We are so
fortunate to live in a world where dreams can come true for a song,
lol!
Garritan
Libraries recently released a wonderful new sound library, called
the Jazz and Big Band Library (often abbreviated JABB, as I will do
here). And yes,it works right out of the box so to speak with the
GPO Studio host application, so it works easily with most (if not
all) notation programs - including the very reasonably priced
Melody Assistant & Harmony Assistant (HA/MA) by Myriad
Software. I thought I would add to my previous tutorial about using
Myriad's notation programs with GPO, only this time with the
wonderful big band sounds of JABB.
I don't want to rehash
the same basic setup info as I have done already in my previous
tutorial, so please see that instead if you haven't yet. It's here:
Using Myriad with
GPO. That first tutorial will show you the steps for setting up
GPO or JABB with Myriad's notation programs the first time.
ABOUT
THE SOFTWARE:
One thing I don't
think I addressed well enough before, is what these software tools
are and how they work together. Briefly, Myriad's Melody Assistant
and its bigger brother (sister?) Harmony Assistant, are full
fledged notation programs. More than that, besides a ton of musical
notation tricks and techniques, they even have digital audio track
ability. In fact, you can even mix MIDI notation, digital audio,
GPO /and/ JABB, all in one composition! This is no simple feat for
a $60 something dollar program. I cannot tell you how much joy
writing with Harmony Assistant has brought me. Like many, my live
playing ability is somewhat lacking (my family would say entirely
missing, lol), so being able to use the notation I learned as a
child to create what I hear in my head (no jokes please! LOL!) is a
dream come true. And don't be misled, Myriad offers a wealth of
beautiful sound libraries itself. Many of my pieces use these
alone.
But some of the songs
I hear inside have those subtle nuances that only a live
performance by an orchestra or jazz band can produce. And as you
probably know, jazz is as much improv as it is composition. So how
could anyone reproduce a live performance? I'm glad you asked! Mr.
Garritan has done that, and much more with Jazz & Big Band.
There are so many nuances you can effect, you will find yourself
adding and twiddling till the codas come home. In addition to the
volume and sustain controllers of GPO, JABB has stunning
controllers like air flow noise, key click and valve noise,
automatic variability, even breath noises! And best of all, these
can ALL be done using the grace note keyswitching and MIDI
controller parameter curves I discuss in my first tutorial, right
inside Harmony or Melody Assistant.
But what are GPO and
JABB? These are actually two apps in one. First, they are
standalone players which you can just run and enjoy, using the
built-in Kontakt Player. Second and more importantly, they are VST
applications, which work inside virtually any MIDI Sequencer
program to add incredible sounds at your command. But ah you say,
my notation program does not work with VST plug ins. Not a problem!
That's why Mr. Garritan offers (free with purchase of GPO or JABB),
a wonderful VST Host application called GPO Studio. This little
application is a true gem. With it, you can run, not one, but
/eight/ instances of GPO and/or JABB. And since each instance can
hold up to 8 instruments, that means you can have a total of 64
incredible Garritan samples at your disposal. And yes, I said GPO
and/or JABB - you can freely use /both/ GPO and JABB inside GPO
Studio, at the same time. And with them, your notation can really
sing!
WHAT'S
NEW:
Almost everything that
pertains to using GPO in my previous tutorial, also applies to
JABB. You simply assign your MIDI outs in MA or HA to one of the
instances of GPO or JABB inside GPO Studio, tell the desired staff
or staves to use those MIDI outs (which conveniently map to an
instance/slot of GPO Studio), and write away. You will be instantly
gratified with gorgeous life-like sounds. As well, you can use the
aforementioned MIDI parameter curves of MA/HA to add note by note
volume expression and much more (as you will see).
But where GPO leaves
off, JABB begins, and it introduces some effects I'm sure you will
love to play with. (In fact, I could probably spend months giddily
playing with the new percussion samples alone!). I will try and
introduce you to a few of the most incredible ones, and hopefully
that will point you in the right direction for the others as
well.
(Btw, if you need a
refresher on setting up a MIDI Parameter Curve, simply click the
little green arrow next to the staff, choose one of the "MIDI
specific a-e" slots, then click the little green arrow again, and
choose "Setup..." , and type in the values I show below, along with
changing the range to 0-127 or 0- 16383 as needed).
VIBRATO
CONTROL:
Notation programs
often lend themselves to some rather flat sounding instruments. But
Jazz is a living, breathing thing. Using JABB inside HA or MA, you
can add that personal touch a human musician might give. In my
sample song for instance, I wanted that Glenn Miller-ish sound of
leading clarinets. And how neat it was to find I could add any
degree of subtle to raucous vibrato, where ever I wanted. Simply
set up a MIDI parameter curve, using the following settings:
Dn ll
Now set up one more
curve, to add variable frequency to that vibrato, like so:
Bn 11 ll
That's all there is to
it. Now simply plot two points at the beginning of your staff at
the value you desire, say 88 for vibrato amount and 40 for
frequency. You will be instantly rewarded with incredibly life-like
nuances of vibrato in your piece.
BREATH
NOISES:
One thing you'll want
to include in your piece, are the proper timings and pauses to
allow your "musicians" time to rejuvenate their lungs, when using
wind instruments. Mr. Garritan even includes this, and believe me a
little subtle use of this goes a long way to creating the
believability you're after. To add these using HA/MA, simply insert
the appropriate notes at the proper times. A variety of breath
noises are included at the top of each of the wind instruments'
ranges, and it is as simple as sticking a note where you want a
breath , and making sure your note's attack and MIDI volume
expression curve are properly adjusted to sound just audible. I was
so taken with this I put it in my sample (I was even tempted to
make an entire song with just breath noises and exotic percussion,
lol).
A HANDY LIST
OF MIDI PARAMETER CURVE SETTINGS FOR JABB:
Got MIDI? I thought it
would be a good idea to provide y'all with a handy-dandy set of all
the possible MIDI parameter curve settings for MA/HA which you
might encounter with JABB. I mean, why should you have to convert
all those controller numbers to hexadecimal in your head and try
and figure out which ranges are which? So, "what the heck" as Cecil
would say, here they are!
CONTROL
|
CURVE
|
RANGE
|
NOTES
|
ModWheel/volume
|
Bn 01 ll
|
0-127
|
Dynamic note by note volume expression
|
Mixer Volume
|
Bn 07 ll
|
0-127
|
Globally affects volume, leave as is
|
Mixer Pan
|
Bn 0a ll
|
0-127
|
Globally affects pan, leave as is
|
Sustain/Legato
|
Bn 40 ll
|
0-127
|
|
Pitch Bend
|
En mmll
|
0-16383
|
+-2 only, unless using notation group
|
Pitch Bend Defeat
|
Bn 13 ll
|
0-127
|
|
Portamento
|
Bn 14 ll
|
0-127
|
Must use with sustain/legato, and Options/Sustain must be set to
MIDI cc
|
Vibrato
|
Dn ll
|
0-127
|
aftertouch
|
|
Bn 11 ll
|
0-127
|
frequency
|
Air Flow Noise
|
Bn 0c ll
|
0-127
|
|
Key Click/Valve Noise
|
Bn 0d ll
|
0-127
|
|
Flutter Tongue/Growl
|
Bn 12 ll
|
0-127
|
|
Length Control
|
Bn 15 ll
|
0-127
|
|
Automatic Variability Control
|
Bn 16 ll
|
0-127
|
intonation
|
|
Bn 17 ll
|
0-127
|
timbre
|
Tone Quality Control
|
Bn 1a ll
|
0-127
|
|
|
Bn 1b ll
|
0-127
|
center frequency change
|
Breath Noises
|
Standard notes
|
|
use marked (blue) key notes in upper two octaves of
instrument
|
Trumpet Shakes – see Garritan site
|
|
|
|
Trumpet Release Effects
|
Bn 0f ll
|
0-127
|
where 0-32 = off, 33-48 = falloffs, 49-95 = doits, 96-127 =
kisses (Note that these only apply to certain ranges)
|
Basses
|
Bn 0c ll
|
0-127
|
fundamental intensity
|
|
Bn 0d ll
|
0-127
|
finger noises
|
|
Bn 12 ll
|
0-127
|
attack speed
|
|
Bn 14 ll
|
0-127
|
Portamento
|
|
Bn 15 ll
|
0-127
|
length of decay
|
|
Bn 16 ll
|
0-127
|
VAR 1
|
|
Bn 17 ll
|
0-127
|
VAR 2
|
|
Bn 1a ll
|
0-127
|
midrange EQ
|
|
Bn 1b ll
|
0-127
|
midrange center frequency
|
|
Bn 1c ll
|
0-127
|
high frequency EQ
|
Piano
|
Bn 40 ll
|
0-127
|
sustain pedal
|
|
Bn 14 ll
|
0-127
|
brightness
|
Vintage Electric Piano
|
Bn 40 ll
|
0-127
|
sustain
|
|
En mmll
|
0-16383
|
pitch bend (+-12, 8192 = no bend)
|
|
Bn 16 ll
|
0-127
|
tremolo level
|
|
Bn 17 ll
|
0-127
|
tremolo speed
|
|
Bn 1a ll
|
0-127
|
midrange intensity
|
|
Bn 1c ll
|
0-127
|
brightness
|
Vibraphones
|
Bn 40 ll
|
0-127
|
Sustain
|
|
En mmll
|
0-16383
|
pitch bend (+-12, 8192 = no bend)
|
|
Bn 14 ll
|
0-127
|
attack speed
|
|
Bn 15 ll
|
0-127
|
brightness
|
|
Bn 16 ll
|
0-127
|
tremolo intensity
|
|
Bn 17 ll
|
0-127
|
tremolo speed
|
Guitars
|
Bn 40 ll
|
0-127
|
sustain
|
|
En mmll
|
0-16383
|
pitch bend (+-7, 64 = no bend)
|
|
Bn 0d ll
|
0-127
|
finger noise intensity
|
|
Bn 11 ll
|
0-127
|
vibrato speed
|
|
Bn 14 ll
|
0-127
|
portamento
|
|
Bn 15 ll
|
0-127
|
length
|
|
Bn 16 ll
|
0-127
|
VAR 1
|
|
Bn 17 ll
|
0-127
|
VAR 2
|
HELP! MY MOD WHEEL AND VOLUME ARE
UNCONTROLLABLE!:
One thing you may very
well encounter (I know I did), is a situation where sometimes the
mixer in HA/MA controls volume and pan, and sometimes the volume
and pan controls in GPO/JABB do instead. Or worse - you can't seem
to control them! No problem, there is an easy fix.
In GPO Studio, go to
the OPTIONS button on the Kontakt keyboard:
Click the button which says OPTIONS to
bring up that dialog. Now you will see a bunch of options. The one
you want to change is called “USE STD. CC#7/CC#10 VOLUME AND
PAN (see picture below):
Uncheck this button. If it is lit
up/checked, then it will /not/ use the KONTAKT player settings of
volume and pan, but will instead use the settings in HA's Mixer
panel. My experience is, never check this button, cuz things start
to get unpredictable. Things like dynamics (pp/mf/ff) will not
always respond correctly. The knobs will move by themselves.
So… I always uncheck this button, and ONLY use the volume and
pan settings in GPO's KONTAKT player. That way, when you save your
GPO settings, you will ALWAYS get the results you expect when you
play things back. I'm pretty sure this will fix your problem. Then,
from now on, set your volume and pan for each instrument right in
GPO, never in HA (for GPO instruments that is). One note: the
volume knob in Kontakt works in tandem with the mod wheel, so it is
important to always include a MIDI parameter curve for the mod
wheel (CC#1) in HA, for each and every GPO staff.
HOW TO HEAR /ANY/
GPO/JABB INSTRUMENT WHILE LIVE RECORDING:
In my previous tutorial, I stated that
you could only hear GPO/JABB instrument 1-1 while recording live in
HA (because HA only echoes to MIDI 1-1). I have since discovered
that actually you CAN hear the correct GPO/JABB instrument while
recording live! It's simple: Garritan offers a MIDI CHANNEL
parameter for each instrument slot – normally this assigns
automatically to 1-16 ascending. BUT!!! You can TEMPORARILY
reassign ANY slot to ANY Midi channel. So… simply reassign
ANY of the 8 slots to MIDI channel 1 (whichever one you want to
hear) on the GPO panel, and VOILA!!! (Just remember to change the
Midi channel of the regular one to something else during live
recording, and change both back afterwards). Here's where you
change it on the Kontakt player panel:
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN THE VARIOUS GPO/JABB SAVE FILES?:
About the various SAVE buttons in GPO
Studio and GPO/JABB, here are the differences for you:
1) The File/Save button in GPO STUDIO
is the ONLY one you need to use. Do not use the Kontakt player SAVE
or Ambience SAVE buttons. Those are only for when you are using GPO
in a MIDI sequencer as a VST. Since you are using GPO Studio, not
just GPO/VST, you don't need to save anything except the .studio
file. It saves everything for you, instruments, volume and pan, and
ambience.
2) The .fxb file that the Kontakt
player saves, contains only the 8 instrument slots in one player
instance, not all 64 like GPO Studio. So you really don't need to
use that save button. And the save button in ambience you don't
need either – the .fxb file it saves /only/ contains ambience
info, nothing else. (I don't know why they named the extension the
same). Since you are using GPO Studio, you do not need this,
because GPO Studio saves ALL 8 player instances and ALL 8 slots in
those instances and ALL ambience info. Easy! Oh, btw, you should
ALWAYS completely quit GPO Studio before loading a .studio file. If
you don't, the .studio file load may not replace some of the
settings, like ambience.
HOW TO GUARANTEE PREDICTABLE
VOLUME EVERY TIME:
For true to life
playback, (and to ensure the ModWheel volume is always where you
expect it to be), always create MIDI CC#1 Parameter curves for
every GPO/JABB staff, even if you only draw 2 little points of
value 127 at the start of each staff. Please see picture below:
GPO and JABB use the last Mod Wheel
volume point it encounters for all of the following notes, so if
you don't need volume changes during the piece, you can just create
two points at the desired volume at the beginning of the song,as
shown above. Doing it this way every time ensures GPO/JABB and HA
will ALWAYS react (and sound) the way you intended.
BREAKER-BREAK - DO YOU
COPY?:
Here's something very cool, which will
save you oodles of time. You can copy and paste MIDI Parameter
Curves in HA too!!! This is a really wonderful feature, because
quite often you will want to simply duplicate a fancy curve onto
another staff. To do so, simply enable the curve for editing as
usual, and then left-click the far left name of the staff to select
the entire staff. Now choose Edit|Copy. Go to the target staff,
enable its curve for editing, and choose Edit|Paste. That's it!
THE BIG CONFIG
NEWTON:
Here are some handy-dandy tips for
starting any session with GPO Studio and Myriad ("bless their
heart", as Tennesseeans would say ). To begin any GPO Studio/HA session, first launch GPO
Studio, then, in GPO Studio, go to File/Load/ and load your .studio
file. (I name my .studio files after the name of each composition,
so for example, for “Surrender.mus” I also have a
“Surrender.studio” file.) Now run Harmony Assistant and
load your composition. If you have your configuration options in HA
set correctly, it will reload your work with EVERYTHING ready to
go.
Here is the configuration option you
need to set in MA/HA to ensure all your MIDI out settings (and thus
all your GPO/JABB assignments) will be automatically saved and
loaded each time you restart:
TRUE CHILD
SUPPORT:
One of the /very best/
reasons to buy the Garritan Jazz and Big Band Library, and Myriad's
Harmony Assitant as well, is because they both offer support second
to none. Where else can you get quick, kind replies to your most
urgent questions, directly from the owners/authors? I once
requested help from Myriad with a specific problem, and not only
did they quickly reply, they even changed their program for me! And
you only need visit the Garritan Libraries forum once to know how
wonderful Mr. Garritan is.
CAUTIONARY
NOTES:
"Aftertouch" is
mentioned both in the JABB manual and in various other literature.
In fact, Aftertouch is used to add vibrato to all wind instruments
in JABB. But don't get frustrated if you try and create an
Aftertouch MIDI parameter curve and nothing happens! That's because
it is a misnomer - MIDI actually has TWO types of controllers which
are both, confusingly, labeled Aftertouch, and interchangeable at
that. True MIDI Aftertouch is actually per-key Aftertouch (voice
message #An xx ll), also known as "key pressure". The truth is,
this kind of Aftertouch is rarely (if ever) used in MIDI programs,
and it will not work with GPO/JABB. The one you want is "channel
pressure", which is MIDI message #Dn ll. Channel Aftertouch differs
from key Aftertouch in that it affects /all/ notes on that MIDI
channel. This is important because almost no synth keyboards
support pressure sensors for each key, as this would make them far
too expensive. Instead, most MIDI synth keyboards have a single
pressure sensor for the entire keyboard, and output a string of
channel pressure Aftertouch messages (#Dn ll).
Spock: "Forgive me,
doctor - I am receiving a number of distress calls..."
McCoy: "I don't doubt
it"
The silly quote above
brings me to one other point - too many messages. Some MIDI
commands, such as pitch bend, mod wheel, channel pressure, etc,
send not one but many, many messages to your MIDI devices, all in a
short time span. As far as I can tell, this can be quite a problem
when using MIDI parameter curves to send controller data to GPO
Studio for GPO/JABB. For instance, I set up 3 curves for each of my
clarinets (MIDI Specific a,b.c) in HA, with a particularly large
number of changes for vibrato (I wanted to only place it at the end
of held notes) . What happened was GPO/JABB started dropping notes
- certain sections of my song would simply stop playing, for no
apparent reason. I thought it was something wrong with my volume
curve. But all I had to do to fix it, was remove the fancy,
detailed vibrato curve by placing a single set of points at the
start of each staff to fix the vibrato at a specific level, and
everything became hunky-dorey. Incredibly, I still achieved the
desired effect because JABB is way smarter than me! I will look
into this for ya's and see what in tarnation this daggit is doin'
wrong.
MAC 'N
ME:
For those of you with
a real computer (lol!), i.e. a Mac, some of the above screens will
be a bit different (e.g. Hardware Configuration is called Midi
Configuration). But mostly things should be pretty similar. Sorry I
can't yet offer a full Macintosh-ish (word?) tutorial, but the
tooth fairy is on a budget this yahren.
MY SAMPLE
SONG(!):
And now to entertain
your ears (or annoy them, as the case may be ), I have done my best to create a (hopefully ) soothing
piece using the above techniques in GPO, JABB and Harmony
Assistant, in the style of the wonderful Glenn Miller Orchestra
(the Glenn Muffit Orchestra?). My humble piece is called
"Myschief", and I hope you like it!
If you want to
download it, simply go to the below link and right click on
"Myschief", and select "Save Target As...":
http://www.muffitland.com/Songs.htm
If by some chance you
have a fast broadband internet connection, and are running Internet
Explorer 6 or later (or Netscape/Firefox with Windows Media Player
ActiveX plug-in installed), you can listen to "Myschief" live via
streaming audio, with dynamic lyrics. Just go
here:
http://www.muffitland.com/LyricsLove.htm
... AND A
GLOWING CREDIT FOR A WONDERFUL PERSON:
I sincerely want to
thank Mr. Gary Garritan for making all this possible!
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