Instrument List window

How to get there

From the Window menu, choose Instrument List.

What it does

The Instrument List provides a quick and convenient way to manage the playback of the various staves in your score. For example, you can silence a staff with a single click, or you can “solo” a staff with a click, muting all other staves.

If your MIDI instrument is multitimbral—capable of playing more than one instrument sound at once—the Instrument List also lets you assign a MIDI channel and patch (program information and optional bank change information which act together to provide an instrument sound) to each staff—and, in fact, to each layer of each staff.

The Instrument List also lets you create Instrument assignments for each staff and each layer of a staff. An Instrument is a MIDI channel/patch setting. For example, you might create an Instrument named Strings which will be mapped to your MIDI keyboard’s channel three, and will have the patch set to change your keyboard to its second bank of sounds and use the Strings program on that bank.

Then, it’s a simple matter to assign each of the string staves in your score to this same Instrument, saving you the trouble of assigning a channel and patch to each staff individually. Instead of mapping multiple staves into one Instrument, you can also do the reverse—map a single staff into multiple Instruments—by setting a staff’s layers to play on different MIDI channels with different patches.

The Instrument List window also affects recording with HyperScribe. A column in the Instrument List, R, identifies which staves or layers of staves PrintMusic will record into, and from which channels, during HyperScribe recording.

The Instrument List, by the way, is a standard PrintMusic floating window. You can move it by dragging the thin gray strip at the top, close it by clicking the small white close-box square in the upper-left corner, click the zoom box in the upper-right corner to make it fill your screen, or make it taller or shorter by dragging the Resize box in the lower-right corner. (You can also hide the Instrument List window by choosing its name a second time from the Window menu.)

• R. A Record (R) column that specifies which staves or layers will be recorded into, with HyperScribe, always appears. When the Record column is blank, no staves (or layers) of staves are selected to record into. Click in the R column next to the staff you want PrintMusic to record into. A black triangle appears in the R column, indicating that PrintMusic will record into the active layer of that staff.

You can also record into a particular layer of a staff. First expand the staff by clicking the down arrow next to the staff name; Layer 1 through Layer 4 appears. If the staff is selected to record into (a black triangle appears in the R column for the staff name), a small triangle in parentheses indicates the current layer that will be recorded into. If you change the current layer using the Layer Controls in the Document window, the small triangle moves to reflect the current layer that will be recorded into. To specify a particular layer to record into, click in the R column next to the layer of the staff you want PrintMusic to record into. Note that you cannot record chords or expressions in an expanded staff; PrintMusic will ignore any clicks in the R column for chords and expressions.

You can simply click the staff in the score that you want to record into with HyperScribe. If, however, you prefer to use the Playback Control’s Record button (instead of clicking a measure in the score), then you must use the Instrument List’s R column to indicate the staff or layer to record into. Click in the R column next to the staff or layer you want PrintMusic to record into. Click on a different staff or layer to select it instead. The triangle moves to the staff or layer you clicked.

• Staff Name · [Triangles]. In the Instrument List, you see the staves in your score. (If you haven’t named the staves, they appear numbered.) Using the controls in this staff’s row (Play, Solo, and so on), you establish its various playback features.

When the small triangle next to the staff name points to the right, each setting you make affects all layers of the staff. If you want to give different playback settings to each of the four transparent layers of each staff, click the triangle. It turns to point downward, and six new rows appear in the Instrument List, one for each layer, plus one each for Chords and Expressions. At this point you can change the Play, Solo, Channel, and other parameters for each individual layer. Click the triangle a second time to “collapse” the layer rows into a single staff row again. If there are too many rows to see in the window, use the vertical scroll bar to adjust your view.

• M (Mute). In this column, a black square appears across from the name of each staff that you want to mute when you play your score. By clicking in this column across from a certain staff, you make the square turn white, indicating that the staff will not sound when you play the score.

If you’ve expanded a staff to view its individual layer assignments, and you turn on the Mute setting for some layers but not others, the square in the Mute column will appear striped. That is your signal that the individual layers of the staff have mixed settings in the Mute column.

• S (Solo). When you click in the Solo column across from a staff name, a black circle appears. In other words, you’ve just isolated a staff so that only it will play back, and all the other staves are silent. (You could achieve the same effect by clicking the Mute column for all other staves—but that would take much more time and effort.)

You can solo more than one staff, if you wish—for example, you can solo two or three staves, and all the others will be silent. In fact, you can solo all staves, although there wouldn’t be much point, since you may as well solo none of them.

• Vol. You can use this text box specify an exact volume value, 0-127, for a staff, and all other staves set to the same channel.
• Pan. Use this text box to specify an exact pan value, 0-127, for a staff, and all other staves set to the same channel. A higher value pans right, a lower value pans left. Playback volume will be weighted to the left or right speaker accordingly. 64 is center.
• Layer 1 · Layer 2 · Layer 3 · Layer 4 · Chord · Expression. These rows of information only appear when you click the right-pointing triangle next to a staff name.

Using these subdivisions of a staff, you can assign an Instrument, MIDI channel, or patch to each of these playback elements—allowing the music on each layer, for example, to have its own sound.

• Chords refers to the chord symbol you’ve placed in a staff; they can actually play back over their own patch and channel, if you wish. (If you don’t want chord symbols to play back, route them to an unused MIDI channel, or deselect chords from the Play column.)
• Instrument. By clicking on the word Instrument, you produce a popup menu containing all of created instruments, as well as, the New Instrument command. This command brings up the Instrument definition dialog box, where you can define the MIDI channel, program change, and bank change assignment for a new virtual Instrument (see Instrument Definition dialog box), whose name will now appear in this column.

Once you’ve defined and named one or more Instruments of your own, their names appear in the Instrument popup menu across from each staff name. Now you can start to save time when it comes to assigning patches and channels to other staves or layers—simply choose one of your Instrument names from the Instrument popup menu, and the staff you’re working with will automatically get the same MIDI channel, program, and bank settings as other staves with that Instrument.

Here’s an example. Suppose you have a piano part with two staves. Across from the top piano staff, choose New Instrument from the Instrument popup menu, and create an Instrument called Pno Sound, that plays on MIDI channel 4, program 22. Now, for the bottom piano staff, simply choose Pno Sound from the Instrument popup menu. PrintMusic automatically gives it MIDI channel 4, program 22—and if you change the program or channel for either staff, the other staff’s program or channel will change to match.

To edit an Instrument name, select Edit Instruments (see below).

• Chan. This column displays the MIDI channel assignment for each staff (or layer). To change this number, double-click, and type a new channel.

If you’ve assigned several staves to the same Instrument, by the way, remember that they’re all linked to the same MIDI channel. Therefore, if you edit the Chan. assignment for any one of these staves, the Chan. for all of them will change to match, because any given Instrument can only have one channel assignment. (If you truly want a staff to have an independent MIDI channel, first assign it to a new Instrument.)

• B. The Bank column (B) appears between the channel and program columns in the Instrument List. If you set up a simple patch assignment by entering a program change number with no bank information in the Instrument List, nothing appears in the bank column. However, if you enter a bank change and a program change number for an instrument, PrintMusic places a “B” in the bank column for that instrument.

To set up a bank change, click the bank column to display the Instrument Definition dialog box. For details, see Instrument Definition dialog box.

• Prog. The number in this column identifies the program (synthesizer sound) number assigned to each staff (or layer). To edit it, just double-click the number and type a new one.

If you’ve assigned several staves to the same Instrument, once again remember that they’re all linked to the same Program. Therefore, if you edit the Program assignment for any one of these staves, the Program for all of them will change.

If you prefer to set up your MIDI instruments so that their programs are already selected for each MIDI channel, you can ignore the Prog. settings in the Instrument List. PrintMusic will only transmit these Program settings to the MIDI instruments if Send Patches Before Play is selected in the Instrument List window.

• GM. This column displays the General MIDI descriptive name of the Program number. By clicking on the name, you produce a popup menu containing all of the names. Select the desired GM name to have PrintMusic fill in the matching Program Number.
• Perc MIDI Map. From this popup menu, choose the desired Percussion MIDI Map for playback. See Configuring Percussion Playback.
• Send Patches Before Play. Select this option if you want PrintMusic, just before it begins playback, to transmit any patch information specified in the Instrument List to your MIDI instruments.

You probably won’t want to select this option, however, if you prefer to assign programs to MIDI channels on your MIDI instrument before you begin playback, instead of letting PrintMusic do it. If you select Send Patches Before Play, PrintMusic will wipe out any MIDI channel/patch configurations you’ve set on your MIDI instrument, and use the information defined in the Instrument List window for playback.

• Edit Instrument. Click in the Channel, B or Program column and click the Edit Instrument button to display the Instrument Definition dialog box, where you can change all aspects of an instrument’s definition, including the bank or program change information.

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