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Topic: Wird Sounds on large number of staves (Read 9015 times) previous topic - next topic

Wird Sounds on large number of staves

I have been writing the score of Wagner Operas just the music and as soon as I introduce a new staff say 15 up then when I playback I get the mmost wierd sounds froim percussion instruments not scored or entered by me even though I place the instrument correctly.

Any ideas please.

Also the patch for triplets doesnot work for me any suggestions please.

Re: Wird Sounds on large number of staves

Reply #1 –
I suspect that you have set the midi channel to either 10 or 16 for this track. General midi uses channel 10 by default for the general midi percussion sounds. However, some playback devices use 16. Either way you can check using the windows midi mapper (if you are using wim 3.x) or the idfedit program (if you are using win 9*). The link is somewhere in the archive.

My Technics keyboard uses 16 for internal midi percussion, so I know the effect you are descibing - I occasionally forget to switch it over to general midi when I turn it on. However, somethimes the results are not half bad - the Hallelujah Chorus came out with quite a reasonable "disco" feel (but I still prefer Handel's original!)

Ian

Re: Wird Sounds on large number of staves

Reply #2 –
I just experienced this very same phenomenon last night while entering an arrangement of Bach's "We Hasten to Thee" into my laptop. It just so happened that channel 11 (yes, I do mean *11*) got assigned to the flute staff, and for some reason this came out as all sorts of tambourine, bell, whistle, finger symbol, squeaks, etc. Quite a hoot, it was, but I too prefer the original intent of flute!

Don't know why my laptop soundcard uses channel 11 for this stuff, drum track is on 10 where it should be. Don't know about channel 16, just got the laptop and this is the first time I've used it with NWC...

Re: Wird Sounds on large number of staves

Reply #3 –
Sue, just a question prompted by your laptop presence! Do you use an external MIDI instrument with your laptop, if so can you both record and play back with it? I've been advised by one particular laptop manufacturer - Pico - that their machine only allows inputs, but if you or any other laptop users have fully compatible machines, I'd be very grateful for info.

Thanks, Peter.

Re: Wird Sounds on large number of staves

Reply #4 –
Sue: If you look at your MIDI Mapper configuration (on the lap top), you will probably see channel 11 mapped to channel 10 of your synthesizer. This would cause it to also sound as percussion.

Snuff: As for triplets, you must select the notes first, then press the Triplet button.

Re: Wird Sounds on large number of staves

Reply #5 –
Peter: My laptop, a Toshiba, only allows MIDI input, mic input, and has a speaker/headphone output. I do not use an external keyboard but rather use the laptop keyboard for entry into NWC.

NWC-Support: I looked at both my laptop (Windows 95) and my desktop (Windows NT 4.0), and I confess I cannot find where I check the MIDI mapper configuration and settings.

I know it is there -- I have NWC configured to play through it -- but I guess I have never looked any closer at it than that! Can you tell me how to find it on each of these platforms? Then I will be able to answer your question! Thanks.

Re: Wird Sounds on large number of staves

Reply #7 –
Per Msg 1045, Reply 3 (BTW, thanks for adding the "reply #" to each entry! Great, Great help!), I looked at the control panel applet again...

MIDI mapper is listed in NWC as playback device on both my laptop and my desktop, but MIDI mapper is NOT listed as a "single instrument" choice on either one in the control panel settings. That is why I thought I didn't know how to go find it, as I had already looked there before making the above post. I guess I still don't know how to find MIDI mapper, since it is not where you suggest it should be...

Just for grins, I tried double-clicking on each of the entries that ARE there, but I don't get anything. And there are no other buttons on the applet tab. So I still don't know how to check the status of reassignment of channel 11 to channel 10, the real question I'm trying to answer. How do I check the configuration of one of these "single instruments"? And my new question, how do I find the MIDI mapper?

Any and all help is appreciated. Thanks!

Sue

P.S. I'm going over to the newsgroup right now and post two screen prints, one of NWC playback config, and one from my control panel settings. Hopefully, my two questions can be answered easily!

Re: Wird Sounds on large number of staves

Reply #8 –
*** The secrets of the MIDI Mapper revealed ***

The MIDI tab of the Multimedia applet *IS* the MIDI Mapper. If you select single instrument, you then can select the real device that is played back by the MIDI Mapper. If you chose "Custom configuration" then you can select the individual channels of the MIDI Mapper and assign different device drivers to each of the 16 channels of the MIDI Mapper.
 

Re: Wird Sounds on large number of staves

Reply #9 –
Sorry about the delay, I finally got a chance to look at my laptop and check out the channel config. I can put a screen print (OK Andrew, not a .bmp!) on the newsgroup if anyone wants to see it.... There is only one config, "default", and all 16 channels show the same instrument: "MIDI for Internal OPL2/OPL3 FM Synthesis".

I still don't know how to answer NWC-support's guess, that channel 11 is mapped to percussion on my laptop.

Can anyone help further? I'd like to know how to find these things out. Thanks!

Sue