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Grace Notes

I have look at all the messages and help topics and I can't find anything to tell me where to find the grace note command. And I'm not even sure if that is what I'm looking for. The effect I'm trying to get is the same as a hammer on or play the 7th fret and moveing quickly to the 9th so as not to change the music. Kind of like playing that by accident. Please tell me something to help me along. Thanks, email me or post a responce

Re: Grace Notes

Reply #1 –
I've done that sort of thing using pitch mpc's. To use your example of fretting at C-VII = B (assuming the E string) then hammering on C-IX (C#) you would start with two B notes tied together. Between the tied notes insert an MPC, pitch bend absolute +8191. After the second note insert an MPC, pitch bend absolute 0. (This restores the pitch back to normal).

This has the effect of changing the pitch while the note is sounding. For a true hammer-on effect, you also need to insert an absolute volume MPC between the two notes (e.g. 127, or full volume) then another one after the second note to restore the channel volume to your "default" staff volume (I suggest around 90-100). Note that the default volume is 127 unless you change it in Staff Properties (you have to leave yourself some headroom if you want to do hammer-on or pull-off effects as described above).

For a "quick and dirty" way of doing this, use the grace note button in the tool bar. Won't sound very realistic, but looks great when printed. Put this in a muted "printing" staff, and the mpc trickery in a hidden "sounded" staff.

Re: Grace Notes

Reply #2 –
Fred:

You about blew me out of the water. I have only been useing nwc for 2 weeks and my theory is limited. I havent a clue what an mpc is but I do know what a pitch bend is, though I have no idea how to use them on nwc. I will look into this and hopefully I can figure that one out. As far as grace notes I can't find the grace note button in the toolbar which one is it and is it on the nwc version that is currently posted, which is the one I have! Also if I wanted to use a grace note as a grace note then do I have to do the math and (for example) place a 16th note infront of an arpegiated set of quarter notes to get the disired efect?

Re: Grace Notes

Reply #3 –
Fred:

Its me again. I tried that midi point controller and the pitch bend. I was wondering, if I were to put two g notes tied with a mpc in the middle and one at the end. for the one in the middle if I wanted the effect of haveing the g sound like a F how much controller value would I need to use. I think this might solve the problem of not being able to slur notes in an arpegio without sounding the note like its stucato. MAYBE! its worth a try!

Re: Grace Notes

Reply #4 –
Sorry about the overwhelm... to backtrack a bit, the grace-note button shows a 1/2 note and a little bitty 1/8 note next to it. Select the desired note, then click the button, or press the = key on the keyboard. It "automagically" steals time from the following note -- usually quite realistically. However, the two events are treated as discrete notes... not as pitch-changes on a single note. (Think piano!)

Insert mpc's ("Multi-Point Controller") using the L key (or from the Insert menu). Regarding pitch-bend -- 0 is of course no bending. +4096 is +1 semitone, +8191 is +2 semitones (one whole tone). Similarly for negative values. So the maximum you could get from an mpc pitch bend is 2 whole tones (example: slide or hammer-on from F to A, play a G at -8191, which gives the F; then move it to +8191, which gives an A.

Hope this helps. If you want to look at some examples, I've posted some guitar work using this kind of thing on the Scriptorium. (lvb_adag.nwc, vivandte.nwc, sorst_g1.nwc).

Keep pluggin! Make liberal use of the help files, NWC is one of the precious few programs where the help files are actually helpful. MPC's especially are well worth the effort it takes to figure them out.

Re: Grace Notes

Reply #5 –
Fred:

Wow you have got me into some great stuff. I worked with the mpc and my result was that 8192 + or - will give you a whole step. But the problem Im haveing is that if I have two notes and the first one's mpc pitch bent down 8192 then, right at the begining of the note almost to fast to hear, it sounds like it is actualy being bent down. That is not what Im looking for though it sounds really cool and I might use it later. Now I have figured out what you were talking about But I need to get past the slur problem. I dont want the two notes f and +8192 f -8192 to sound stcato I need them to slur. I hope you know what I mean. Ill keep working . Thank you!

Re: Grace Notes

Reply #6 –
Fred:

I had gotten your message after writeing a new one sorry.
But I think my unregistered version does not have a grace note button and if it does it is not showing me. Im really in a bind and I need this piece of work done soon! How can I find a version that has the grace note button? Please help me! Thank you! Its really been a great lesson!

Re: Grace Notes

Reply #7 –
Hmmm... there's no difference between the "unregistered" version and the full-fledged one, except for some printing and saving limitations. I've long since customized my tool bars, so I don't remember which bar the grace note was in originally. If you downloaded NWC from NoteWorthy's site, you do indeed have the current version.

First off, slowly drag your mouse over the toolbar buttons. This will give you "mouse-overs" that identify the various buttons. If no joy, go on to the next step.

Here's how you can chase it down. In View ==> Toolbars click the Customize button. At the top there will be a pull-down menu marked "Toolbar"; click this, I believe by default there are three, FILE, NOTES and ?? (EDIT?) [as you may have gathered, I boiled mine down to just two]. By selecting the bars one at a time you can see which tools are active (on the right) and which are still available (on the left). You can add/delete/modify to your heart's content. The one you're looking for is called "Note Grace".

Regarding the slur issue: note that there are two tool buttons that look very similar; one is the slur (or ; key) that simply reduces the time between successive notes. The other is the tie ( or the / key ) which actually ties two notes together, making them essentially a single note. THIS is the tool you want to invoke to tie the two notes together, then put your pitch-bend mpc between.

Make any sense at all?

Re: Grace Notes

Reply #8 –
Fred:

Thanks for all your help! It turns out that the version I downloaded today wasn't the version I was useing. I forgot to change my desktop shortcut! OOPS silly me. I found the note grace command. It sounds like **** but oh well Ill figure something out, its only the base line and I can always change the volume on the grace note so I don't hear it as much! Thanks again!