Occasionally, some users will notice that an arco or pizzicato marking added to a measure does not trigger a switch in playing technique upon initiating playback. This article outlines a few known scenarios that can cause this issue to occur and how to resolve them.
Human Playback Settings
There are a number of conditions that need to be met before these expressions can be correctly interpreted on playback.
You'll first need to ensure that Human Playback is enabled in your settings. To check this, go to MIDI/Audio > Human Playback and select a style that is not "None".
If you're using string instruments from the Garritan Instruments for Finale libraries, you'll also need to make sure that you're using a sound with the initials "KS" in the patch name. To check this, open the ScoreManager and find the instrument patch name in the Sound column.
Initiating Playback
If playback is initiated by pressing Spacebar + Click, Human Playback is automatically disabled. To make sure that Human Playback stays enabled, you'll need to initiate playback by pressing the Play button in the Playback Controls palette.
Con sordino markings
In some cases, switching between pizzicato and arco markings can also be inhibited if a con sordino ("con sord.") expression is inserted in the score before the pizzicato or arco marking due to a known issue. To work around this, you'll need to add a senza sordino ("senza sord.") marking directly after the con sordino marking, then hide it.
If all else fails, you can alter the expressions already in the score so that they provide manual MIDI data to Human Playback and help it in its task of automated playback processing.
- Open your score (these changes are document specific).
- Choose the Expression tool.
- Double-click on the handle of one of your "pizz." markings to open the Expression Selection dialog box.
- The "pizz." expression should be highlighted, so click the Edit button to open the Expression Designer dialog box.
- Choose the Playback tab.
- Choose Dump from the Type drop-down menu.
- There are four fields in the Playback Data Dump dialog box that appears. Type in the following four values from top to bottom to manually define pizzicato keyswitch data:
- Click OK to close the Playback Data Dump dialog box.
- Click OK again to close the Expression Designer dialog box.
- Click Assign to close the Expression Selection dialog box.
- Repeat steps 2 - 10 for the "arco" expression in your score, but use these values for step 7 instead:
- You can now playback your file.