Chapter 9

Playback and audio

Maestro plays your score with its own sound banks, following dynamics, articulations, tempo changes, repeats and jumps. The playback bar below the score works like Finale’s Playback Controls: it gives you speed, swing, accompaniment, metronome and sounds in one place. Every command is also in the Playback menu.

The playback bar

On the Mac you show and hide it with View → Playback Bar (⌥⌘B); on Windows it is always at the bottom of the window. From left to right you’ll find:

  • Transport: rewind, previous measure, play/pause, stop, next measure, and record from a MIDI keyboard (see MIDI keyboard).
  • A counter on a dark display: measure, beat and elapsed time.
  • The tempo (♩ = …), the TAP button and the speed slider with its percentage.
  • Three compact menus: swing, accompaniment and sound bank.
  • The metronome, loop and follow switches.
  • Buttons for the mixer and the tuner, lit while their window is open.

In narrow windows the bar shrinks step by step: first the “Looping…” label goes, then the menus show only their icon, then other items disappear. Anything you can’t see is still in the Playback menu.

Typing values into the bar

Click MEASURE, the elapsed time, “♩ = …” or the percentage to type into it. Enter confirms; Esc or a click elsewhere cancels.

  • A measure number becomes the starting point, or jumps there straight away during playback.
  • An elapsed time (“1:30”, “1:30.5” or “90” seconds) takes you to the point in the piece that plays at that moment.
  • “♩ = 96” sets the playback speed to reach that tempo, without changing the written tempo.

Listening to the score

  • Space starts and stops playback, from the selected measure or the starting point.
  • ⇧Space pauses; playback resumes from the same spot.
  • Esc stops.
  • On the Mac: rewind ⇧⌥⌘←, previous measure ⌥⌘←, next measure ⌥⌘→. On Windows use the bar buttons or the Playback menu.

When stopped, the transport buttons move the starting point, shown by the green line. During playback, jumps are immediate and follow the performance order; clicking a measure jumps there. If you have count-in measures set, pause or stop interrupts the count-in.

Speed and tempo

Speed ranges from 25% to 200% of the written tempo, with the actual tempo shown next to it. The tempo written in the score doesn’t change. To get back to 100%, choose Playback → Original Speed (100%).

Playback follows the tempo markings above the system (“Allegro ♩ = 132”, “♩. = 60”) and those imported from Finale. Rit., rall. and allarg. slow down gradually, accel. speeds up, “a tempo” and “Tempo I” go back to the written tempo, and a note under a fermata lasts twice as long. If you prefer a steady tempo, turn off rit., accel. and fermatas in Settings → Playback.

Tap tempo

Tap the beat on the TAP button or with Playback → Tap Tempo (⌃⌥T on the Mac). Each tap sounds the metronome, and from the second tap on the tempo shows in orange. When you stop for a second and a half, it becomes the score’s tempo, undoable in one step. A two-second pause starts the count over.

Swing

From the ♫ menu in the bar or Playback → Swing, choose:

  • Automatic (the default): follows the written markings. “Swing”, “Medium Swing” and “Shuffle” turn it on; “Hard Swing” and “Light Swing” set the amount; “Straight 8ths”, “Rock”, “Latin”, “Bossa” and “Funk” turn it off.
  • Straight, Light swing (3:2), Swing (triplet, 2:1), Hard swing (3:1): apply to the whole score.

Eighth notes are played long-short while the notation stays straight. Written triplets and compound meters are left as they are. Swing is saved with the score and also applies to MIDI and audio export.

Accompaniment from chord symbols

With Playback → Accompaniment → Play Accompaniment from Chord Symbols, bass, piano and drums play the chords written as chord symbols, so you can practise a solo the way you would with iReal Pro. The styles are Swing (walking bass), Ballad, Jazz waltz, Pop / rock and Bossa nova. Automatic picks the style measure by measure from the written markings, plays 3/4 as a waltz and, with no markings, takes its cue from the harmony.

The same menu turns the individual instruments on and off. In the mixer the accompaniment has three columns of its own, “ACC”. It stays silent before the first chord symbol, and each chord lasts until the next one. To write chord symbols, see Chords and arranging.

Sounds and sound banks

The speaker menu in the bar chooses the sound bank. Maestro comes with GeneralUser GS (recommended) and FluidR3 GM. Add a Sound Bank… adds a SoundFont .sf2: it is copied into Maestro’s sounds folder and selected right away. Compressed .sf3 SoundFonts can’t be used.

  • On the Mac you can also choose the macOS General MIDI sounds or a DLS bank, and change the bank in Settings → Playback.
  • On Windows you can also choose the bank from Playback → Sound Bank, which also has Show the Sounds Folder.

Reverb goes on every instrument but not on the metronome: choose the room (from small room to church) and the amount in Settings → Playback. Bank and reverb also apply to audio export.

Mixer

Open the mixer with the button in the playback bar, or with Window → Mixer (⌥⌘X) on the Mac and View → Mixer on Windows. It’s a dark console with one column per instrument:

  • Sound: General MIDI, chosen by family.
  • Pan: drag the knob up or down, or use the scroll wheel; click the value to center it.
  • M (mute) and S (solo).
  • Fader from −∞ to +6 dB; double-click it or click the dB value to go back to 0.
  • A level meter with peak hold and a clipping light.

You hear every change immediately, even during playback, and you can undo it with ⌘Z (Ctrl+Z on Windows). On the right are the MASTER, METRONOME and REVERB faders, which apply to the whole app. Volume and pan are also written to exported MIDI and MusicXML.

Metronome and visual metronome

The metronome switch in the bar (or Playback → Metronome) turns it on and off without stopping the music. In Settings → Playback choose its sound (woodblock, claves, cowbell, side stick, closed hi-hat, ride bell), an accent on the first beat, the number of count-in measures before playing (0 to 2) and its volume.

The visual metronome (Playback → Visual Metronome, on by default) shows a light for each beat in the counter: it flashes in time, orange on the first beat and blue on the others. It works with the metronome off too, for silent practice or playing on headphones.

Repeats, loop and follow

  • Play Repeats (Playback menu, on by default): repeats, endings, D.C., D.S., Fine and Coda are played as written. When off, each measure plays once in written order.
  • Loop Selection (⌥⌘L on the Mac): the selected passage, or the whole score, starts over seamlessly until you stop.
  • Follow Playback: the score scrolls with the music. Turn it off to look somewhere else while it plays.

Exporting audio

File → Export Audio… (⌥⇧⌘E on the Mac) saves the score played just as in playback: sounds, mixer, swing, tempo changes, repeats and accompaniment. You choose:

  • the format: M4A (AAC, a small file to send around) or WAV (lossless);
  • what to export: the whole score, each part alone, or a backing track without each part, to practise your part by playing along (one file per part, named after the part it leaves out);
  • whether to include the metronome.

Rendering is much faster than real time and can be cancelled. Your choices are remembered. For audio of several pieces at once, see the setlist.

Tuner

Playback → Tuner (⌃⌘T on the Mac) listens to the microphone and shows the note, the frequency and how many cents it is off. The needle is green within 5 cents, orange up to 15 and red beyond. You can set the reference A (415–466 Hz) and a transposing instrument (in B♭, E♭ or F) to read the note as written in your part. On the Mac, macOS asks for microphone permission the first time. The microphone closes along with the window.