- Choose Window >
Advanced Tools. Click the MIDI
Tool
. The MIDI tool menu appears.
- Choose MIDI tool > Key Velocities, if it’s not already selected.
- Select the region whose playback data you want
to affect. Click to select one measure, SHIFT+click to select additional
measures, drag-enclose to select several on-screen measures, click to
the left of the staff to select the entire staff, or choose Select All
from the Edit menu.
- If the selected region is only on one staff,
double-click the highlighted area. You enter the MIDI tool split-window. At the bottom of the window
you see the music on the staff you selected. Above each note is a thin
vertical line; in essence, these lines are a bar graph of the key velocities
of the displayed notes. Click the up, down, left, and right arrow buttons
to move through the score.
While in the MIDI tool split-window,
you have note-by-note editing powers for the displayed notes. To select
the notes whose velocities you want to edit, drag through the graph area
of the window, highlighting it; the handles of all displayed notes are
selected. You can also click an individual note’s handle, or SHIFT-click
additional handles, or drag-enclose groups of handles—or even shift–drag-enclose
additional groups.
- Choose the appropriate command from the MIDI
Tool menu.Set To gives
all selected notes a velocity value you specify. Scale
creates a smooth gradation from one value to another (ideal for
crescendo effects). Add alters
every selected note’s velocity by a value you specify. Percent
Alter alters a note’s velocity by a percentage of its current value.
Limit lets you specify a maximum
and minimum velocity value for the selected notes. Alter
Feel gives you selective control over downbeats, offbeats, and
backbeats, letting you alter each by an absolute or percentage of current
value (ideal for “boosting the backbeat”—in other words, making the backbeats
louder). Randomize changes the
selected notes’ velocities by a random amount, to the degree you specify
(ideal for giving a more human “feel” to the piece).
- If you have the MIDI tool split-window open, and want to hear the effects of
your work along the way, choose MIDI tool > Play. It’s
important to understand that you’re editing the performance data of the
selected music. Performance data is a set of velocity (and Start and
Stop Time) playback information that Finale associates with each note
in the score. At any point, you can hear your music played strictly as
it appears in the score, or you can hear it played using the captured
MIDI data (choose Document > Playback/Record Options).
If the music you’re editing was from a performance
in HyperScribe, and selected Retain Key Velocities in the Quantization
Settings dialog box (or if you clicked Save Key Velocities before transcribing
in Transcription More), in the MIDI tool you’d see (and be able to edit)
the actual key velocities of the notes as you originally played them.
- When you’re finished, close the MIDI tool split-window.
In order to hear the changes you made, choose Window > Playback Controls. Click the expand arrow, and then Playback/Record Options. Make sure
Play Recorded Key Velocities is selected. If it is, you’ll hear the score
played back using the performance data—in other words, you’ll hear the
effects of your velocity editing whenever you play back your score.
