MIDI Channels, Garritan Instruments, and the Kontakt Player

MIDI Channels, Garritan, and Kontakt

If you are unfamiliar with the concept of MIDI Channels and MIDI Instruments, and how they relate to Finale, consult the entry on MIDI Channels in the Finale User Manual before continuing. Also, remember that for new scores, Finale’s Setup Wizard automatically chooses the best channel assignments for the instruments used in your score. It is strongly recommended that you use the Setup Wizard when creating new scores. The information that follows is primarily of interest to people trying to set up existing scores, such as scores imported from earlier versions of Finale.

As explained under Setting Up Garritan Instruments for Playback in Existing Scores, the Garritan Aria Player supports a maximum of 128 simultaneous Garritan instruments assigned to 128 different MIDI channels, distributed across 8 Aria Player instances, with each instance hosting up to 16 Garritan instruments, each assigned to a different channel. Finale supports a maximum of 8 banks, as you can see in the VST Instruments Setup dialog box. (accessed from the MIDI/Audio menu):

The first (top) Aria Player instance is linked to Bank 1 (channels 1-16), the second is linked to Bank 2 (channels 17-32), and so on. Each Aria Player instance - which can be accessed by clicking the Edit button across from the appropriate bank - supports 16 simultaneous channels.

Changing the Channel Assignment

By default, the Aria slot assignment is the same as the channel number. For example, slot 1 = channel 1. However, it is possible to override those default channel assignments, if you so desire. In the Aria Player, the current Kontakt Player channel assignment is displayed on the lower left corner of the slot (in the gray rectangle).

The above instrument is assigned to MIDI channel 1. It can be modified by clicking on the number and selecting a different MIDI channel from the submenu:

You may choose any Aria Player Channel (from 1 to 16) for the selected instrument. For example, you may want to set your percussion to channel 10 so you can more easily switch between SoftSynth and Garritan playback. Remember that if you change an instrument's channel assignment in the Aria Player, you must also change the corresponding staff's channel assignment in the Instrument List.

Aria Player Channels Vs. Finale Channels

The channel assignments for the first Aria Player instance (Bank 1) must correspond to the channel assignments in Finale's Instrument List. For instance, if you have a Garritan flute assigned to Channel 1 in the first Aria Player instance, then the flute staff in Finale's Instrument List must be assigned to Finale Channel 1:

Remember that for new scores created using the Setup Wizard, Finale automatically assigns the correct channel numbers in both the Aria Player and in the Instrument list. It is only necessary to assign the channel numbers yourself if you are converting existing scores or templates.

Things become slightly more complicated if your score has more than sixteen instruments, because this requires the use of more than one Aria Player instance. See Garritan Aria Player Instruments and Channels.

Percussion Staves

If your score contains an unpitched percussion staff and you would like the ability to switch between Garritan instruments and SoftSynth playback, your Garritan percussion instrument must be set to a channel that corresponds to one of the General MIDI percussion channels: 10, 26, 42, 58, 74, 90, 106, or 122.

For this example, let's say you have a piece for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, percussion (2 players), 2 violins, viola, and cello. You will need to use two Aria Player instances because there are two unpitched percussion staves, and we want to assign them each to a different General MIDI percussion channel. It's easiest to assign them to the first two available General MIDI percussion channels: Channel 10 and Channel 26. For compatibility with SoftSynth playback, each unpitched percussion staff needs to be set to a General MIDI percussion channel, which is the tenth channel in each bank.

Unlike General MIDI instruments like Finale's SoftSynth, Garritan percussion instruments can be assigned to any channel. If you don't plan to switch back and forth between SoftSynth and Garritan instruments, you don't need to worry about assigning percussion instruments to a General MIDI percussion channel.

Here's the Instrument List showing the correct Finale Channel assignments for this score:

Aria Player Bank 1, Channel 10 is reserved for the first percussion instrument. The only instrument not included in this Aria Player instance is the second percussion - if we didn't care about SoftSynth playback, we could have assigned it to Channel 11 in the first Aria instance, but since we want to be able to preserve the ability to switch between Garritan instrument playback and SoftSynth playback, we need to assign the second percussion to a General MIDI percussion channel. The next available GM percussion channel is Finale Channel 26, which can only be accessed from the second Aria Player instance - the one corresponding to Bank 2.  

When working with new scores, Finale's Setup Wizard handles both the Aria Player Channel assignments and the Finale Channel assignments automatically. You generally only have to worry about channel assignments when converting existing scores.

Multi-Part Staves, Instrument Doubling, and Channel Assignments

For orchestral scores, it is common to combine multiple parts on the same staff — for instance, Flutes 1 & 2 often share a staff. You will get the best results from Garritan Instruments if you assign two different Garritan flutes to the same staff, one for the Flute 1 part, and one for the Flute 2 part — this mimics the effect of two individual players with individual sounds interpreting each part. This is especially important if you want unison (a2) passages to sound like they are being performed by two separate players. (See the entry on Player Variations for more details.)

This can be accomplished by using the Instrument List to assign different layers of the same staff to different channels, then assigning different Garritan instruments to those channels.

For instance, let’s look at the Instrument List for a score with a “Flute 1 & 2” staff:

If you click the triangle to the left of the Staff Name (circled above), you are presented with additional options:

Here, you can create a new Instrument (called “Flute 2”) and assign it to playback the notes in Layer 2 using Finale Channel 2:

Then, load two different Garritan flutes in the Bank 1 Aria Player and assign them to Aria Player Channel 1 and Channel 2:

In your score, enter the Flute 1 music in Layer 1 and the Flute 2 music in Layer 2. This solution also works for instrument doubling; for example, a part where the clarinet player is required to switch to bass clarinet for certain passages. Again, using the Instrument List, you would create a new Instrument (Bass Clarinet) and assign it to Finale Channel 2:

Then, load a Garritan Bb Clarinet into Aria Player Bank 1, Channel 1, and the Garritan bass clarinet into Bank 1, Channel 2: In your score, enter the Bb Clarinet passages into Layer 1, and the Bass Clarinet passages into Layer 2. Apply the Bb Bass Clarinet transposition with a Staff Style. (Consult Staff Styles in the Finale User Manual if you are unsure how to do this.)

Note that keyswitching expressions (like “Pizz.” etc. — see the entry on Keyswitches) do not work reliably on multi-part staves. If this causes problems in your score, you may wish to explode these multi-part staves into separate staves before creating an audio demo of your score.

Aria (or Kontakt Player)/Finale Channel Equivalents

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