Hi,
Is anyone else having issues importing a midi created in dorico into finale? It is assigning instruments wrong (e.g. the bass/cello as a flute) and adding notes - almost like a drone throughout the whole piece… Is this something that everyone is having issues with as well?
Thank you!
~ Nina
Nina, MIDI isn’t the way you should port music between Dorico and Finale. Use MusicXML instead. It’s not perfect, but you’ll get far better results!
It’s also worth mentioning that in any such export/import process, the problems could lie with how the data is exported by Dorico and then how that data is then interpreted by Finale.
Finale’s MIDI import yields considerably varied results, depending on the settings you use.
… But, yeah, use XML instead…!
The issue is that currently Dorico exports MIDI but not General MIDI. It outputs the same MIDI that is used for playback, including key switches, controller switches and controllers for dynamics. If you were to import that into a DAW and load the same sounds, then it will play back the same way. However, if you are importing the MIDI file into an application that expects General MIDI then it doesn’t know that they are key switches and it won’t be able to identify the instruments because they don’t follow the General MIDI mappings.
I don’t know how Finale’s MIDI import interprets data - does it assume that files are General MIDI? We do intend to support export of General MIDI in the future, but it’s not currently possible.
You should at least be able to avoid the low drone notes etc. that are related to key switches by choosing the ‘HSSE (Elements)’ playback template before you export your MIDI file: the sounds in that playback template are more basic and tend not to use keyswitches and controllers, so the MIDI data should be a bit cleaner, though you will still have to use the Score Manager in Finale to sort out the actual instruments used after you import into Finale.