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Topic: No sound from one staff (Read 6550 times) previous topic - next topic

No sound from one staff

When I open files in NWC2, (since changing to Vista), in each file there is one staff that won't playback. The staff is not muted and I can't seem to figure out why it won't sound. There is an instrument assigned to the staff and I get the same thing using MS Midimapper or wavetable synth as the midi playback device. I haven't made any modifications to the files so I don't unhderstand what the problem might be. Has anyone else had a similar experience?

Re: No sound from one staff

Reply #1 –
I can't help from personal experience. However, there are some standard tricks that you might try.
If you copy the file and start experimenting with it, what do you get? If you remove the non-playing staff, are you left with a file where now another staff will not play? If so, what happens when you are down to 1 staff? What happens when you change channels of non-playing staves? Is it always the highest channel that "falls out" ? What if you add another staff, assign a new channel to it, but add no notes - does your whole file fire on all cylinders now?

Please let us know.
cheers,
Rob.

Re: No sound from one staff

Reply #2 –
Hey Rob -
The file contains 3 staves. Vocal & piano acc. The vocal plays and is on channel 3, right hand on 1 and left on 2. The right hand does not play.
I switched channels for the right and left hands and now neither of these staves will play!
With voc and right hand on channel 3 and left on channel 5, the left hand only plays.
With the channels changed to Voc. - 1, Right Hand - 2 and Left Hand - 3, No staves play! This is absurd.
After changing the configuration back to the first one, no staves play.
After deleting the lower staff I still get no playback from the other two.
I then started over, copied the non-playing staff, then deleted it. The other staves played. I then added a new staff and pasted the deleted staff onto it and all staves played! I definately do not understand this behavior. Virtually all of my files are showing the same problem. This won't do at all.
Starting a new file from scratch seems to work fine although I haven't tried all the possibilities.
Is it possiblie that the instrument patches in the new sound card are incompatable with what I used when writing the originals on my old computer? I don't get it.

Re: No sound from one staff

Reply #3 –
Neither do I understand a bit of it.
More experimenting might get you closer to the nature of the problem, but there is something structurally wrong here.
I am convinced that if you would send the files to us (rddenheijer at versatel.nl   for instance) I would experience no problem.
But, then, I do not use Vista. That would be the next thing to find out: how do the other Vista-users fare on this?
If you can, put some files on a webpage and post a link here.

Re: No sound from one staff

Reply #4 –
What happens when you Export the files to MIDI and play them?

After changing channels, does pressing F6 a few times (to cause a MIDI reset) help?
Registered user since 1996

Re: No sound from one staff

Reply #5 –
G'day Duncan,
Quote from: fitzclan –
<snip>
Is it possiblie that the instrument patches in the new sound card are incompatable with what I used when writing the originals on my old computer? I don't get it.

That's about the only thing I can think of at the moment...  Thought the m$ GS wavetable should be OK from that point of view unless you used patches outside the standard GM set.
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: No sound from one staff

Reply #6 –
I don't know what could have happened, but I finally shut down the computer and later when I rebooted, the strange behavior was no more. YAY! Just hope it doesn't happen again. Thanks to all for the assistance.

Re: No sound from one staff

Reply #7 –
That's OK. It keeps the grey matter exercised. Good luck with hard- and software in the future!

Re: No sound from one staff

Reply #8 –
   Hi, Fitzclan.

   You say:

   "I don't know what could have happened, but I finally shut down the computer and later when I rebooted, the strange behavior was no more. YAY! Just hope it doesn't happen again."

   and I am reminded that this type of effect - a midi channel going silent - has happened to me a number of times before, and always after I've loaded in, opened and played someone else's NWC file - perhaps something I've seen in the Forum or Newsgroups.  Invariably - I think - the channel remained silent even when I closed Noteworthy down and re-opened it later, with a completely different File loaded in, and only turning the machine off seemed to solve the problem and bring the channel back to life after a re-boot.

   I think, though, that it is in some way linked to the patch bank select associated with instrument selection (F2|Instrument).  It is as though once a patch bank has been chosen I'm stuck with it ... though whether it's something odd about Windows or it's to do with the sound card I do not know.  The trouble then comes when the system doesn't have anything referenced by the selected bank; and that leads to a silent channel!

   Still, this does rather restore my faith in the First Rule of Computing:  if all else fails, switch off, and then switch back on again!

   Regards,

   MusicJohn, 9/Dec/07

Re: No sound from one staff

Reply #9 –

Ah - you may well have found the answere there! If an instrument is chosen for every staff, this behaviour should not occur.
And: the problem could now be reproduced. What did you play before the problem-NWC-file, fitzclan?
Did it have silent staves? What happens if you play the same files in progression?
NWC could reset all choices of instruments and such at the beginning of a file, instead of leaving them as they are. This has been suggested before, I believe.

Re: No sound from one staff

Reply #10 –
I do not know what the progression was. I had just loaded my files on to a new computer and was checking out how they sounded with the new sound card. Not good, but that's another story. Sounds like Music John may have hit on someting. I'm just glad it went away. I tend to freak out a little when those kind of things happen. Thanks guys for the input.