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Topic: Staff set to use the Church Organ patch plays back as percussion? (Read 8307 times) previous topic - next topic

Staff set to use the Church Organ patch plays back as percussion?

So, I've returned to the Noteworthy fold after approximately 6 years away.  (Time constraints, not lack of desire.  For those who may remember, I helped out with probably 1/4 of the Messiah Project.)  And now I've run into an interesting conundrum while transcribing a piece of music for the Wisconsin Chamber Choir, of which I am currently a member.

The piece is by Henry Purcell, and the reason it's headed to the computer is because the public domain printing we have uses tenor and alto clefs, which could lead to some, er, confusion among the less musically apt.  I have four choral staves, one continuo staff with an invisible staff for making the continuo notation line up with the note values in the other staves (as originally notated), and four organ staves (layering).  The weird thing is that the bass organ staff, while being set up as Church Organ like the other 3 organ staves, plays back as a percussion instrument (complete with cymbal crashes, etc.).  Anyone have any thoughts?  Is it just that the MIDI on the integrated sound on this machine is inferior to the standalone one I had in my 3-generations-ago computer and is incapable of playing back 4 of the same patch?

(It's good to be back, BTW. :) )

Re: Staff set to use the Church Organ patch plays back as percussion?

Reply #1 –
It's not a MIDI or an NWC problem, Mark - it's the number of staves you've created. If you count, you'll see that your bass organ staff is staff no. 10. NWC assigns a different MIDI channel to each staff as it's created, so your bass staff has been assigned to channel 10. By custom, MIDI channel 10 is always reserved for percussion.

The solution is simply to go into the Staff Properties, click on the MIDI tab, and change the channel number to something else.

Cheers,

Bill

Re: Staff set to use the Church Organ patch plays back as percussion?

Reply #2 –
IMO, NoteWorthy should never set a new staff to Channel 10. This should always require user edit of the channel <here>.
Registered user since 1996

Re: Staff set to use the Church Organ patch plays back as percussion?

Reply #3 –
Quote from: Rick G. –
IMO, NoteWorthy should never set a new staff to Channel 10. This should always require user edit of the channel <here>.

As usual ;-) I fully agree with Rick.

Re: Staff set to use the Church Organ patch plays back as percussion?

Reply #4 –
Quote from: Rick G.
IMO, NoteWorthy should never set a new staff to Channel 10. This should always require user edit of the channel

Great idea!

Bill

Re: Staff set to use the Church Organ patch plays back as percussion?

Reply #5 –
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.
John

Re: Staff set to use the Church Organ patch plays back as percussion?

Reply #6 –
One more idea: when importing MIDI files, automatically use the percussion key for channel 10 staves.

Yesterday I was wondering what kind of harmony was the one I was reading, when I realized I was reading channel 10.
In my defense I can say it was late at night...