Skip to main content ↑ ↓
Topic: Virtual Piano and NWC HELP! (Read 4823 times) previous topic - next topic

Virtual Piano and NWC HELP!

Can anyone help me to install "Virtual Piano" and make it work with NWC? I'm new to all of this.

I downloaded and unzipped the VP program, and I can open and play it by double clicking on the Piano icon. But there is no installation program with it, and I'm having trouble with the instructions in the 'readme' file... they say:

"add piano.exe to your favorite program group using Program Manager's File/Add command" Program Manager? Don't know what that is or where to find it.

"install 'Piano Midi Driver' using Control Panel: Drivers/Add/Unlisted..." My control panel has no "drivers" in the menu.

I'm using Windows ME, btw.

Also, once I've done this, how do I enable NWC to work w/the Virtual Piano?

Help me if you can! THANK YOU

Re: Virtual Piano and NWC HELP!

Reply #3 –
Sorry Fred :) We hapened to be online at the same time...

Re: Virtual Piano and NWC HELP!

Reply #4 –
Fred

Excellent information… thank you very much! The install worked and the programs are working fine together. Now it’s learning curve time. I am a NWC newbie, so the following might be stupid questions, but here goes anyway…

I couldn’t find the rim shot sound you suggested, but found that the woodblock in the general midi list playing a high note sounds fine for click track. I created it and hit record, then switched to Piano. At this point, the virtual keyboard plays the WOODBLOCK also. So I change to acoustic piano, and the metronome starts playing ACOUSTIC PIANO. I’ll bet it’s something simple I’m doing wrong, but I can’t get the click track doing it’s own thing. Tried adding and selecting a new staff, but this seems irrelevant since when I hit stop the tune I played shows up in a new window on it’s own staff anyway. (Is that normal?). IN ANY CASE, I find it very difficult to play the virtual piano with any accuracy, partly because there’s a slight delay in the keystrokes. How can I use the VP to add notes one at a time to the staff? Can I select a type of note from the toolbar, then use VP to select each note? If I do play something live, is there a way to ‘quantize’ a sequence of notes, so that the minor errors in timing are corrected?

Thank you for all your help, Fred and/or anyone else who has time to reply!

David Massar

Re: Virtual Piano and NWC HELP!

Reply #5 –
David,

The rim block is a percussion sound. This means you have to set the MIDI channel to 10, and play a particular note, rather than set a particular instrument. I'm at work at the moment, so I can't give you the particular note you need, but there is a percussion chart in the examples folder that lists all the main percussion instruments. To set the MIDI channel for a particular stave, click on that stave and press F2 (off the top of my head - I might have got the wrong key, so try the Staff menu and select properties). Now click on the MIDI tab and choose 10 for the channel number.

As for the woodblock sounding like a piano, that's because you're using the same channel for the rhythm as for the melody. Again, change to a different channel as above.

HTH
Robin

Re: Virtual Piano and NWC HELP!

Reply #6 –
Robin

Got it.. THANK YOU

DM

Re: Virtual Piano and NWC HELP!

Reply #7 –
I can't get my virtual piano to work. When I try to go into it a screen keep popping and reads (make sure your SYSTEM.INI file has the line MIDI=VPIANO.DRV in the (drivers) section. what should I do