Filter Channels

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How to get there

Choose Open from the File Menu, and click MIDI File. Double-click the name of a MIDI file you want transcribed. In the Import MIDI File Options dialog box, click the Set Track-to-Staff List radio button. In the Track/Channel Mapping to Staves dialog box, click the topmost unassigned row of track information; the Track/Channel Mapping dialog box appears. Enter the numbers of the tracks from which you want to select ranges of notes to be transcribed in the text boxes at the top of the window; click Filter.

What it does

The Track/Channel Mapping dialog box offers you a great deal of control over the way in which your sequencer-file tracks are transformed into Finale staves. You can tell Finale to create up to eight staves out of a single sequencer track, to create one Finale staff from up to four sequencer tracks, and so on.

You can think of the Filter split option as the inverse of the Fixed, Multiple, and other split options. Where these other functions serve to split the notes on the tracks you’ve specified into separate staves, the Filter function lets you combine selected notes from several different sequencer tracks onto a single Finale staff.

In the Filter Channels dialog box, you specify the ranges of the notes from each of up to four tracks you want Finale to transcribe onto a single staff. Note, however, that the Filter function has no meaning if you haven’t specified at least one track by entering its number in one of the text boxes at the top of the Track/Channel Mapping dialog box. If you click Filter without having specified a track, Finale will display an alert message.

Track/Channel (#):(#). There are up to four of these indicators, which identify the track and MIDI channel number pairs you entered at the top of the Track/Channel Mapping dialog box.
Key Range: Low • High • Listen. In each pair of these text boxes, you enter a low and a high key number; in this way, you can specify up to four registers, one from each of the four track/channel combinations identified by the Track/Channel (#):(#) indicators. Finale will transcribe only the notes within each of these registers onto a single staff in the resulting transcription.

Middle C is key number 60, and keys are numbered sequentially from left to right on the keyboard. (You can even enter a Low key number that’s higher than the High number; Finale will include in the transcription all notes except those in the register you’ve just outlined.) Note, however, that you don’t have to calculate the key numbers and type them in manually—you can play them instead.

Listen. Click the Listen button beside each pair of text boxes, and play each note—the lowest, then the highest note in the range; Finale enters their key numbers in the text boxes automatically.
OK • Cancel. Click OK to confirm, or Cancel to discard, your specifications of note Filter settings and return to the Track/Channel Mapping dialog box.