Finale normally allows you to route each staff to a single MIDI channel. For some effects, however, you may want the staff’s contents transmitted on more than one channel—for example, if you want to mix the sounds from two different patches. To create this arrangement, you have to create an expression (which can be invisible, if you like) defined for playback. This marking’s playback definition involves the creation of a MIDI data dump.

To assign a staff to more than one MIDI channel

1. Click the Expression tool  ; click on, above, or below the note at which the music should begin playing over additional MIDI channels. The Expression Selection dialog box appears.
2. Click Create. The Expression Designer dialog box appears.
3. Enter the text (if any) for your data dump expression. To change the font, highlight the text, choose Text > Font. (You can leave the text box blank, if you wish.)
4. Click the Playback tab. The playback options appear.
5. Choose Type > Dump. The Playback Data Dump dialog box appears.
6. In the Number of Units text box, enter 2 or 3 (depending on whether you want the staff’s playback routed to a total of 2 or 3 additional MIDI channels). A staff can play over up to three MIDI channels, including the primary MIDI channel you’ve established for the staff.
7. In the first Data box, enter $FF. This code, including the dollar sign, is a special notation that tells your MIDI Instrument to prepare to receive additional MIDI channel information.
8. In the next Data text boxes, enter one or two numbers, corresponding to the MIDI channels you want the staff’s playback routed to minus one. In other words, if you want the staff to play over channels 5 and 6 (in addition to its primary MIDI channel), enter 4 in the second Data box and 5 in the third. (Also be sure to delete the default “$00” value from each text box before entering your MIDI channel numbers.) When Finale plays your score and reaches the expression you’re creating, it will reroute the playback to the MIDI channels you’ve just specified.
9. Click OK or Select or Assign in each dialog box until you return to the document. You return to the document.

Note. Here are some other codes you may find useful if you plan to make extensive use of the Data Dump feature. If, at some point in the staff, you want to change only one of the additional two MIDI channels you’ve specified, create another expression. Define this expression, too, to have a Data Dump Playback Definition; however, in the Data text box that originally displayed the MIDI channel that you don’t want to change at this point, enter the code $FE. Example: Your first Data Dump expression added channels 5 and 6 to the staff’s playback; its Data boxes displayed $FF, 4, and 5. You want the additional channels now to be 5 and 12, so you create a new Data Dump expression; its Data boxes should display $FF, $FE, and 11.

Finally, you can “turn off” any additional MIDI channels you’ve specified with a Data Dump expression by entering $FF in the appropriate Data box. Example: Your first Data Dump expression added channels 5 and 6 to the staff’s playback; its Data boxes displayed $FF, 4, and 5. You now want channel 5 to drop out, so you create a new Data Dump expression; its Data boxes should display $FF, $FF, and $FE (because $FE, remember, is the “don’t change this channel” command).

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