Playback/Record Options

 

How to get there

From the Document Menu, choose Playback/Record Options. Or, choose Playback Controls from the Window Menu. Click the Playback Settings button; then click Playback/Record Options.

What it does

In this dialog box, you can define Finale’s handling of a number of playback variables, for real-time playback, MIDI files and Audio Files. For example, you can specify whether or not it should scan the music and "chase" expression markings that occur before the measure you click (if you’re starting playback in mid-piece); and whether or not Finale should use the tempo, pedaling, and velocity information from your original real-time performance (if your piece is a transcription created with the HyperScribe Tool).

All of this MIDI information is generated when you record a live performance using HyperScribe. To capture this information in the Transcription Mode, select the two corresponding checkboxes in the lower-left corner of the Transcription window before transcribing your performance. To record key velocity and Note Duration information using HyperScribe, choose Quantization Settings from the MIDI/Audio Menu, then More Quantization Settings before recording, and check Record Key Velocities and Record Note Durations.

You can also create this data directly in the score using the MIDI Tool (except for tempo changes, which you can create with the Tempo Tool). Of course, you can place articulation or expression markings into the score that produce similar playback effects.

If you select all four checkboxes, then, you’ll hear a playback that precisely duplicates your original performance—complete with pedaling, subtle dynamics, ritards and accelerandi, and uneven rhythms—even if the resulting notated version looks considerably different. If you don’t select any of these checkboxes, Finale will sight-read your notated score exactly as it appears on the screen—which will be a rhythmically square, expressionless playback with no dynamics and no tempo fluctuations.

Choose Reset, on the other hand, if you don’t want Finale to "chase" those tempo, volume, and other markings from the first measure before beginning playback in the middle of a piece. (Instead, Finale will begin playback using the Tempo and Base Key Velocity you’ve indicated in Playback Controls and Playback Settings, until it encounters any other expression markings while playing back.)

But if you plan to play your piece a section at a time, you may want Finale to simply remember the tempo, volume, and controller settings at the end of each passage you play, so that it will be ready to continue with the next measure. If you select Use Current Settings, Finale doesn’t have to "chase" these expressions from the beginning of the piece each time you continue playback; it remembers them.

 

See Also:

Playback Controls

Document Menu

 

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