# Finale no match between exported audio and midi



## Rob (Oct 14, 2019)

This thing is driving me crazy... I need to export audio and midi for later editing in cubase, but I can’t get a matching midi/audio file... human playback is doing something under the hood and unfortunately I need HP to be on. Tried in Dorico which has perfect midi/audio alignment but it misses strings harmonics, also necessary. Any advice very welcome, thank you!


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## JT (Oct 14, 2019)

I assume you have a recent version of Finale. I would try this on a copy of your score, just in case it does something weird.

Highlight your entire document, go to the Midi tool menu, at the bottom is "Apply Human Playback". Choose that. It should write to midi all if the things it does while interpreting your notation markings. AFter this is complete, try exporting this file again to midi, see if things sync better.

In older versions of Finale, this option is in the plugin menu.

Good luck.


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## Rob (Oct 14, 2019)

thank you JT, going to try right now


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## Rob (Oct 14, 2019)

nada... the exported midi still is different than the audio. Furthermore, tempo is completely messed up with non existent rall. and rit. Gonna give up


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## JJP (Oct 14, 2019)

Human playback adds tempo variations by default. I believe there is an option to turn this feature off somewhere within the human playback settings or preferences.


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## Rob (Oct 14, 2019)

but shouldn't the midi reflect the audio tempo changes anyway?
I have all tempo variation fields in HP preferences unchecked btw


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## mducharme (Oct 14, 2019)

You can get string harmonics to play back in Dorico by adding a hidden playing technique to the notes to trigger the harmonic sound.


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## Rob (Oct 14, 2019)

mducharme said:


> You can get string harmonics to play back in Dorico by adding a hidden playing technique to the notes to trigger the harmonic sound.


just tried that, I have created playing techniques for m3, M3, 4, 5, 8 harmonics. Thing is, they sometimes playback, sometimes no... I'm disappointed. If I can't get Finale to do it my last chance will be Sibelius.


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## mducharme (Oct 14, 2019)

Hi Rob,

In my experience the harmonics in Dorico play back pretty consistently if the playing techniques are set up properly. One thing though that you can run into is combinations of articulations - for instance, a harmonic with a slur or a harmonic with a tenuto or something like that. You have to define the articulation combinations as well (ex. Legato+Harmonic), otherwise with the slur and harmonic, the legato settings will override the harmonic settings and the harmonic will not be triggered.


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## mducharme (Oct 14, 2019)

For playback of touch 4th artificial harmonics I had to add the two circled in red above. If I didn't add the "artificial harmonic + Legato" then the notes under the slurs would not play back as harmonics.

To add other harmonics you may have to use a technique that you would never use with strings (ex. "mouth wide open" or something like that) and use that playing technique to trigger the Major 3 harmonic, "mouth closed" for the P5 etc.


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## Rob (Oct 14, 2019)

but can't you create as many techniques as you want? Why use an existing and alien one?
thank you for explaining why one has to write pairs of techniques, I didn't know that


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## mducharme (Oct 14, 2019)

When it comes to triggering playback, there is a big list of predefined playback techniques in the software. There is no easy way of adding your own, you have to choose one of the existing ones, but the list of options is quite large. However there are only two Natural Harmonic playback techniques ("Natural Harmonic 1" and "Natural Harmonic 2") and only one Artificial Harmonic playback technique ("Artificial Harmonic") and since you can't add to the list you have to choose some other playback technique you would never use to sort of stand-in as a "Natural Harmonic 3" or "Artificial Harmonic 2" etc. since those are not options in the list.

You have to do similar things in Dorico if you use an instrument that it doesn't have in the lists - ex. pick another instrument as a "stand-in" for the one you want.


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## mducharme (Oct 14, 2019)

For further clarification if you see above under the definition for the "Artificial Harmonic" playing technique I have "transpose" set to 24 to send it up 2 octaves (that is for the touch 4th artificial). With different intervals you would need additional ones.

Whether you need those with natural harmonics or not really depends on your notation - whether you are writing the actual audible pitch with a circle above or using just a single diamond notehead. If you are writing the audible pitch you can re-use an existing technique since you don't have to transpose the written note. Using the diamond of course is different since the transposition will differ depending on the interval formed with the open string, and that is where you need to use weird things like "mouth wide open" etc. You also don't have to worry about that printing out on the score since the playback technique names are separate from the playing technique text displayed in the score. Although it could be amusing to see a violin section suddenly open their mouths.


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## Rob (Oct 14, 2019)

don't know if this is standard practice, but here's where I create new techniques:




in "Engrave", playback techniques


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## Rob (Oct 14, 2019)

and here are the NP expression maps


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## mducharme (Oct 14, 2019)

Yes that's correct. You showed me something new in the program actually, I never hit the "edit" button beside the list of playback playing techniques in the "Edit Playing Techniques" window and so I didn't realize you could add new playback playing techniques. I thought the list was fixed before. That is much better than having to use mouth open etc.


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## Rob (Oct 14, 2019)

actually, you add new techniques in Engrave mode, Playback tech. hitting the "plus" sign...


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## mducharme (Oct 14, 2019)

Rob said:


> actually, you add new techniques in Engrave mode, Playback tech. hitting the "plus" sign...


Yes, that's for playing techniques, I'm talking about playback playing techniques. I don't see a special option for playback playing techniques in engrave mode, only the Playing Techniques option.


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## mducharme (Oct 14, 2019)

BTW In write mode there are buttons that let you add the playing technique right there:


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## Rob (Oct 14, 2019)

yes...
anyway, I found a semi-fix for my issue, recording tap tempo in Finale. 
It's not really a fix, as I'm working on a 2 hours ballet for orchestra and it's not realistic to tap all those measures...  but for the time being...


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## foxby (Oct 14, 2019)

Hi Rob,
Have you tried modifying some settings from this menu?


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## Wallander (Oct 14, 2019)

For reference, the switch that NotePerformer maps for harmonics playback is triggered by the plain circle accent from Dorico 2.

The new method for harmonics, introduced with Dorico 3, have no mappable switches for playback at this stage. Functionality for playback will be added in a future Dorico release, but for the time being it’s a visual feature only.


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## Rob (Oct 15, 2019)

foxby said:


> Hi Rob,
> Have you tried modifying some settings from this menu?


Thanks Foxby, I tried every conceivable settings


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## Rowy (Oct 16, 2019)

Rob said:


> but shouldn't the midi reflect the audio tempo changes anyway?
> I have all tempo variation fields in HP preferences unchecked btw



I don't know what is happening with your tempo, but I have exported dozens of scores in Finale to midi and the tempo is no problem. Except for the last measure. Sometimes the midi doesn't pick up the last tempo variation. I always add an extra empty measure.


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## Rob (Oct 16, 2019)

Rowy said:


> I don't know what is happening with your tempo, but I have exported dozens of scores in Finale to midi and the tempo is no problem. Except for the last measure. Sometimes the midi doesn't pick up the last tempo variation. I always add an extra empty measure.


but have you also exported the audio from the same files and checked in the DAW if audio and midi were aligned? Because that's where I'm in trouble...


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## foxby (Oct 17, 2019)

I did what Rob suggested , and yes, unfortunately Finale is doing something under the hood regarding the tempo.....couldn't get good results also ! :(


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## Rob (Oct 17, 2019)

foxby said:


> I did what Rob suggested , and yes, unfortunately Finale is doing something under the hood regarding the tempo.....couldn't get good results also ! :(


I feel some comfort knowing I'm not alone


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## foxby (Oct 18, 2019)

Sad though.....users should be able to modify whatever and how they want...but notation programs still have their caveats !


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## Rowy (Oct 22, 2019)

Rob said:


> but have you also exported the audio from the same files and checked in the DAW if audio and midi were aligned? Because that's where I'm in trouble...



I hardly ever export audio, but in the few cases I did, the audio was correct. It's always better to export the midi and then work on the midi in your DAW.


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## Wallander (Oct 22, 2019)

If you export with NotePerformer, could you please try MIDI or Garritan, just to see if this has anything to do with latency conpensation?

It’s known that audio export with NP is one second late. Due to it, audio can be cut off prematurely at the end, if the music ends without headroom.


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## Rob (Oct 22, 2019)

Wallander said:


> If you export with NotePerformer, could you please try MIDI or Garritan, just to see if this has anything to do with latency conpensation?
> 
> It’s known that audio export with NP is one second late. Due to it, audio can be cut off prematurely at the end, if the music ends without headroom.


Not a latency compensation issue Arne, that’d be easy to fix... timing variations are spread through all the duration of the piece, irregularly. Sudden tempo changes, rallentando etc.


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## Rob (Oct 22, 2019)

Rowy said:


> I hardly ever export audio, but in the few cases I did, the audio was correct. It's always better to export the midi and then work on the midi in your DAW.


I need Noteperformer's audio exported and mixed with midi so working all midi isn't an option... anyway Foxby confermed there's a bug in Finale/human playback


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## Wallander (Oct 22, 2019)

Rob said:


> Not a latency compensation issue Arne, that’d be easy to fix... timing variations are spread through all the duration of the piece, irregularly. Sudden tempo changes, rallentando etc.


You're right, I don't actually think this is the cause. But it's worth a shot, in case there's a more low-level issue, e.g. notes being delayed by one second, but not tempo events.


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## Rob (Oct 22, 2019)

Wallander said:


> You're right, I don't actually think this is the cause. But it's worth a shot, in case there's a more low-level issue, e.g. notes being delayed by one second, but not tempo events.


Ok I'll try that, thank you Arne


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## wcreed51 (Oct 23, 2019)

Using Finale's "tempo map" - Scoring Notes


A tempo map is a MIDI track containing tempo information in beats per minute. Finale generates a tempo map when it parses a track, but its tempo handling won’t behave as you might expect if you’ve worked in a DAW or other notation software. Here are some common problems and solutions.




www.scoringnotes.com


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## Rob (Oct 23, 2019)

wcreed51 said:


> Using Finale's "tempo map" - Scoring Notes
> 
> 
> A tempo map is a MIDI track containing tempo information in beats per minute. Finale generates a tempo map when it parses a track, but its tempo handling won’t behave as you might expect if you’ve worked in a DAW or other notation software. Here are some common problems and solutions.
> ...


Thanks for posting this Bill, might be interesting...


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## Rob (Oct 23, 2019)

Useful indeed... it also confirms the workaround I have found, manually tapping tempo all through the score.


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