Changing Instruments

Hyperscore uses General MIDI technology to produce instrument sounds. General MIDI provides up to 128 sounds, but ony allows 16 sounds to be active at any one time. For this reason, the Hyperscore Instruments menu can only have 16 instruments available at once.

However, you can choose which 16 instruments out of the total 128 you wish to use.

To change the instruments available in the Instruments Menu:

Choose ‘Change Instruments’ from the Instruments Menu. In the pop-up window which appears, the list on the left contains all the possible instruments, arranged in groups, while the list on the right contains the currently active set.

Choose which instrument you wish to replace from the list on the right.

Choose the instrument you want to use instead from the list on the left.

Press the ‘Replace’ button.

The instrument list on the right will update to show you the new active set. Click 'Apply' and then 'OK' to return to your piece. The newly selected instrument will now appear in the Instruments Menu.

Tips and Tricks

The character of your piece will very often depend on the particular mix of instruments you use to make it. It's usually a good idea to choose a mix of instruments and to try to match melodies with the instruments on which they sound best. For example melodies with lots of fast notes, like:

will usually work best with instruments that have a short sound, like guitar, harp or sitar and vice-versa.

It's usually good to have a mix of long and short instrument sounds.

Also, it's good to have a mix of types of instruments - a bass sound, a guitar, a piano, some synth sounds and some acoustic instrument sounds.

Experiment to find the best mix of instruments to suit your piece.

Further Help

Hyperscore User Guide>Changing Instruments

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