Best Settings in Finale 2010 to Make MIDI for DAW/Library Use?

Alright, so when using Finale 2010, I had the human playback settings on and set to "romantic." Playing inside of Finale sounds decent, but I clicked Save As and selected MIDI from the drop down list. I then imported this MIDI file into Reaper and set up my EWQLSO Gold on each of the tracks.

It sounded like pure crap.

So I went in and turned Human Playback totally off and saved another MIDI file and it is better. You see, EWQLSO already has things that mimics human playing (portamento, rep, etc). With human playback on, all the notes didn't go their full length in the MIDI file, or started in weird spots that were off the mark. In Finale it sounded fine, but in Reaper it sounded like crap. With human playback off, it sounded much better and I noticed the notes all were starting and stopping where they should be. However, it doesn't sound quite as real in Reaper as it did in Finale (not that Finale sounded all that convincingly realistic). There are no subtle nuances like a slight legato or anything like that.

Basically what I'm getting at is that I really don't want to edit 600 notes (average) x 6 tracks to put in all these little variations and stuff. I mean sure, there are parts where I'm going to have to manually edit the MIDI file and stuff, I get that, but not the whole damn thing right?

So what I am getting at is how can I set up Finale 2010 to best give me the best MIDI files to use in a DAW like Reaper?

anathematized_one, on 09 September 2010 - 10:48 AM, said:

Welcome to the fun world of programming. There isn't really any way to get around this, if you want to make it sound good, you have to put in that grunt work to actually edit the expression, velocity, volume, etc. There are ways to make this easier, like using MIDI controllers to record curves and input notes while playing, as well as macros and shortcuts that'll do some of the work for you, but in the end, you'll still be doing the same thing. It's tedious and hard at first, but in the end, it just becomes tedious, and goes by slightly quicker. If you really want to humanize your tracks, this work needs to be done.

Andy1044, on 09 September 2010 - 12:19 PM, said:

Actually I can't really use MIDI controllers to record curves and input notes while playing because I can't play keys and I don't have a MIDI keyboard anyway or a MIDI guitar, and even if I did, I don't have a MIDI port on my computer.

-_-*

I did notice one other thing that I can't seem to wrap my head around.

In Finale, no matter what patches I choose (I have EastWest/Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra Gold), they all sound half-ass decently like they go together.

However in reaper, the double bass and cello sound fine, but the viola, and 11 or 18 violins sound like they're out of tune, no matter what patch I chose, and not just out of tune with each other, I mean out of tune with themselves even.

So what's the deal with that?

OH I also kind of figured that when I saved the MIDI file from Finale, that it would add in my crescendo/decrescendo stuff too, but it didn't add any of that in at all, but it did add in the MIDI files the note dynamics (velocity). I mean when I had human playback on and I saved the MIDI file, it saved those crescendo/decrescendo parts into the MIDI file, but with human playback off, it didn't. I mean that would really reduce the amount of work I have to do a lot if it could factor in the things like slurs and stuff.

Well, I guess I'm just going to experiment with it and see, and post my results here.

So far I've tried using the "romantic" and "standard" human playback options and it does the same thing - it renders the MIDI files in a jacked-up ass way.

Rendering with human playback off renders "perfect" (meaning every note is exact) MIDI files, but doesn't render things like legato slurs, dynamics, etc.

Well so far, the best settings I found were:

Human Playback > Custom
1% rhythmic feel swing: none
2% rhythmic accents
0% rubato

Interpret:
(everything checked)

Advanced Settings:
1% mood
checked:

• Automatic expression
  
• Adjust dotted 8th+16th/triplet: longer
  
• soften accompaniments
  
• auto piano pedaling
  
• chord balance
  
• soften basses
  
• string harmonics
  
• strum plucked string chords (copied from Romanic settings)
  
• interpret harmonic cadances

I think what matters most is the rhythmic feel, rhythmic accents, and rhythmic rubato, and the mood in advanced settings. I'm not sure exactly what each of these do, as the Finale 2010 user manual doesn't have a section (that I can find) that talks about this particular set up (the only thing I can find about human playback is the actual settings where you chose the techniques that get used). I just noticed that from the old settings I was using (romantic), they were much higher (anywhere from 10-20%) and they boggled up the MIDI files pretty bad. With them lower (which is all that I changed), the MIDI files aren't so bad, and all the interpretations are made for things like slurs, by inserting a legato pedal trigger into the MIDI file. So all I was really looking for was the automation of the interpretation of the written dynamics, slurs, etc. I can humanize it later in Reaper.

I'm going to try setting every slider to 0 and only doing one at a time to see what each one apparently effects. I'm going to start by setting the mood to 15%