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Messages - John Ford

1
General Discussion / Re: Very Sad news.
I haven't been here in awhile (life's priorities and all) and find this at the top of the postings.  So sad to hear of Rick's passing.  His knowledge and understanding of NWC helped me greatly over the years.  Rest in peace!
2
General Discussion / Re: Selectively suppressing staves when printing
I was so glad when this was implemented, as this is a great feature that has allowed me to (for example) redo a number of my lead sheets and get them down from three pages to two pages (so I don't have to turn the page).  No need to waste space on vocal lines that aren't there (during instrumental breaks and what not).

6
General Discussion / Re: Lyrics for chorded notes within special endings
I guess I'll just have to change my ways, then, and use spacers.

But from a logical perspective, the rule does say "start of note", not "start of default note position".  If the lyric starts in the white space before the note, then that's not the "start of note".

But this old dog can still learn new tricks.  Spacers it is, then.
7
General Discussion / Re: Lyrics for chorded notes within special endings
But Lawrie, why would the lyric move using Standard Rules, but not not Start of Note/Accidental.  Even though I moved it over (which was the way we had to do it before spacers were made available), the start of the visible note has moved.

Here are my screen shots for anyone not seeing this:

9
General Discussion / Lyrics for chorded notes within special endings
Maybe someone else can verify this.

Generally, for the first note of a special ending, when I have a chord letter above the note (set as "at next note/bar"), I will add additional horizontal spacing to the first note of the special ending so that both the note and the chord letter moves to the right out of the way of the special ending number(s).

If I use standard rules for lyrics, the lyric also moves (and stays centered) with the adjusted note.  However, If I use "start of note/accidental" for my lyrics, then the lyric stays put a the far left of the measure with a horizontal gap between the lyric and the note that was slid to the right.

There are some songs that I use "standard" rules and others that I use "start of note", but having special endings in the song pretty much forces me into "standard" rules, which isn't always what I want.

Is this expected behavior?

I hope this description made sense.
10
General Discussion / Re: Merry Christmas - 2014
Merry Christmas, everybody!  If you celebrate Christmas, may it be a time of joy and blessings; if you don't, enjoy the holiday season as you see fit, and for all, I hope 2015 is a wonderful and prosperous new year.
11
General Discussion / Re: Windows 7 - Dot Tool
Thanks, Rick!  I knew that at one time (that the order of the icons affects the keyboard shortcut), but had forgotten.  I'm just so used to cycling through all three, that I don't even think about it.  But it's good to be reminded of those sometimes forgotten features.
12
General Discussion / Re: Windows 7 - Dot Tool
That's what NWC2 does - the period toggles dot, double dot, no dot, etc.  Doesn't matter whether it's Windows 7, Vista, XP, etc.  It's done that for quite some time (in the beta, before the release).


13
General Discussion / Re: How to open and view NWC files.?
Actually, I think the benefit (as it pertains to NWC files) is not so much in actually compressing the NWC files (since they already are), but in consolidating them into a single file.  That way, you can group multiple files together (in a RAR or ZIP or whatever format), so you don't have to download a bunch of individual files.
14
General Discussion / Re: How to open and view NWC files.?
The original file from the user was in RAR format, so I reposted in RAR format.  I could have posted in any of several formats.  I was trying to be consistent.  Not a bad thing in my book.

And I would say that if files downloaded on the web are still in RAR format, the only way to bring those "long dead" files back to life is to have a utility that understands that format.  7-zip does.
15
General Discussion / Re: How to open and view NWC files.?
7-zip is free and can open RAR files, but can't create them.

If you want to create RAR files, then you need to purchase WinRAR (I believe there is a trial version you can try).  But to just uncompress the RAR file, 7-zip works great.

17
General Discussion / Re: How to open and view NWC files.?
You downloaded the 30-day evaluation version of the software.  As you can see from the description of this version at the download link,

Quote
NoteWorthy Composer 2.0 can be downloaded for a 30 day evaluation by clicking on the link below. This special evaluation version of the program allows you to try out almost all of the features of the program, including printing and saving your own files. However, it does impose limits on the number of times you can save your own work, and limits your access to files created by licensed users.

If all you want to do is open and print the files, I would suggest downloading the NoteWorthy Viewer instead.  It's free, but you can't edit the file.  You can view it, play it, and print it.  You can get the viewer at this link.

You can also purchase the program for $49, which gives you full editing access for all NWC files.  You can find the purchase link here.

Hope that helped!
19
General Discussion / Re: I've been here as a member for about 4 months...
Hi, Seserine -

Quote
1. Inserting url in images.
2. Quoting without reference.
3. What I don't know I must know.(And so on.)

Try checking out this chart of codes, found in the help system (just click on the Help Tab - found in between Home and Search above).

<Image Link>

You can also use the tool bars to do some of the things you are interested in.

<Image Link>

And here's what my posting looked like in the text box.  Maybe that will help.

<Image Link>

Hope this helps.

20
Tips & Tricks / Re: MIDI Channel 10 - Change Instrument!
Hi, MusicJohn -

Remember that the patch assignments are only by standard.  We refer to it as piano or trumpet, because the GM standard has assigned those numbers to those instruments.  But MIDI doesn't care what instrument is assigned to which number; it only cares about the number.  I have soundfont files that are NON-GM-standard, and so I need to know which instrument corresponds to which number.  So for channel 10, it's not so much that the sfx kit is the trumpet patch, it's really more that the GM-standard called for patch #56 on channel 10 to be the sfx drum kit and on all other channels to be the trumpet sound.  But there's nothing that could keep me from, for example, making a soundfont file (or having a hardware synth or whatever) that assigns the patch number to different instruments.

That standard makes our lives easier, so we don't have to remember the numbers associated with instruments and most software has adopted that standard.  But a lot of people use custom sounds that might show on the screen a "trumpet", when in fact you are listening to a "clarinet" (for example).

Wikipedia has some good info on MIDI.
25
General Discussion / Re: File Permission Problem
I see this problem with several different programs, and it happens for me on both WinXP Pro and Vista Ultimate.  Usually (depending on the program I'm using), if I close everything in a particular folder and then explicitly move away from that folder to a different folder, I can usually delete files/folders.  But not always.  Usually exiting the program frees everything up, but on rare occasions, I've had to reboot the computer.  I figured it was a Windows thing, since I've seen it in several different programs.
26
General Discussion / Re: Tina Billett
It's very sad, and what's weird is that I was just thinking the other day, "Tina hasn't posted in a long, long time".  My prayers are with her family.
28
General Discussion / Re: Staff set to use the Church Organ patch plays back as percussion?
Absolutely.  Also, although I don't think it applies to any current sound cards, at one time, channel 16 was used by some cards for percussion.  So I would say exclude at least channel 10 and possibly channel 16 when adding new staffs.  Then just edit the staff to make the setting, or possibly better yet, have a menu item to "add percussion staff".  That might avoid some confusion.
29
General Discussion / Re: Can NW2 accept "new line" in staff?
If you mean to display multiple lines (of the same staff) on the screen in the editor mode, then no, you can't do that.  You can do as Richard suggested ("force system break"), but this will only show up in print preview or on the printed page.  You won't see it on the main screen.

NWC edits notation as one long sequence of bars.  It's only in the print settings that you get the end of line breaks.
30
General Discussion / Re: Converting nwc to pdf
My favorite is PDF995 (which is free, as long as you don't mind the ads, but for a modest investment, those go away).  However, I recently found that I have to be very careful to match the resolution of the PDF output to that of my regular printer.  I was finding that my printer was printing a song on, say, 3 pages, but the PDF version was using 4 pages.  Once I matched the output resolution, that fixed it.  Just something to be aware of.
31
General Discussion / Re: Installing soundfonts
They definitely are.  I've been using NWC since version 1.20.3 (which I just noticed had files date 1994/1995).  So it's definitely been a long time.

Hope everything works out with your "upgrade" to 2.0 (I noticed your other post).  At least NWC downloads aren't even close (in terms of size) to other full-blown applications.
32
General Discussion / Re: Installing soundfonts
Hi, Joel -

Good to see you here.  You must have just joined (2 posts).  You've probably seen Lawrie Pardie on the BIAB forum; he started out here until I turned him on to BIAB.  So it's nice to see folks from the other groups on different forums.

- John (jford)
34
Tips & Tricks / Re: A VERY quick intro for getting started with VST - for dummies...
Quote
please respect his request

Hi, Richard -

Just for clarification, this site is run by Allanah Fuhre, who happens to be a "she".  She was pretty active on the PGMusic discussion boards, but I understand her husband's health issues have reduced her ability to participate more frequently.  That being said, there's a ton of good stuff on her site.  I've participated in several beta testing projects with her.
35
Tips & Tricks / Re: A VERY quick intro for getting started with VST - for dummies...
Hi, Lawrie -

That flute in AirFont was one of the reasons I abandoned it (yes, I could have worked on fixing it, but didn't have the time).  Do you think you could extract just that patch and make it available?  I've got the soundfont tools to incorporate it into my copy of AirFont.  You can PM me, if you would like.  Like you, over the years, I have downloaded way more gigabytes of soundfonts than I could ever audition, but who knows...

Thanks,
36
General Discussion / Re: How do I play a note the first time only within the program?
I don't have NWC in front of me, but it seems that you should be able to use two hidden playback staffs; one with those notes to be played, one without.  Set the volume of #2 to zero at the start and set the volume of #1 appropriately.  Then at the end of the 1st ending (before the repeat sign), set the volume of #1 to zero and the volume of #2 to where #1 was.  Hide the staffs and mute the display staff.

Well, that's one way to do it.  By using cut and paste, it shouldn't take too long to set it up.

Seems to me that Peanut Jake did something like this to change instruments between repeats; I don't see why it won't work for volume.

Speaking of, we haven't heard from PJ ("good tunes live many lives") in a long time.  Anyone hear from him?
37
General Discussion / Re: Upgrading to Version 2
Quote from: Kristopher –
I don't see the difference between NWC2 Beta and the official Released NWC2, what's the difference or just nothing?

Hi, Kristopher -

As Eric (the developer) pointed out on another post, there were some minor changes made right before release, but remember, NWC has been in development for a long, long time.  So there wouldn't actually be much in the way of changes between the final beta and the released version, would there.

That being said, you really need to install the released version, so your system is recognized as such for future patches and upgrades.
38
Tips & Tricks / Re: A VERY quick intro for getting started with VST - for dummies...
Hi, Lawrie -

The brass never is.  That's one of the reasons I'm looking to get the Ketron SD-2 this Christmas.  It's not perfect, but it's definitely getting closer to the real thing.

But I do like the mix of instruments in the Reality font.  I've tried a bunch (and have about 20GB worth of soundfonts on my hard drive that I've collected over the years), but I always seem to keep coming back to the Reality for the blend.  But that's also for the type of music I work with.
40
General Discussion / Re: OT: Microsoft's Mojave experiment
I'm curious how many musicians participated in this Mojave Experiment and if they really liked how Vista handles sound card drivers and mixer/volume settings within Vista.  I'm curious how many musicians tried to get music to work well on a laptop with a crappy Sigmatel or RealTek sound chip.  I'm curious how many musicians tried to get soundfonts to work on a Creative Card under Vista (only to find that the XP driver supports it, but the Vista one doesn't).  I'm just curious...

I tried it, gave it a fair shake, and I'm back to XP for now.  XP just plain handles music stuff better.
41
General Discussion / Re: Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista
Hi, Richard -

I'm using Acronis TrueImage v11 and have no problems with restores, as long as I...

1)  Boot from the CD first and image the computer that way.  Yes, I know that it's supposed to work directly from within Windows, but I found a few times it didn't.  Now, I just boot to the CD (so Windows isn't even loaded) and do the backup from there.  It sees all my hard drives and my external USB drives.

and 2) Make sure to set the option to verify the backup after completion.

Once I started doing it that way, every restore (and I've wiped out all my partitions and restored several times) has worked fine.  I have to say, I did keep my fingers crossed the first couple of times I did that, but once I gained confidence, I haven't worried about it since.
43
General Discussion / Re: Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista
Hi, Richard -

Yes, on the Dell, when you uncheck "disabled devices", you see exactly what was there before.  Stereo Mix isn't even listed as a greyed-out disabled device; it's just not even there.  I do understand that they may have a new driver that has stereo-mix under Vista, but input monitoring is still not available.

I hope it all works out for you.  One thing you might want to consider is something like Acronis True Image.  If you've got an external USB drive, you can image your current configuration to a file on the external, and then install some other O/S.  If it doesn't work, you can easily revert back to your original configuration by restoring the Acronis Image.  It's not free, but not expensive (it's saved my system a few times - I've gotten up and running with a complete configuration after a hard drive crash in a couple of hours and haven't had to re-install any software); I think they have a 30-day free trial, so you could at least give it a shot.

Does the Aspire have stereo line-in or just a mono microphone input?  If so, then I might consider Acer next time I want to go the laptop route.  I'd be curious to see (after these issues are resolved) how happy you are with the unit.

Oh, and if you go the Acronis route, let me know and I can give you a couple of pointers to make sure all works smoothly.
45
General Discussion / Re: Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista
Hi, Richard -

Based on the specs you posted, I was just curious if the laptop you bought might happen to be a Dell (only because it sounded similar to my experience).  I don't know what all you would do with yours, but I did have one for 3-weeks and I purchased the Creative X-FI XTreme Audio Express (which actually isn't a real X-Fi sound card).  What I found out is that under Vista, with either the onboard soundcard or the Creative Audio Express, neither "what-you-hear" (or what some call stereo mix) or input monitoring (being able to listen to what's being recorded through the mic-in or line-in ports while it's recording, is enabled under Vista.  There's a lot of discussion about that on the Dell forums and several people have indicated that they have sent their laptop back because this is a showstopper (it was for me).  That being said, my understanding is that this isn't an issue with the XP audio driver.  I understand it is possible to downgrade to XP, but you may not find drivers for all the components (especially since it's a new machine).   Even if you have another brand of laptop, you might want to see if these features (stereo-mix and input monitoring) are available, before it bites you later.  If you don't need these features, then no big deal, but just thought I'd mention it.

I do plan to get the Ketron SD-2 for Christmas this year.  It's an external box (connects via USB), but it's not very big and you'd need to provide an amplified sound source.  But, the demos I've heard have been awesome and some of the folks that have posted their own music using it has sounded great.  I understand they are about to release the SD-4 (which costs more), but maybe the price of the SD-2 will come down some then.

By the way, I ended up with an HP high-end desktop in the end, which I've had for about 8 months now and am still extremely happy with.  The laptop was intended to be a desktop replacement with a portability factor, but for me, it just didn't work out well for what I wanted it for.  Oh, and I finally found out that it just wasn't going to work after many hours on the phone with Dell and Creative, and them having me try this and that to get it to work, when I have a sneaky suspicion that they knew all along that it wouldn't work, but just wouldn't come out and tell me so.  That's another reason I returned the unit.

Some folks speculate that the problems with Vista and soundcard drivers on Dells and others may be related to Digital Rights Management, where maybe the music industry is forcing the computer vendors into disabling certain features.  I don't know for sure, but in light of recent lawsuits and heavy-handedness (some of it justified, but some of it seems to be like trying to kill a spider with a steam roller) by the big players, I could definitely see how that might happen.

Sorry, I'm done venting.  It was a good idea in concept, but it just didn't work out for me.  I hope you have better luck with yours.
46
General Discussion / Re: NWC2 Viewer for Mac
Hi, Richard -

Well, Parallels isn't really a Windows emulator; it's a virtualizer.  It allows you to run Windows within a Mac Window, but you must have a licensed copy of Windows software to make it work.  Another virtualizer that has received great reviews is VMWare for the Mac.  It pretty much does the same thing that BootCamp does.   My son's computer (MacBook Pro) has VMWare, and if you make the "Windows Window" full screen, it's just like running a Windows machine.  You have to allocate the necessary memory and hard disk resources for it, but it works pretty nicely.  Again, though, you have to have a copy of Windows to make it work.

There are emulators, such as WINE (which is probably the most prevalent), but it generally takes a little work to get things going.

For my son's computer, since he's going off to college, we were able to buy most of the software at educational prices, which helped alot.  So we got Windows XP-Pro Upgrade for about $90 (I used an old Windows 98 disk as a basis for the upgrade), VMWare was around $40.
47
General Discussion / Re: Note heads not connected and text is blurred.
Hi, Steve -

Wow, and just as Microsoft is getting ready to put XP out to pasture...

Anyway, a couple of things to look for.  Since you say you just installed XP, i presume then it's also on a 5 year old computer (don't worry, I have XP running on an 8-year old computer that I built myself back in 2000 - Pentium III 800MHz, 768MB RAM, plenty of hard drive space - slow, but still runs.  I use it as my "digital" tape deck, to record old records and tapes onto disk before converting to CD/WAV/MP3).  My main computer, however, is much newer.

Anyway, which service pack are you running.  XP is currently up to Service Pack 3 (but depending on where you are, I'm not sure if you can go directly to SP3, or if you have to pass SP1 and SP2 first).

Have you updated your video drivers to the latest ones?  (And I don't mean just the video drivers that came with XP - just because XP found an appropriate video driver to use, doesn't mean it's the latest and greatest).

Have you updated you printer drivers to the latest ones?

I would definitely try those things first.  Remember, in XP you can set a restore point, so that if, in the process you install a driver that your computer doesn't like for some reason, you can backtrack to where you were before (just don't do any important work in between).

Hope this helps.
48
General Discussion / Re: Extra Notes for extra lyrics
Hi, David -

I've seen it done a couple of ways on the music I've seen.

1)  Use stems up/stems down.  The words will tell the brain which one to use based on the words under the notes.  So the first time through, you would sing (for example) the stems down part and the second time through, you would sing the stems up part.

2)  Use smaller notes super-imposed over the regular notes (well not directly over, but in addition to and readable).  I've seen this often, where on the first time through you would sing the four regular sizedd notes as shown, but the second time through, you would read the smaller notes.  NWC's grace notes are too small to really simulate this very well.

There may be other ways, but those are the ones I've seen.  Normally with NWC, I just use the underline feature to tie two words to the same note or use spacing (or hyphen) so one word appears under the first of two notes.  Most people get it.  Usually (but not always) you just end up making an 8th note two 16ths to accommodate two words (or making a quarter note two eighth notes).

But, the stuff I write out in NWC is usually for me and some other folks, so we're not in a vacuum.  I can usually say (during rehearsal), when you get to the verse with 6 words, just do it this way.  But, it would be nice if NWC supported the smaller notes for this purpose (they could even be on a layered staff, as far as I'm concerned).
49
General Discussion / Re: In sorrow
Hi, Richard -

Please pass on my condolences to Carl's family.  It's sad when we lose another one of our online family.
50
General Discussion / Re: radio shack midi keyboard HELP!
I've found with my USB-MIDI adapter that it works best by NOT booting with it connected.  I wait for my computer to boot up completely, then I plug it in and let the PC find it and load the driver.  Then it works fine.  If I boot with it, it's not always recognized.  I've also found that it works best if I always plug it into the same USB port each time.  I've read on other forums where other folks have had the same experience.