To set up GPO Studio to use the ASIO4ALL driver:

1. Download the ASIO4ALL setup program from http://www.asio4all.com
2. Run the downloaded ASIO4ALL setup program.
3. Start GPO Studio.
4. In the Settings/Audio Driver drop menu, select the ASIO4ALL driver.

5. In the Settings/Preferences dialog, ensure that the sample rate is set at 44,100 Hz, and that the buffer size matches that of the ASIO4ALL driver setup. A smaller buffer size results in a shorter latency of the playback, which is the delay time between when a note is requested to be played (or when you play it live on a MIDI keyboard) and when you actually hear it.

   You want as low a latency as possible, but not so low that your computer is not powerful enough to support the higher processing demands required by low latency. If you set the latency value too low, then you will hear break-ups in the playback, in which case, you will need to increase the latency (and thus the buffer size) to a higher value. This requires experimentation. Also, you can achieve lower latencies if there are fewer tracks and notes.

   Note, however, that there are other reasons besides a small buffer size that can produce break-ups or crackles during playback. For example, if the GPO Studio Ambience panel value for reverb is too high, then try reducing the amount of reverb. Also, refer to GPO documentation for other explanations for crackles in playback and solutions for fixing the problem.

After you have configured GPO Studio to use the ASIO4ALL driver, there usually is nothing more you need to do to configure Composer and GPO to work together. Normally, Composer will automatically configure itself to recognize the GPO Studio MIDI output devices after you installed GPO Studio.

You can skip this next step and need come back to it later only if Composer does not correctly play the GPO instruments.

To trouble-shoot a problem with Composer's playback through GPO:

1. Start GPO Studio before you start Composer.
2. In GPO Studio, open this .gpo file: MidiNotateComposerGPOEx.gpo
3. Start Composer (always only after starting GPO Studio).
4. In Composer, open this .not file: MidiNotateComposerGPOExCompleted.not
5. Play the example in Composer. If you hear it play properly, then your next task is to determine why this example works, but your own song and .gpo file does not.
6. Sometimes a cure to playback problems is to exit both Composer and GPO Studio and start them again (GPO Studio first). If that does not work, try rebooting Windows before starting GPO Studio and Composer again.
7. If you do not hear the sound of a GPO instrument for a particular staff (track), it is possible that this GPO instrument was last played with a zero or low Mod Wheel value, which in GPO will leave the instrument in an inaudible state. It is a good idea to add an initial Mod Wheel value in each staff (track). For instructions in setting Mod Wheel values in Composer, see the tutorial section on "Viewing and Editing the MIDI Performance".

Back to the top
 

Assigning GPO Instruments to Staves in Notation Composer and Reassigning General MIDI (GM) Sounds to GPO Instruments

This step of the tutorial primarily demonstrates how to assign GPO instruments to staves in Composer. (Note, in versions of Composer prior to version 1.1, the term "track" is used in Composer's menus and documentation, instead of "staff".)

This step secondarily demonstrates how to import a "standard" (GM) MIDI file into Composer, and reassign the GM sounds to GPO instruments. You might find that you need to do exactly that. Or, you might need to import a special MIDI file that was prepared for a sound library other than GPO, or for a sound font; in that case, the procedure for reassigning the sounds is exactly the same as for the case of a GM MIDI file.

To practice importing a MIDI file into Composer and changing the sounds to GPO instruments:

1. Download the following MIDI file: MidiNotateComposerGPOEx.mid. This MIDI file provides the starting point of the tutorial.
2. Download the following MidiNotate .not file: MidiNotateComposerGPOExCompleted.not. This second .not file shows the result of following all of the steps of the tutorial.
3. Download the following Personal Orchestra (.gpo) file: MidiNotateComposerGPOEx.gpo.
4. Start GPO Studio. Note, it is important to always start GPO Studio before starting Composer.

5. In Composer, open the MidiNotateComposerGPOEx.mid file that you downloaded above. Composer will convert the MIDI file to notation, and display it as shown here:

   

6. Choose the Quick MIDI Device Setup command in the Set menu. Composer will display the Quick MIDI Device Setup window. For the MIDI Playback Device, select a General MIDI (GM) device rather than a GPO Studio device or non-MIDI device.

   

7. Play the piece so that you are familiar with its orchestration and the GM sounds.

   This piece is in the style of a sound track for a space adventure movie. (I improvised it when doing usability testing of Notation Composer several years ago. The six brass parts were recorded with two hands on a MIDI keyboard in one pass, the strings one a second pass, and the percussion on a third pass.)

8. Choose the Staff Setup command in the Staff menu (or Track Setup command in the Track menu in versions of Composer prior to version 1.1). You will be presented with the Staff Setup window:

   

9. Notice the following in the above Staff Setup window:
   • All of the staves (tracks) are assigned to the default MIDI device in your current MIDI device configuration. This is the MIDI device that you selected above in step #6.
   • Although there are separate staves (tracks) for Trumpets 1 and 2, French Horn 1 and 2, and Trumpets 1 and 2, they all use the General MIDI (GM) "Brass Section" sound, MIDI program (patch) number 62. Unlike GPO, GM offers a very limited selection of orchestral sounds. GM does not offer separate sounds for trumpet, French horn, and trombone, as GPO does, let alone distinctive sounds for different sub-sections, and players of a section, of the orchestra such as the trumpets section.
   • Although there are different drum sounds in this piece, they are all assigned to a single staff (track), which is typical in a GM file.
   • For GM, the drum sounds must always be assigned to channel 10. In GPO, there are no similar channel requirements for percussion instruments.

10. In GPO Studio, choose the File / Open command, and open the MidiNotateComposerGPO.gpo file that you downloaded in step #2.

    Normally, you will need to prepare your own .gpo file any time you are working with a new set of instruments. If you are working on a new piece that has the same instruments as those in another piece, then you can reuse the .gpo file of that other piece.

    Note, it does not matter which you open first, the .gpo file in GPO Studio, or the .not file in Composer. It is only important that you start GPO Studio before starting Composer.

11. In GPO Studio, select Player 1:

    

    GPO will display a window for GPO Player 1:

    

    As you can see, the GPO instruments needed for the brass and string sections have already been loaded into Player 1. The percussion instruments have been loaded into Player 2; we will visit them later.

    Brass and string (violin) instruments are assigned to all 8 slots (channels) of GPO Player 1.

    Note, it is just coincidental that GPO Player devices are numbered 1 through 8, and that each GPO Player has 8 available channels, numbered 1 through 8. There are two different sets of 1-8 numbers here. There are 8 GPO Players; and for each of the 8 GPO Players, there are 8 channels. There are thus a total of 8x8=64 available GPO channels.

12. In Composer, choose the Staff / Staff Setup command again (if the Staff Setup window is not still opened from step #8).

13. In the Staff Setup window, click the Device column header. That is, click somewhere on the word "Device" at the top of the Device column. You will be presented with the dialog box shown below. In the dialog box, choose GPO Studio 1:

    

    That will assign GPO Player 1 to all of the staves (tracks). That is not exactly what we want. We do want the first 8 staves to be assigned to GPO Player 1, which has GPO instruments loaded for the brass and violins. But the drum staff eventually needs to be assigned to GPO Player 2. We are going to postpone that task for now, and instead assign the drum track back to the General MIDI device.

14. For now, assign the Drums staff back to the General MIDI device. We're doing this so that we can hear what it is like, and to observe that it is possible, to use a mixture of GPO instruments and non-GPO sounds in the same Composer file.

    To assign the Drums staff back to the GM device, click on "9" in the first column to select row #9, which is that for the Drums staff. Then select the GM device ("Creative SB Live! Synthesizer" in this illustration) from the Device drop menu in the lower portion of the Staff Setup window:

    

15. Now play the piece in Composer. You will hear GPO's real sounds of brass and violin. The drums are being played by your GM device; you'll replace them with GPO's real percussion sounds in a later step.

    If you hear the GPO instruments, but they do not sound right, then see the procedure at the beginning of this tutorial for To trouble-shoot a problem with Composer's playback through GPO.

16. Currently, there are two drums instruments used in the Drums staff (track) of the imported GM file: (1) a tambourine, and (2) cymbals. In GM, all drum instruments must be played on channel 10, and are distinguished by their MIDI pitches. These are pseudo pitches, as most of the GM percussion instruments do not have real distinguishable pitches. The GM pseudo pitch for the tambourine is F#4 (the F# below middle-C), which is MIDI pitch 54. There are a couple of different GM pseudo pitches for cymbals; this piece uses A4 (the A below middle-C), which is MIDI pitch 57.

    Observe in the score that F#4 and A4 are indeed the two pseudo drum pitches used in the Drum staff of this GM file:

    

    (The above example starts at measure 10.)

    It requires more effort to convert GM drum sounds to GPO percussion instruments than it does to convert other instrument sounds. (This is true whether you are using Notation Composer or any other music software.) The reason for this is that GPO percussion instruments are selected not only by loading a GPO instrument (or "drum kit") but also by playing pseudo pitches that produce variants of a percussion instrument sound, such as hitting a snare drum with the right versus left hand or rolling the snare drum.

17. It is almost always a good idea to use Composer's Split Drums command, to change a 5-line staff of drum instruments into multiple 1-line staves, one line per each distinct instrument. Choose the Split Drums command in the Staff (Track) menu, or type "qspld" (quick split drums). Then select the Drums staff in the Split Drums dialog box. The result is that the tambourine and cymbal parts are now displayed in two different staves:

    

    Now we're ready to change the GM drum sounds to GPO percussion instruments.

18. In GPO Studio, select GPO Player 2. Observe that the MidiNotateComposerGPOEx.gpo had been prepared with the GPO Cymbals kit in the first slot (channel 1 of GPO Player 2), and Percussion Toys in the second slot (channel 2 of GPO Player 2). There are a variety of cymbal sounds that we can choose from the GPO cymbals kit, and a few different tambourine sounds we can choose from the GPO Percussion Toys.

    

19. GPO's percussion sounds are packaged similar to "drum kits" available on hardware and software synthesizers. As with GM drum sounds on channel 10, each pseudo MIDI pitch selects a different percussion instrument. The task at hand now is to find out which particular percussion instruments we want among those available in the GPO Cymbals and Percussion Toys kits.

    In the window for GPO Player 2, observe that some of the keys in the virtual piano keyboard are colored blue. These are the pseudo pitches available in the GPO Cymbals percussion kit. Click the different keys to hear the different sounds. We'll choose the 'D' pitch cymbal sound in the 7th octave, that is, D7. To determine which octave the pitch is in, notice the "+3 Oct." display at the left of the keyboard, and then count up each octave to C7 and then D7.

    

    Similarly, click "Percussion Toys", and hear that there are two tambourine sounds available at C6 and Db6. We'll use the Db6 tambourine sound in this piece.

    Now we know what GPO percussion sounds we want to use in this piece.

20. In Composer, choose the Staff Setup command in the Staff menu again. In the Staff Setup dialog box, change the device for the Tambourine staff from your GM device ("Creative SB Live! Synthesizer in this illustration) to GPO Player 2, as illustrated here:

    

21. Similarly, change the device for the cymbals staff to GPO Player 2.
22. As a small detail, change the name of the cymbal staff from "Splash Cymbal 2" to just "Cymbal". The original name for this staff was automatically generated by Composer; it is the standard name for the GM drum pseudo pitch A4 (MIDI pitch 57).

23. If you play the piece now, you will not hear any percussion sounds. Why? Because the piece is still using the original MIDI drum pitches F#4 (MIDI pitch 54) and A4 (MIDI pitch 57) for the tambourine and cymbal instruments. Both of these pseudo pitches happen to be out of the range of available pseudo pitches for GPO's Percussion Toys and Cymbal kits. We need to change the pseudo pitches of these percussion notes.

    In the Staff Setup window, select the tambourine staff, and for "1-line staff for this drum instrument", change the GM drum pitch 54 to the GPO drum pitch 73. Middle-C, C5, is MIDI pitch 60 = 5 octaves x 12 pitches per octave. So the GPO Percussion Toys tambourine pitch Db6 is MIDI pitch 73.

    

    Similarly, select the Cymbals staff, and change the GM drum pitch 57 to GPO Cymbal kit pitch Eb7, which is MIDI pitch 87

    (Note, Composer version 1.1 has a calculator in the Staff Setup window to convert between named pitches and MIDI pitch numbers, such as been Eb7 and 87.)

24. Now play the piece in Composer. You will hear GPO's real sampled sounds of tambourines and cymbals, accompanying the previously loaded GPO brass and violin instruments.

Back to the top
 

Viewing and Editing the MIDI Performance

At first glance, Notation Composer might appear to be just a notation editor. However, you will probably be pleased to find the Composer also offers you convenient graphical tools for editing the MIDI performance, and for specifically editing the performance of GPO instruments.

In this section of the tutorial, you will observe the MIDI performance details in a MidiNotate .not file that we have previously prepared, rather than edit the MIDI performance yourself. However, you are encouraged to experiment with changing the MIDI details in this example .not file, to gain experience using Composer's MIDI graphical editing tools, and to hear how they affect the performance of GPO instruments.

To prepare for this section of the tutorial:

1. Download the following MidiNotate .not file: MidiNotateComposerGPOTechniques.not

   It's a good idea to make a backup copy of this file, if you want to experiment with editing it and later want to go back to the original file.

2. Download the following Personal Orchestra (.gpo) file: MidiNotateComposerGPOTechniques.gpo
3. Start GPO Studio, and open the MidiNotateComposerGPOTechniques.gpo file. (Note that it is important to always start GPO Studio before starting Notation Composer.)
4. Start Notation Composer, and open the MidiNotateComposerGPOTechniques.not file.

Note Loudness and Articulation

There are three primary MIDI parameters that control note loudness and articulations in GPO:

• The MIDI Mod Wheel controller (MIDI controller #1), determines expressive loudness of a note over its duration, for instruments that naturally have such a capability, such the oboe or violin. (A single note on the piano cannot increase its loudness through its duration.)
• The MIDI channel volume controller (#7), changes the loudness of notes in the same way as turning up or down the recording level of a microphone placed at the instrument would. This effect is often distinctly not the same as that of a musician playing the instrument softer or louder throughout the duration of the note.
• The MIDI note velocity (1 to 127) determines the articulation of the note. A high note velocity produces not only a louder note but also a sharper, sometimes initially noisier note. A low note velocity produces not only a softer note but also one with a more gradual attack.

It is tempting to try to use one of the above three MIDI parameters to accomplish the purpose of one of the other three. Such attempts will sometimes succeed fairly well, but other times will fail to accomplish your musical intentions. The MidiNotateComposerGPOTechniques.not file illustrates the differences in how the above three MIDI parameters affect the loudness and articulations of GPO instruments.

To see and hear the effects of MIDI Mod Wheel control, MIDI channel volume control, and note velocity in GPO:

1. Navigate to Composer's Graph Palette:

   

   OR

   Click the Graph Editing button in the main toolbar.

   OR

   Type Shift + G.

2. In the Graph Palette, click the MIDI Controller button.

   You will be presented with Select Type of Controller dialog box.

3. In the Select Type of Controller dialog box, choose the Mod Wheel controller (#1), and click OK.

   For each staff, Composer will draw a graph of the Mod Wheel controller on top of the notes:

   

4. Move the mouse over the graph. In the status bar of Composer's window, you can see what the Mod Wheel value is for at any measure/beat location in the staff (track):

   

5. Play the first four measures of the piece.

   You'll hear a crescendo in the first two measures as well as the second two measures, even though measures 3 and 4 have a constant Mod Wheel value. The reason you also hear a crescendo in measures 3 and 4 is that in these measures, the MIDI channel volume level increases. The difference between the two different methods of implementing the crescendo is somewhat subtle, but listen closely. The Mod Wheel crescendo sounds like the trumpet musician is blowing increasingly louder, creating an increasingly sharper sound. In contrast, the Channel Volume crescendo in measures 3 and 4 sounds like the sound engineer is increasingly turning up the microphone on the trumpet.

   Let's take a look at the Channel Volume graph in measures 3 and 4.

6. In the Graph Palette, click the Channel Volume button, and see:

   

7. Optionally, use the drawing tools in the Graph Palette to change the Channel Volume values in these two measures, and then re-play the measures to hear the results. Or, click the MIDI Controller button, and edit the Mod Wheel graph, and then hear the results.

8. Turn off the graph by toggling off the Graph Editing button.

   View the MIDI note velocities by clicking the Note Velocity button.

   OR

   Type Shift + V.

   Composer will display note velocity vectors (lines) pointed diagonally from each notehead. The length of the note velocity vector is proportional to the note velocity value, 1 through 127.

9. Move the mouse over various noteheads. As the mouse moves over a notehead, Composer reports its note velocity, as illustrated here:

   

   Notice in this example that the accented notes have been assigned higher MIDI note velocities.

10. Play the first few measures, and hear how the notes with the higher MIDI note velocities sound louder. But also, these trumpet notes sound sharper. The trumpet notes with a higher MIDI note velocity have the correct realistic sound of a sudden burst of air-- a sudden, sharp, loud attack.

11. Drag the mouse over all of the notes in the first measure for the trumpet part.

    Composer reports in the status bar a statistical summary of the note velocities for the selected notes:

    

12. Optionally, select one or more notes. Then in the Note menu, look at the various options for editing MIDI not velocities in the Note / Loudness submenu:

    

    It would be awkward for you to try to edit the note velocities using menu commands. But observe how you can use the Note / Loudness submenu to learn the keyboard shortcuts. Don't worry if you don't remember the shortcuts the next day; you can come back to the Note menu and quickly refresh your memory.

    These MIDI note velocity editing keyboard shortcuts make sense. For example, after selecting one or more notes, type L + Up Arrow to increase the loudness of the notes.

    You can make a crescendo across the selected notes by typing C + Up Arrow. The crescendo will still preserve the relative loudness of the notes. For example, if one note in the middle of the selected notes has a higher MIDI note velocity, then after the new note velocity crescendo is applied, that note will still have a relatively higher MIDI note velocity, compared to that of adjacent notes in the crescendo. This preserves the natural feel of the recorded MIDI performance.

The above steps illustrate the differences between the effects of MIDI Mod Wheel, Channel Volume, and Note Velocity. Each GPO instrument has a certain personality that responds differently to these three MIDI parameters, but generally adheres to the guidelines described at the beginning of this subsection. It's especially important to keep in mind that MIDI note velocities particularly affect the attack sound of notes, while the Mod Wheel controls the loudness of the note over its duration. Both note velocity and the Mod Wheel affect note loudness, but in different ways.

Also, it is important to understand how note velocity and note duration interact to produce various types of note articulations on a given GPO instrument. This will be explored in the next sub-section.

Note Timing and Duration

Composer offers a graphical method for editing the timing and duration of notes, based on the concept of Piano Roll Notation. It is called Piano Roll Notation, because it looks quite similar to piano rolls that were used in mechanical player pianos that were popular in the early 1900's. Each rectangle in the above diagram is like a hole in a piano roll. As the piano roll is scrolled during the performance, the player piano plays a key on the piano when it detects the start of the hole, and releases the key when it detects the end of the hole.

Composer integrates Piano Roll Notation with music notation by overlaying the Piano Roll Notation on top of notes in the score, as illustrated here:

To view and edit the MIDI timing of notes:

1. Click the Piano Roll Notation button in the main toolbar.

   Composer will display the Piano Roll Notation, such as illustrated above.

2. Select one or more notes.

   Notice that for each selected note, both the notehead and the rectangle are highlighted in blue. Also, notice that the status bar displays a summary of the as-performed (MIDI) timing of the notes relative to the as-notated location and duration of the notes.

   

   In the above example, all of the notes are played exactly on the beat, but the as-performed durations of the notes vary relative to the as-notated eighth note durations. The first two eighth notes are played longer than a full eighth note duration, to create a legato that connects the notes of the short phrase; whereas the last note is shorter than the full eighth note duration, thus ending the phrase with a breath.

   Once you have selected notes, you can edit the timing of the notes in many ways:

   • Change the as-performed (MIDI) timing of the note without changing the as-notated location or duration.
   • Conversely, change the as-notated location or duration of the note, without changing the as-performed (MIDI) timing.
   • Change both the as-performed (MIDI) timing and as-notated location and duration at the same time.
   • Lock the as-performed (MIDI) timing of the note so that when you are not viewing Piano Roll Notation, any changes to the location or duration of the note will affect only its notation, and not the as-performed (MIDI) timing.
   • Move the attack (starting location) of the note to the right or left.
   • Move the release (ending location) of the note to the right or left.
   • Shift both the attack and release together to the right or left.
   • Snap the as-performed (MIDI) timing of the note to the as-notated timing, for the attack, the release, or both.

3. Learn which buttons in the Piano Roll Palette perform each of the above tasks by hovering the mouse over the buttons to see the button tip, as illustrated here:

   

4. Experiment with selecting notes, and changing their as-performed attack and releases. Play the piece to hear the results of your editing.

5. Review carefully the piano notes in measure 7 (ignoring for now how the trill is done). It is a little tricky to get a short, fairly soft piano staccato note. It requires adjusting three MIDI parameters for the note: (1) the note duration, (2) the note velocity, and (3) the channel volume controller #7.

   

   There might be other ways to accomplish a soft piano staccato note in GPO, but I'm not aware of other techniques; let me know if there are, and I'll mention them here. Regardless, the above example provides a good illustration of the interplay between these three MIDI parameters.

Sustain Pedal

The MIDI sustain pedal controller is used in GPO not only to sustain piano notes but also to achieve legato in other instruments, such as string instruments.

To view and edit the sustain pedal:

1. Navigate to Composer's Graph Palette, by clicking the Graph Editing button in the main toolbar, or by typing Shift + G.

2. In the Graph Palette, click the Sustain Pedal button.

   Composer will display the graph of the Sustain Pedal controller. The Sustain Pedal controller has only two values for "up" and "down", as illustrated in the piano part:

   

   Both of the piano right-hand and left-hand staves are assigned to the same GPO Player 1, channel 2. Therefore, the sustain pedal graph need be, and should be, added only in one of the two staves (tracks). The sustain pedal carries over both the right and left hands.

3. Play the above portion of the piece to hear the difference between the GPO Steinway piano notes played with and without the sustain pedal.

4. Note that the notated pedal mark (Ped ... *) is graphical only. It is not "intelligent". However, if you have first added the Ped ... * mark, you can use the Create Pedal Performance command in the Pedal menu to quickly create the MIDI sustain pedal performance that matches the pedal symbol.

   Or, conversely, if you had already recorded or manually entered the MIDI sustain pedal, you can use the Convert Pedal Performance to Pedal Marks command in the Pedal menu to quickly create the pedal symbols.

Back to the top
 

Using GPO Keyswitch (KS) Instruments

For many types of instruments, GPO offers a variety of methods of playing those instruments. The classic example is a violin bowed string versus pizzicato. You can individually load the different types of violin sounds in separate slots in a GPO Player. You can alternatively load them all in a single GPO Player slot as a single keyswitch (KS) instrument. GPO keyswitch instruments always have the letters "KS" in the name, such as "Vlns 1 KS Combo".

For a keyswitch GPO instrument, a range of pitches are reserved to serve as triggers for selecting among the available sounds for that instrument. These pitches are outside (above or below) the range of pitches that the instrument is capable of playing.

When you record live using a GPO keyswitch instrument, you can play one of the KS pitches on your MIDI keyboard to change the sound, such as from bowed violin to pizzicato. When you play back the violin part, the record KS switch will have the same effect of switching the type of instrument sound.

In Composer, it is a good idea to set up a second staff (track) which only purpose is to play the KS pitches during playback. This staff should be assigned to the same GPO Player and MIDI channel as that of the staff that has the actually heard notes for the GPO KS instrument. You could include the KS notes in the same staff as the actually heard notes, but the KS notes will be distracting when you print the score. When you print the score, you can hide the KS staff, using the Staff / Staff Setup command (or Track / Track Setup command in versions of Composer prior to version 1.1).

To learn and hear which keyswitches produce what sounds for a given GPO KS instrument:

1. Load the KS instrument if it is not already loaded; or click its name in the window for the GPO Player (1 through 8) in which the instrument is loaded.

   In the virtual keyboard for the loaded KS instrument, the keys for the actually heard notes are blue, and the keyswitch KS keys are brown, as illustrated in the next screen shot.

2. Click the mouse on one of the brown keys to try out a particular sound for the instrument.

3. Click some of the blue keys to hear the selected sound for the instrument.

   OR

   Instead of steps #2 and #3, if you are at a MIDI keyboard, play the same notes as those in the GPO / Kontakt Player virtual keyboard. Note that the octave offset (+3 octaves in this example) indicates how many octaves are added to the bottom note on the virtual keyboard to represent the MIDI pitch. MIDI pitch 60 is middle-C, or C5 (5 octaves above the lowest possible MIDI note). If the offset is +3 octaves, then the lowest note on the virtual keyboard is C3, which is the C two octaves below middle-C (C5).

To see and hear how GPO keyswitches work in a score:

1. If the Violin KS staff is hidden in MidiNotateComposerGPOTechniques.not, then unhide it using the Staff / Staff Setup (or Track / Track Setup) command.

2. Notice in the Violin KS staff that certain pitches are used to trigger these violin sounds: a whole note trill, short bow, and pizzicato.

   The following diagram shows how the KS pitches in the score relate to the KS keys in the Kontakt Player virtual keyboard.

   

3. Play the above portions of the example.

   It might surprise you that the single G note in the score sounds like a trill. The "tr" symbol is just a graphical symbol that has been added using the Symbol Palette in Composer. This "tr" is not an intelligent trill, such as can be added using the Ornament Palette, and such as is illustrated in the piano (not violin) trill in this example. The GPO violin trill was recorded from a violin string selection actually playing the trill.

Back to the top
 

Using GPO Ornaments and Composer Ornaments

The last example shows how some GPO instruments can play ornaments, such as a trill on the violin. Other examples of ornaments available in GPO instruments are:

• half note and full note trills on string section instruments-- violins, violas, and cellos
• tremolos on string section instruments
• rolls on various percussion instruments
• Other types of ornaments can be either manually entered in Composer, or automatically transcribed from an imported MIDI file or a recorded MIDI performance. These ornaments are "intelligent". Underlying the ornament notation are the actual written-out notes, exactly as originally recorded. You can use piano roll notation to edit the exact MIDI timing of the notes, "underneath" the ornament notation.

The MidiNotateComposerGPOTechniques.not includes an example of an intelligent Composer ornament: the piano trill in measure 9.

To view and edit the as-performed (MIDI) performance of an intelligent Composer ornament:

1. Navigate to the Ornament Palette, or type Shift + O.

2. Toggle off the Show Ornament button in the Ornament Palette, so that the written-out notes are displayed instead:

   

3. Toggle on the Piano Roll Notation button in the main toolbar, to see the piano roll rectangles for the written-out trills notes. Use the Zoom-In option if you need to see the rectangles more closely.

   

4. Follow the procedures described earlier for editing the piano roll note to change the as-performed timing of the trill.

5. You also change the rhythm of the trill such as from 32nd notes to 16th triplets. Or you can accelerate the trill, starting with, say, 16th notes, then 16th triplets, and ending in 32nd notes. To do this, toggle on the Show Ornament button, so that ornament symbols are displayed instead of the written-out ornament notes. Then record or manually enter the written-out notes of the ornament, such as these notes of an accelerated trill:

   

   Select all of the notes. Then in the Note menu, Convert Notes to Ornaments submenu, choose the Trill option, or type "tr". The written-out trill is now displayed as a notate trill:

   

Back to the top
 

Recording GPO Instruments in Composer

Given that GPO instruments have low latency (time delay between hitting a note and hearing it), you can successfully record GPO instruments in Composer in real time. If you have keyboard skills, this is an ideal way not only to add notes in the written score but also to add expression to the GPO performance. With some practice, you will find that your keyboard skills will magically transform into string, brass, woodwind, or percussion playing skills. You will forget that you're playing a keyboard and will begin to think and play like a string, brass, woodwind or percussion musician.

The expression that you can achieve with your keyboard relies primarily on these performance details:

• How softly or loudly you play a note, that is, its MIDI note velocity.
• How long you hold the note, that is, the duration of the note.
• How you use the Mod Wheel to control the loudness of the note throughout its duration, and control the phrasing of series of notes.
• How you use the sustain pedal to achieve certain effects on some GPO instruments.

If your keyboard skills are less advanced that are needed to accomplish all of the above in real time, then there are ways that you can compensate, and still create convincing performances on the various types of GPO instruments. The main trick here is to not try to do everything at once in a single recording in real time. Here are some specific tips:

• Slow down the tempo, but not too much. As much as possible, try to play at the intended tempo, even if you make a lot of mistakes in pitches and rhythms. It might be counter-intuitive to you at first that you should not attempt to reduce the tempo too much. But you will find that it is much easier to fix wrong notes and rhythms than it is to refine the articulation of each note, which will come naturally to you as you learn to play particular GPO instruments on your keyboard. Once you have recorded a passage, it is a lot easier to come back and edit pitches, for example, than it is to edit individual MIDI note velocities.
• Also, it is important to understand that notes on some GPO instruments will sound different once you speed up the tempo. For example, suppose you want to record a passage of very quick notes, but you record them at a much reduced tempo. Your ears will tell your fingers to play the notes with short, disconnected durations, because your ears know that these notes will be short, even if not disconnected, when played at normal tempo. However, if you record the notes this way at a much reduced tempo, and then edit the tempo to be much quicker, you might be disappointed to hear choppy notes. You might even hear that the notes do not have a chance to complete their natural sound envelope, so that the end of notes are chopped short. If this happens, though, you can still fix the problem fairly easily in Composer using Piano Roll Notation commands, such as Snap As-Performed to As-Notated, or Shift As-Performed Release (to right).
• If you fingers and mind are too busy with the notes to manipulate the Mod Wheel and/or sustain pedal during a first recording pass, then postpone that for a second recording pass. You can "punch-in" the Mod Wheel and sustain pedal "on top" of the previously recorded notes. This technique is explained later in this tutorial section.
• Do multiple "takes" of a passage, and choose the best one. Don't feel like your first take has to be perfect. Relax. Then your first take might indeed be the best.
• If part of a "take" is good, and part of it is not, then consider re-recording just the part you want to try again, by using Composer's punch-in recording feature, described later in this section.

To prepare for recording a GPO instrument:

1. In GPO Studio, load one of the GPO players with the instrument you want to use, as described earlier in this tutorial.
2. In Composer, use the Add Staff (Track) command in the Staff (Track) menu to create a new staff.
3. In the Staff Setup dialog box, set the device to the GPO Player loaded in step #1.
4. In the Staff Setup dialog box, set the channel (1 to 8) to correspond to the one of the 8 slot positions in which the instrument was loaded in the GPO Player. For more information about the GPO Player slots and channels, see this section of this tutorial: Assigning GPO Instruments to Staves in Notation Composer.

5. If this is the first recording for the song, then set the tempo by clicking the tempo button in the main toolbar:

   

   Composer will then present you with a Tempo Setup dialog box in which you can specify the tempo.

   If this is the first recording for a new section of a song, and that section needs a different tempo, then first select the region by holding down the Ctrl key and dragging over that region. Then click the tempo button, as above.

   After recording a section of the song, you can use Composer's graphic editing tools to change the tempo, for example, to add a fermata or accelerando. For more information, see the Editing the Tempo section of this tutorial.

6. Right-click the Metronome button in the main toolbar. You will be presented with the Metronome Setup dialog box.

7. In the Metronome Setup dialog box, choose either the Use Computer Beep Sound option or the Use MIDI Device option. If you choose the Use MIDI Device Option, then make sure you choose a MIDI device that does not have latency (delay). Do not choose Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth for this reason.

   If desired, you can load a GPO percussion instrument and available sounds for strong and weak beats of the metronome.

8. If during the recording session you want to hear the accompaniment of previously recorded instruments, then just make sure that the staves for those instruments are not muted in Composer.

To start and end a recording:

1. To start a fresh recording in a staff, select the entire track. There are some different ways to do that. For example, use the View / View Track Controls to show the track controls, and click the Select Track button.

2. To record or re-record a range of measures and beats, that is, to "punch in" a recording, without disrupting any notes outside of the range, hold down the Ctrl key while dragging the mouse over the desired range. If you happen to play notes before or after the punch-in region, they will be ignored.

   

3. Use the Perform / Pickup Beats command to determine how many measures of pickup beats will be played before the beginning of the newly recorded section. If you have selected a punch-in region, then the number of Pickup Beats will determine how many lead-in measures and beats you will hear before you will start playing the to-be-recorded notes at your keyboard.

4. Begin recording by clicking the Record button.

   OR

   Remotely start recording by playing a special two-key pitch combination at your MIDI keyboard. See the Set Up Pitch to Command option in Composer's Setup menu; and read the dialog help for more information about this remote control feature.

5. While listening to the metronome, at your MIDI keyboard, play the notes you intend to record. If the selected region for the recording ends at the old end of the song, and you continue to record, Composer will automatically add more measures. As you record notes, Composer will temporarily display piano roll notation, such as this:

   

6. End the recording by clicking the Record button again, or by toggling off the Playback button, or by hitting the Stop Playback button.

   Composer will then immediately transcribe your MIDI recording to notation, such as the following for the above example:

   

If you are not happy with how Composer transcribed the rhythms, try using the Re-Transcribe command in the Staff (Track) menu, and choose among various options that control how the rhythm transcription is done.

To do multiple recording takes:

You can record multiple "takes" by simply recording again for the same selected region. Composer will keep in its Undo history your previous recording "takes". After you have recorded a second take, you can go back to the previous by using the Edit / Undo command. And from there you can go back to your most recent take by using the Edit / Redo command. Beware, however, that when you use the Undo command, if you make other editing changes, then more recent commands (such as more recent recording takes) will be lost.

For extra precaution, you might want to use Composer's clipboard to copy and paste a recording take to another track, and save the work file, before doing another recording take.

To punch in Mod Wheel or Sustain Pedal "on top" of previously recorded notes :

1. Add a second, temporary track, and assign it to the same GPO Player and MIDI channel as that of the track with the previously recorded notes.
2. Select the temporary track for recording, and begin recording.
3. As you hear the notes being played, use the Mod Wheel or Sustain Pedal controller to influence the sound. You will hear the effects in real time. And the effect will be heard exactly the same when you later play back the passage.
4. Navigate to the Graph Palette, or click the Graph button in the main toolbar, or type Shift + G.
5. In the Graph Palette, click the MIDI Controller Data button to view the Mod Wheel data, or the Sustain Pedal button to view the sustain pedal data.
6. While holding down the Ctrl key, drag the mouse over the graph of the Mod Wheel or Sustain Pedal data in the temporary second track.
7. Copy the graph to the clipboard by typing Ctrl + C.
8. While holding down the Ctrl key, drag the mouse over the same range of measures and beats in the first track with the notes.

9. Paste the Mod Wheel or Sustain Pedal data to the first track with the notes, by typing Ctrl + V.

   

10. Delete the temporary second staff when you no longer need it for punch-in recording of Mod Wheel or Sustain Pedal.

Back to the top
 

Editing the Tempo

Composer requires that you record while listening to a metronome. For a new song, the metronome will play a constant tempo as you record. This limits the important dimension of tempo in your recording. You can add tempo expression to this by manually editing the tempo after the recording.

For example, in Composer open the George Gershwin RhapsodyInBlue.not example in the \Program Files\MidiNotate\Songs directory. Type Shift + G to go to the Graph Palette, and type "t" or click the tempo button in the Graph Palette. Composer will show the graph of the tempo:

You can edit the tempo of the piece using the drawing tools in the Graph Palette, in the same way that you previously saw how you can use these drawing tools to edit the Mod Wheel.
 

Playing a GPO Instrument Live at Your MIDI Keyboard

The previous section described how you can record a GPO instrument live at your MIDI keyboard. You also can play a GPO instrument live at your keyboard while Composer plays the accompaniment of other GPO instruments, without having to record.

To play a GPO instrument live at your MIDI keyboard with or without accompaniment:

1. Open the .not file that has the accompaniment you want to play along with.
2. In GPO Studio, load the .gpo file that has the GPO instruments used by the above .not file.
3. Add a staff (track), and assign it to the GPO Player and channel you want to use for play-along.
4. If the staff (track) controls are not already displayed, choose the Show Staff Controls command in the View menu.

5. Among the staff controls, double-click the Solo button. It will turn red:

   This selects the instrument of that staff as the play-along sound.

   Note, as an alternative to steps #4 and #5, you can use the Set Play-Along Sound command in the Perform menu.

6. Begin playback by clicking the Playback button. The notes you play at the MIDI keyboard will use the above selected GPO instrument, with accompaniment from the other staves in the song.

   OR

   You do not have to play with the accompaniment of the song. Without starting playback, you can just play at your keyboard, and you will hear the GPO instrument sounds.

Back to the top

Special thanks to Sherry Crann, the first Notation Composer / GPO user, who helped me prepare this tutorial