[dj]

Hi, Chickinox:

Just to check and make sure your setup is correct, you can try the following steps.

Under the Setup menu, choose Midi Devices Quick Setup.

In the drop-down list at the top left of the dialog box, be sure that Notation Software Synth is selected and that your midi keyboard shows at the bottom. Playing a few notes on the keyboard here should result in you hearing sounds from the Software Synth and both a green and red indicator light flashing in the dialog box.

To change the soundbank, choose Midi Devices configuration from the Setup menu and double click on the line that reads 'Out Software Synth Notation Software Synth'. In the dialog box that comes up, beside the box that reads 'Soundfont', you should see something like 'FluidR3Mono_GM.sf3' (which is the default Soundfont for version 4).

At the bottom left, you should see a list that reads something like "General Midi, Bank 1, Bank 8, Bank 16, Bank 128" which are the voice banks available.These should be the default sound set for Notation Composer 4.

If you see all that, you're good and can get out of the nested dialog boxes. Now, to get down to the problem.

In Window View, to the left of each staff is a set of control buttons. The Staff Setup button will call up a dialog box where you can set the default patch for that staff -- and for that midi channel. This may be where your trouble lies.

If there is more than one staff assigned to the midi channel, the lower staves, i.e., ones placed lower on the page, will also send their default patch number to that midi channel. So check to make sure that there are no 'lower' staves overriding your choice.

Go through the score to see whether there are any Sound Changes in that staff (make sure, in the Sound Changes tool bar, the 'eyeglasses' icon is selected, so you can see them). If you delete them, they may clear up the problem.

If you can post a midi file where you are having problems, perhaps we can see where the problem lies.

Hope that helps.

David