Finale Human Playback Tutorial

Human Playback Tutorial
by Robert Piéchaud

Human Playback and GPO perform well together. Scoring in a notation program can be very mechanical and often lacks the feeling, phrasing and nuance of music that is performed. With Human Playback, an advanced set of algoriths enhances and "humanizes" the playback of notation files

Previously GPO users could not fully take advantage of Human Playback, a set of algorithms that dramatically enhance the playback of Finale notation files (see http://www.finalemusic.com/finale/features/ftr-human-playback.asp). With version 2005, Human Playback is now GPO compatible.

Specific GPO options are Finale Program Preferences found in the new Human Playback Preferences dialog box (part of Playback Controls):

Here is a description of these options:

Optimize for Garritan Personal Orchestra. This activates the subgroup of GPO options below.

Use Modulation Wheel for Volume. GPO uses a non-standard and original approach for dynamic variations on sustained instruments. Instead of Velocity, the Modulation controller rules the general dynamic is on these instruments (note that Velocity still is used for keyboards and percussions), while Velocity is used for the note attack. Volume still can be used for balancing instruments within the orchestra. In Finale, dynamic markings are generally Velocity-based (for example, pp is Velocity 36), and when this box is checked, Human Playback converts dynamic information into Modulation automatically; Velocity-based dynamics can also be combined with Modulation-based dynamics smoothly.

Smooth Velocities
This checkbox enhances the result on sustained instruments using Modulation: HP smoothes the Velocity information to avoid attack inconsistency.

Attack Base Value.
This is the mean attack value used sent by Human Playback to GPO.

On top of these GPO options, other HP useful preferences can be used to finetune the playback in Finale 2005, using Human Playback:

HP can now incorporate existing MIDI data instead of just ignoring them. It covers Volume (and Modulation when Use Modulation Wheel for Volume is checked), Velocity, Start and Stop time and Tempos. HP has 3 modes: Ignore (as in Finale 2004), Incorporate (using interpolation algorithms) and No HP Effect (then, priority to user data).

Another important improvement is the possiblity to use the new Apply Human Playback plug-in to actually write HP data in the file as MIDI data. Remember that HP is a playback pre-process that creates virtual data (trill notes, volume changes, panoramic, etc) and doesn’t actually write these data in the file, unless you export your score as a MIDI file or a mp3 file. The new plug-in fills this gap.

Thanks to Robert Piéchaud for providing this tutorial.