For the first warm evenings we have prepared for you the Serenade No. 13 in G major (“A little night music”, KV 525) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as free sheet music (*.zip). The sheet music is optimized for FORTE 12. A little night music – 1st movement A little night music – 2nd movement A […]
Score templates can speed up your workflow if you often write scores for the same instrumentation. In a band setting, the instruments to be notated are known in advance. So you don't have to start from scratch with every new score, you can create a score template within minutes.
First, you create a new score using the Score Wizard. After editing the title texts for the template, you can select the desired instruments. For my example: "Band Template", I select vocals, two guitars, an organ, a piano, bass and drums.
With the buttons "Up" and "Down" you can define the order of the instruments. After all parameters have been defined, you will see the result directly in FORTE.
Now you only have to save this score as a template. To do this, click on the FORTE button and select the option "Save as template".
After that you have to give your score template a name. To load a score template, click on "From template" in the start window and select the desired file.
In FORTE there are several ways to add measures. If you only want to add one bar, you can simply use the context menu. To do this, left-click on the bar before or after which you want to insert a bar and then click right once. The context menu opens.
Select either "Insert bar before" or "Insert bar after". As you can see, a bar has been created here. Accordingly I can insert the bar before as well.
Now I have added two new bars: One before, one after.
But you can also add several bars at once. Go to the main tab "Score" then "Add bars". A window opens. Define the exact number and position of bars you want to add. For example, 4 bars before bar number 2. As you can see, 4 bars have now been added.
You can remove these bars just as easily. Go to “Score”, then "Remove bars" and select the section from which bars should be deleted.
In this case I choose from bar 2 to bar 5, then click on "Ok" . The bars will be deleted. It is just as easy with the context menu. You select the bar you want to delete, click right once and select “remove”. You can also select several bars: For example, this bar and the next. I select the first, then I click and hold the shift key and select the next bar. Once more, select “Remove bar” from the context menu.
Of course, in a score template you can not only select the desired instruments, but also create the complete layout and design of your score. For example, you can already set up the number of bars, the formatting of the chords or the lyrics.
The whole FORTE-Team wishes you and your family a Merry Christmas and – according to the circumstances – some nice holidays. Enjoy the time to relax, unwind and make music. We sincerely hope that in the coming year everyday life will normalize step by step and that you will be able to pursue your musical […]
Today we would like to say thank you. Because today we sent the wonderful donation sum of 12.200,40€ to the #coronakünstlerhilfe. Because it was like this: With all the challenges Corona has brought us, we were among the lucky few within the music industry. We didn’t have any lay-offs, no one had to be on […]
Download the following PDF list.
It contains all the issues solved and implemented into FORTE 12:
Wouldn’t it be great if your sheet music sounded natural?
If you immediately got a real feeling for those quarters and eighth notes? And if there was no complicated set-up?
If it was simply to enjoy a new sound experience?
Meet John Nebauer.
He’s an expert for soundfonts. He dedicated more than a decade to developing the SGM soundfont - now integrated into FORTE 12.
A soundfont is a library of sounds that is required to play back scores. This library conforms to the MIDI standard and contains 128 instruments.
The SGM soundfont is modern and quite natural. There is an exceptionally detailed piano sample and a rather expressive bass sample. Additional thanks go out to Shan and to Alexander Holm here. This is a great set for a full and authentic sounding backing band with General Midi Files.
Our mixer has been completely redesigned, and helps you select new instruments and new sounds more easily. This way, adjusting playback settings is easier. Best of all: it’s pretty to look at, too.
We hope you enjoyed this preview (or rather, this ‘pre-listen’!) and we are looking forward to your comments below!
Your FORTE team
FORTE 12 is coming! You’ll be glad to hear that out of the total of 115 improvements, more than 40 will help you score more intuitively than before. About 15 crash issues were fixed. In the following video, Barbara will show you some of these improvements: Note Value Previously, changing a note’s value was complicated. […]
FORTE fans often reach out to us with lots of questions about MIDI recording.
They wonder about the settings of their instrument.
They ask us about the buttons and settings of FORTE. Let us help you out there, guys. This article, complete with more than 10 illustrations and 2 videos, will guide you through 3 steps to MIDI recording with FORTE.
1. Connect your keyboard
with the USB cable.
2. Connect USB cable to
your computer’s USB port.
As a first step, you’ll need to connect your MIDI instrument (say for example a keyboard) via USB or via a MIDI cable with an audio interface.
Then, you start the FORTE program. In the main menu “Options”, select “MIDI In”. You’ll find your MIDI instrument listed as “Default Recording Device”.
Select your device and click “apply”. If your keyboard has a sound module of its own, you might like to set it up as the default playback device. As a result, the sound will be better and the recording of your music will be more precise. In the tab “MIDI Out”, you can select the default playback device.
If your MIDI device doesn’t have a sound module of its own, we recommend you select “VST Synth” as the default playback device. This setting helps to reduce latency. Latency refers to a short period of delay (usually measured in milliseconds) between when an audio signal enters and when it emerges from a system. If you want your playback to always come from your MIDI instrument or from VST Synth, you check the box “Always use default device”. Click “apply” to confirm your choice.
1. Setting up MIDI-IN
2. Setting up MIDI-Out
FORTE’s now ready for recording! FORTE Home and FORTE Premium offer two recording options: Step mode and realtime mode. Step mode means that you enter each note after the other. You define the note value with either your computer mouse or the numbers of your computer keyboard (4 for a quarter note and so on).
Just before you start entering the notes, you’ll need to set up your score for recording a piano system. Especially when you’re planning on recording several instruments it’s crucial that FORTE knows which track you’re recording.
Open FORTE’s mixer by clicking the mixer icon. You find the mixer icon in the main tabs “Home” and “Record” at the far left. The key combination “alt+3” also opens the mixer.
The mixer opens at the bottom of your FORTE window. Go to the track (duct) of the instrument you’re planning on recording.
At the bottom of the duct you can see a small green triangle: the “Play” symbol. This means that this track is selected to playback. If you click the green triangle, it will turn into a red circle, the recording symbol.
Now, FORTE knows that you want to MIDI-record on this track with your instrument.
Recording step mode means you record each single note after the other. Since FORTE Basic just offers the step mode, you’ll need to click on the MIDI record button for recording in step mode. When you’re using FORTE Home or FORTE Premium, you’ll need to click step mode first and subsequently click the MIDI record button.
You can use the input palette to select the note value, say a quarter, an eighth note or a sixteenth note. But you’ll be faster if you use the numbers of your computer keyboard. A “4” is a quarter, an “8” stands for the eighth note and a “6” for the sixteenth and so on. You find the layout of your computer keyboard under the main tab “Help”, then “Keyboard Layout”.
In the following video we will show you this combined method of writing your music. We’ll also show you how to set up your score.
Real time mode allows you to record your music alongside the metronome. FORTE interprets the note values of your music automatically.
The main tab “Record” shows you a range of options regarding the kind of recording. Next to the metronome, there’s “Region” which refers to a region of measures you can choose for recording.
If you want to record several versions of a region, you can set up a loop. Furthermore, FORTE can lead you in before recording. If you have loop mode activated, the lead-in is repeated with each new loop as well.
Under “Options”, the button at the far right side of the main tab “Record”, you decide what FORTE should do with your already entered music once you start a new recording or a new loop.
Now that you’ve set all parameters, click the red record button to start recording.
We’re humans, not robots. It can be quite difficult to play with a precise timing 100% of your recording. That’s why FORTE supports your music writing with quantizing your recorded notes. You select the smallest note value of your recorded music. Using quantization, your score is adjusted automatically.
To start quantizing your music, go to the main tab “Record”. At the right side of the menu ribbon, there’s “Quantization”. Click “Notes”. A property window opens. Select the parameters you want to quantize (say for example the starting time, the duration etc) as well as the division of the quarter note. It’s crucial to select the smallest note value of your recorded music here, for example 16th notes.
Go to the main tab “Options” and select “MIDI-In”, then “Routing” to select all the details regarding the MIDI channels selected for recording.
In this same window you can select the split point. This point defines the pitch which is used to divide / split your notes between tracks or voices. These features are especially interesting to the advanced MIDI user or the professional.
A note on the illustrations: Since FORTE 10, the notation software comes with two displays for the graphic interface: "day" and "night" mode. The illustrations above were made with FORTE 11 Premium in night mode. You can switch modes in the main menu "home", then "app mode".
We greatly hope that you enjoyed “3 Steps to MIDI recording with FORTE”. We’re looking forward to your comments below!
Your FORTE team
There are many question in this current situation – also about our offers. Find the most frequent one answered below: So, what is this about? Music can help us all to get through this time as best we can.We would like to support you in your isolation as much as possible. Therefore we have thought […]
The February pop quiz has got 12 tricky questions for you! Can you answer them all? There’s one correct answer to each question. Click “Continue” to get to the next slide. Enjoy the quiz! Click on the button to load the content from fortequizz.survey.fm. Load content How did you like the quiz? What era or […]