Changing channels/manuals in Finale

I'm using Finale (26.3, Mac OS 10.15.7) to run Hauptwerk 5. I can set one staff to Swell and one to Great with no problem. The problem is in putting both hands back on one manual. I can use the set channel routine successfully with Garritan and other instruments, so this doesn't seem to be on Finale's end. But when I set channel 3 to 2, or 2 to 3, I get a change....to silence on that stave. What am I missing/doing wrong? I've been beating my head against both (print) manuals, to no avail.

[mdyde]

Hello Jeffrey,

I don't have experience myself with Finale, but in case it helps you could potentially see what MIDI messages Finale is actually sending to Hauptwerk, and what virtual Hauptwerk controls (virtual keyboards, etc.) those messages are triggering, by temporarily turning on the 'Log all MIDI messages ...' option on the 'General settings | General preferences | Advanced ...' screen tab, playing the piece from Finale (or, probably better for ease of testing, a minimal test piece) then looking in the activity log ('Help | View activity log') in Hauptwerk.

There will be a lot of entries logged, so the less events your Finale test piece contains the easier it will be see the wood for the trees (so to speak). E.g. make a clean test Finale piece with just a single note (e.g. middle C) on a single stave, then a switch of MIDI channel for the stave, then just one more note on that stave. Likewise, avoid touching anything else in Hauptwerk while conducting the test, so as to minimise the amount of events that get logged.

You should also see the relevant virtual keys play (e.g. the two middle Cs) on the relevant virtual keyboards on the screen in Hauptwerk if it's working as you want it to.

Thank you! I was hoping something like this existed, I really felt like I was shooting in the dark.

Last night I was setting up floating divisions, as the manual suggests. (I'd seen it as a suggestion rather than a requirement; if in fact it's a requirement, perhaps the language could be firmer.) I saw how that could solve it, but it broke all my piston and swell pedal links, and it was late enough that I never figured out how to link the alternation between the 2 division sets in the floaters.

I woke up at 3:30AM (Ugh!), and realized how I could solve my problem: since I was working from a use score and didn't care what it looked like, I slapped another grand staff in, put all the music for the Great in one and that for the Swell in another, set their respective channels, and had the part recorded by 5:30, solving my immediate problem. But I have similar projects coming up, and this tool could help me master all the possibilities.

[mdyde]

Thanks, Jeffrey.

The only reason to use floating divisions would be as a work-around if your notation software has no means to be able to change the MIDI channel a staff transmits part way through the piece. If you can get Finale to change a staff's MIDI channel mid-piece then that would be ideal (simpler).

Jeffrey,

I am a power user of both Finale and Hauptwerk - however, not at the same time! I do not typically use Finale as a sound source within Finale. However, I DO create Finale scores where I want to change the audio source in each line during a piece.

I do this by using layers in Finale. As an example, if I want write line in a score for a reed player who doubles on Alto Sax and Flute, I can use one layer for the sax and one for the flute. When you print the music, it all looks the same. However, when you play it in finale, you can assign different audio sources to each layer.

You could, perhaps, do your manual changes in this way.

Les

Oops! I meant to say I don't typically use Hauptwerk as a sound source in Finale!

Hi Les,
I tried doing what you suggested, and for some reason it didn't work. I've not found a way to get HW to accept Finale channel change messages, and this may be related: that if you have Layer 1 set to Channel 2 and Layer 2 set to channel 3, on a staff set to channel 2, it doesn't get heard. Similarly, I don't seem to be able to control Swell pistons from channel 2 (fortunately, there are the Master Generals). This one piece was the one case where I HAD to do a channel change. In most cases, if one wants to play the Swell from the Great, one just sets up Swell-to-Great (and nothing else) on the master generals (or vice-versa, if the organ has that).