Aria Player not responding to keyboard

[Legolas]

Hi, I'm new here, so if this is a stupid question or in the wrong place, let me know!

I just got Finale 2014.5 and the accompanying Aria player for Mac. I have a midi keyboard plugged in (Alesis 49v), and with GarageBand it works fine. But when I pull up Aria Player, the keys don't produce any sound. Aria is producing sound, because it responds when I click on the small on-screen keyboard. I also know that Aria is recognizing the keyboard, because it responds to the mod wheel and peddle, but not the keys. Anyone have any ideas what the problem might be? Thanks!

[SysExJohn]

Hi Legolas, how's Gimli?

It may just be that the keyboard is set to the wrong octave.
Notice that different instruments are set to different parts of the ARIA keyboard.
Do you have an octave up/down button?

[Legolas]

Gimli's well, thank you!

Yes, there are octave buttons, but going anywhere up or down doesn't seem to make any difference.

[SysExJohn]

Try changing the MIDI channel of the instrument in ARIA to omni = "OM".

Pleased to hear Gimli's well ...

Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

Lungorthin.
(We are coming, with whips and swords of flame.)

[Legolas]

This worked! Thank you! (Sorry for the late response.)
I do have a couple of other questions, just out of curiosity:
Every time I reopen the program, I have to re-change the MIDI channel... is there a way to make it the default? And:
When I have multiple instruments set to OM, the first one I set plays.... Is there a way to make it so the one I have highlighted (with the little white light on the left) plays instead?

These aren't a big deal. You solved my main problem!

[SysExJohn]

Glad that worked for you. Thought it might.

Before answering the second part I need to tell you more about what we've discovered in the first part.
From what you've posted so far, it would seem that the controller information may be being sent, by your keyboard, on a different MIDI channel to the main note on, note off information.
You need to check with the documentation and find out how both sets of data can be sent on the same channel.

As far as saving the sounds and settings goes, load up all the instruments you need, set the MIDI channel, and the mixer, and the controls, and the reverb, then look up right at the ENSEMBLE interface.

Here you can click next to the "-" under ensemble and save or load or even clear.
If you choose save you will get a dialogue box where you can give the set up a name and save it with an "ariax" extension (automatically).

Everything should be saved, all loaded instruments, their MIDI channels, mixer settings, reverb, controls, the lot. Load restores the complete set up or a Garritan defined ensemble. It often takes a while to reload it all

I'm slightly bemused when you say that just the first instrument plays. I would have expected them all to play if they are all set to omni. What you hear will depend upon the instrument type and whether it responds to the mod wheel, and what mixer levels are set at, etc.

I don't believe the "light" is intended to affect playing in the way you want.
One might want a group of instruments to respond to the same MIDI information, e.g. violin 1, players 1, 2 & 3 all responding to one channel. I often use that when I first create an orchestration before playing each one in individually to a separate track/channel.

On the mixer interface you can solo "S" or mute "M" instruments.
So you could solo instrument 1, then un-solo it and solo 2, and so on.

But if changing channels on the keyboard is straightforward, often it's not, then you could change channels to change instruments.

Give that a shot.
Regards,
John.