for the interesting alternative way to hide a note without changing the visibility. Don't think I'd have figured that one out!
Thank you Rick for the insights into the fonts. How you knew where this specific slash would be is amazing!
I wish there was a way to transpose and keep the text item moving with the note...but I think at this point I'm asking too much. I'm getting at least 80% (the ability to create the symbol and get it to print correctly...which is what I need). After I transpose, I'll have to do some more fussing with the symbols, but at this point, that's not the worst thing that could happen!
I have ended up getting something acceptable looking by using the slash from the font "MATHC" (I believe/hope a standard Windows font), and putting a space before it. Then fiddled with the justification and the size. The reason for "MATHC" is to get a slash that has more slant to it (not quite so straight up and down as Times Roman for example). Still is a pain as it won't transpose, etc., but at least it works at some level. Thanks.
I just realized something...this is probably another advantage of the slash method! You don't have to have the note hidden!!! Oh well, it does bring out a couple features that would be nice for accomplishing workarounds. I'm off to slash my notes... Thanks again for any additional comments.
I have now tried the Maestro font and can get the note to line up correctly. THANK YOU!!!
I have one more issue, that I am hopeful someone might chime in on to get me on the right path. I now need the note to be positioned correctly in relation to the surrounding notes (horizontally) and have a slur that goes between this fake note and the next note.
What I have done is placed on the staff a real NoteWorthy grace note and a real NoteWorthy slur between the grace note and the following quarter note. I have then changed the Visibility property of the grace note to Hidden and set the "fake note" from the font to be positioned at the next note (the NoteWorthy grace note) and centered. This puts the "crush" at exactly the right place. HOWEVER, the slur is now not visible, because the visibility property of the grace note is not visible. I am sure that there is a workaround for this, but it is escaping me at this point. Thanks in advance for any insights...
I haven't yet tried Maestro as suggested, and will do that shortly. I went off on a different path and tried the "Bach" font by Yo Tomita which I have used for other purposes, and does have the symbol needed. The frustration with using this font in NoteWorthy, is that the vertical alignment with the staff isn't as needed. (You can't get the notehead centered in the space or on a line.)
This brings back another frustration. We are to use a variety of workarounds, but yet there is not enough control over vertical alignment to place external items accurately on the staff. I am off to try Maestro now, but wanted to just note my moment of frustration.
Does anyone know if a user font exists that contains the grace note symbol with a slash such that it could be manually inserted as a text item? (Or any other workarounds for that matter?) Thanks!
P.S. I have seen postings regarding aligning a slash (/) sized appropriately with the flag of a grace note. Perhaps I should be asking if this is still the optimum way to accomplish this. Thanks again...
I have noticed a strange behavior of the File History dialog in Noteworthy Composer V2.1
When you save a file, the "Song Title" field does not get updated until you re-start Noteworthy. Let's say that you open an existing song and save it as a new file (to start a new song). The file appears on the File History list. If you then change the File Information to change the title of the song, and re-save it, the old original title still shows on the File History until Noteworthy is re-started. At that time, all of the titles are updated to be correct. It would seem that the "Song Title" field should also be updated at the point the file is saved so that the display is correct.
There is a possibility that the USB MIDI adapter may be to blame. M-Audio (for example) has had some compatibility problems with their lower end adapters such as the Uno. You didn't mention what adapter you were using. My comment is mainly to suggest that if you continue to have mysterious problems, you might try an adapter by a different manufacturer.
If the goal is to have an entire section (or an entire piece) have a part represented in octaves (to have a different sound, etc.) then you could use layering. Enter the entire part once as one note. Then create new staff and copy the notes from the first staff into the second. Then move the notes, on the second staff, down or up an octave as desired by selecting them all and pressing [Ctrl]-[Shift]-[Up Arrow] or [Down Arrow]. You can then position the two staves above each other, and enable layering for the upper staff, and on Page Setup. The two staves would then be combined and have the octaves represented. It's all a matter of what you need to do...this may require way too much setup for just a couple measures in which case the other ideas presented will work better.
The above replies nicely address the details of getting lyrics to work. If for some reason you still can't get lyrics to work correctly (which would certainly be the preferred route) you could consider entering a text element that aligns with each note. That will give you note-by-note control over the lyrics, but will be very tedious. I have also entered chant, and have NOT had problems with the lyrics, nevertheless each case is different. Maybe you have a space hiding somewhere that your eye isn't catching.
A Google search revealed a review (on Amazon) of the M-Audio Midisport Uno MIDI interface stating that it was incompatible with the Yamaha PSR line of keyboards. While you don't mention if it is the Uno version of the Midisport interface, this review does raise a question about the combination of equipment. The issue you are having, coupled with this additional insight, may warrant a call to M-Audio to see if there may be a hardware issue involved. Good luck in getting this all resolved!
To clarify the situation. There is a delay after the program sits idle for a period of time. The delay affects note entry (pressing enter on the staff) or playback. In all cases, the problem is cured by one of the methods described above.
I am trying a bunch of different things at this point. I'll post back with what happens. Thanks for all the suggestions!
P.S. Thank you Lawrie for all of the documentation you have done on VST setup, etc. You have created some great resources.
This time, after the delay was happening, I tried playing the song. The significant delay (almost a second) was there during playback. I then stopped the playback and restarted it...and the delay was gone.
An excellent idea...especially since it seems illogical! (Those are often the best places to look for solutions as they are often overlooked.) I therefore simply disabled the feature. Unfortunately, the problem happened again. This time, I simply had Noteworthy open, no score or anything, left it alone for a while, and when I started the score, the delay was there.
I have been working with Noteworthy more, and trying to watch for the delay behavior to start again. The program starts fine, with no delay. I have even tried to re-create the issue by having large number of staves, etc., with no luck. Tonight I decided that the problem was never going to happen again, as I had been working for a long time with no problems. Well... I stepped away for some dinner, and when I came back DELAY! I closed Noteworthy, and restarted it...no delay again. (I figured I might as well try something different than pressing [Ok] on the MIDI settings screen.)
I am not running a screen saver (Screensaver setting [None]). I am running a small email checking program (Mailbell by EmTec) that plays a sound when email comes in, but that is going (and sounding) when I am using Noteworthy normally also. I am using a desktop system with most of the energy saving features disabled. I do have the "Turn off hard disks after 1 hour" feature enabled. Standby and hibernate are disabled. The OS is Windows XP. I am running an anti-virus, NOD32, which is the least obtrusive that I have found.
As a test, I just sent myself an email, and Mailbell diligently notified me of the mail. Noteworthy continued to work fine without any delay.
The computer is a 3.4 GHz Pentium 4 with 3.5 Gigabytes of RAM. Noteworthy is the only application open...so system limitations are not the likely culprit. The hard drives are on SATA on a RAID array, thus disc access issues are also not likely, nor does the disc light flash on the machine when entering the notes. I also do audio editing on the machine, so I have pretty good faith in the sound card subsystem.
I could be inclined to blame lots of external influences, except that pressing [Ok] on the Noteworthy MIDI configuration screen SOLVES the problem 100%. This is not a problem that happens constantly...and the solution is known (though the problem will recur). It would be helpful to know what Noteworthy does when the [Ok] button is pressed as I described in my initial post.
I know that it would be helpful if I could define exactly how to re-duplicate the situation, and I may yet be able to do this, though I don't have that figured out at this point.
Absolutely brilliant! While I haven't studied your examples in detail, that comment about stem length is just what I needed to get past the block I was having. The slur position when set to be on top of the stems is dependent on stem height, so set the stem height to zero and then you don't have to hide the layered notes. It's obviously one one of those workarounds that we would all rather not have, nevertheless...it can be done. Thank you SO much for your quick and insightful words.
I don't know if this sheds any more light on the issue... I have been working on the same piece for a while today. The MIDI delay happened, and I reset it. I then stepped away to eat a bite of lunch. When I came back, I manipulated the score a bit again, and the MIDI was again delaying. Nothing else happened with the computer. Again, I fixed the issue by the same method as above. Noteworthy was running all the time with the same score open.
I have been noticing a strange behavior of Noteworthy for several months now related to MIDI. At times, there is a delay between pushing [Enter] to place a note and when the note sounds. The delay is maybe about a half a second. Just enough to be annoying. I can consistently fix the problem by just going to Tools/Options/MIDI and pressing [Ok]. Instantly, everything starts working with no delay. I am using the Microsoft MIDI Mapper as the playback device.
I am attempting to change the position of a slur to start and stop with the note head, but still have the slur going in the direction of the stem. It happens (many times) in four part choral writing, that a single lyric will span more than one note. This is indicated in the notation by a slur connecting the range of notes to be combined for the purposes of the lyric. The issue is, that if the slur on the alto part (stems down, on top staff with soprano part) is on the tip of the note stem, it forces lots (LOTS!) of space to be needed in between the staves in order to not intersect lyrics or even the tenor part. I am looking for something that acts like a tie (connects note heads) but can go between two different notes.
I have seen references in the forum to using grace notes, but I can't get the grace note slur to be able to overlap regular notes. The grace note slur seems to be forced to end at the next regular note.
I have thought about using layering. I could have a dummy staff with two notes slured. I could then re-position those notes to make the slur go in the appropriate place. However, the visibility of the slur is tied to the visibility of the notes...thus you can't have the bad notes not show, and retain the visibility of the slur.
I could use digital white-out and blank the offending notes, but I would speculate (be concerned) that the notes won't be placed in the exact same position...and if it takes three staves to get this done, I'm probably more inclined to just not worry about the slurs and move on with life. I have not tried this approach yet...
I have no doubt that this is probably a constant source of frustration in some "worlds." I am basically interested if I am overlooking a simpler workaround...something that just isn't popping into my mind as an alternative.
Thanks for your insights and wisdom.
P.S. Just for clarification... I am not having problems with lyric placement...I can work around all of those issues. I am just interested in more optimum slur placement for clarity of the notation.
1) When hard drives start to fail, they can have a very hard time reading certain locations as the error correction routines try to correct the data. If it is only Noteworthy that has the problem loading, there is a possibility that the program is located in a portion of the disk that is bad. If you want to pursue diagnosis of this type of problem, I would suggest looking at a program called SpinRite written by Steve Gibson. You could look at their site and decide whether this product would interest you: http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm As with any system maintenance software, there is some risk to using it. Make sure that you back up your system, etc.
2) I have seen cases in which there was a process running on Windows, unknown to the user, that was taking up nearly 100% of the CPU time, thus causing the machine to be overloaded...thus when trying to start a program, it would load very slowly. You could look at what is running using the Windows Task Manager. Right Click on the task bar, and select Task Manager. You can see what applications and processes are running and how much CPU time each is consuming. That may give you some insight into some other things to look into.
3) Virus activity can cause strange loads on machines and other strange behavior. If you are not using any anti-virus software there might be something hiding in your system. If you have recently changed your anti-virus software, there may be some conflict it is having with your system which is causing the slowness.
...Just some ideas of other things to think about as you go about determining what is really going on in your system.
It seems that for me NoteWorthy stopped being able to play through the Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth when I installed beta 2.10. I can still get MIDI to work when I select an alternate device that goes to a physical MIDI port, but neither the Microsoft MIDI Mapper or the GS Wavetable SW Synth will work. This seems odd to me as I have never had any problems getting the MIDI to work with this hardware. Has anybody else experienced this type of issue when upgrading to 2.10? I am using Windows XP.
...Never mind. I just realized that somehow the volume got turned down to zero on the Software Synth. Weird.
