I am relatively new to NWC (I inherited it from my late Grandfather) and am investigating all the features - I am finding this on-line forum very helpful! I run a children's singing group at church and am starting to produce backing-tracks for them to sing and perform to.
One thing my friend has suggested I do in my compositions is that on some of the staves I make the notes play (e.g.) 10 or 20 ticks later than other staves so that it doesn't sound quite so "perfect". Is this possible in NWC, and how, please?
As is mentioned in some replies to posts below yours, NWC is primarily a music notation program, not a sequencer. A sequencer typically will record your live keyboard input exactly as you played it, with slight tempo variations, rubato, leading or dragging the beat slightly. This does give a more natural sound to the performance. However, it drives a notation program crazy, since it must interpret note timing with a robotic steadiness or else produce gibberish. NWC has no way to adjust the note timing in ticks, though many sequencers do. If you do not need printed sheet music for the backing tracks you are producing, I would suggest you use a sequencer instead. Unfortunately, the specs on the P-60 do not seem to include an onboard sequencer. You could record the audio output of your keyboard straight to the Line In jack of your computer into audio editing software to create a .wav audio file and burn that to CD for your backing tracks. A good free audio editor is Audacity at www.audacity.sourceforge.net. If you need more help, post again and I can try to walk you through it.
You could experiment a bit. Do this: after you have finished the score, save it; now, go to the staff where you want the delay, and type 6 Enter. This will enter a 32th note. Mute it (highlight, Alt-Enter, and tick the Muted box). Now hit Play, and see if you're satisfied. You can also try a 16th note if the delay is not enough; it depends on the music you are working on.
hth
Rob.
The downside to Rob's method is that it will throw your measurements out of kilter - bars won't line up from staff to staff.
Another thing to consider doing is to use the tempo variance feature of the multipoint controller - look at the bottom of the dropdown Insert menu.
This will enter a 32th note. Mute it...
Why not enter a rest instead?
Yeah, why not. Anyway, it works quite well - depending on what you use it on, of course. It was just a thought, but I think it fits the bill.
I've done this fairly often to change the attack of a written part or to give a slight chorus effect. Copy an entire staff, so there are two versions of it, and add a very short rest to the beginning of one version, or shorten the duration of the first note (from a quarter note to an eighth tied to a double-dotted sixteenth, say). For printing, just hide the altered one. You could get a slight out-of synch effect by muting the visible staff.
Noteworthy is primarily a notation tool, with the advantage of being able to play back scores. I only use the playback as a proofreading function - just to make sure I didn't write any wrong notes, but it's also useful as a learning tool - to help people learn music and hear other parts.
Because the program is so flexible, though, many people have figured ways and workarounds to make it do quite complex performance tricks.
Thats really helpful, thank you! It makes it much better!