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<HTML> <BODY BACKGROUND="BGnd.jpg" BGCOLOR= "#C0D9D9"> <h3>Please click any of these topics:</h3> <ul> <dt><a href="#NoSound">I hear no sound when playing a song with Anvil Studio</a> <dt><a href="#NoMonitor">I hear no sound when recording an Audio track</a> <dt><a href="connect.htm#EchoMidi">My synthesizer is producing no sound, or delayed sound.</a> <dt><a href="#WavFiles">A song with an Audio track won't play in my Web Browser or the Windows Media Player</a> <dt><a href="#Sync">The Audio and Instrument tracks of my song play back out of sync</a> <dt><a href="#AudRec">Audio recording does not seem to work</a> <dt><a href="#AudDist">I hear distortion when playing back audio tracks</a> <dt><a href="#ChangeSoundFont">I cannot load SoundFonts into the composer</a> <dt><a href="#DeleteRest">I can't delete a rest on the Composer screen</a> <dt><a href="#ReportBug">Reporting a problem with Anvil Studio</a> </ul> <hr> <h3><a name="NoSound">I hear no sound when playing a song</h3> <dir> <li>View the Mixer screen. <li>If the REC or Play buttons are yellow, it is waiting for an external Sync MIDI event to begin recording. You probably set this by mistake. Click the Mixer screen's Sync button. Uncheck the check box. Press the OK button. Try to record or play again. </dir> <dir> <LI> Load the song you are trying to play by selecting Open from the File menu. <LI> Click the <IMG align=absMiddle border=1 hspace=0 src="speak.gif"> to the right of the Mixer screen's Duration field. This brings up the Volume Control window. This window controls the relative volume that various devices contribute to the sound card's Line-Out signal. <LI>Select Properties from the Volume Control window's Options menu. <LI>Select the sound card you want to use in the field named Mixer device:. <LI>Click the o Playback button and check all boxes in the field named Show the following volume controls: <LI>Press the OK button. Examine the various volume controls in the Volume Control window. These determine which audio sources contribute to sound produced by the speakers connected to your sound card. <LI>Make sure that the Mute check boxes under Wave and Synthesizer are NOT checked. <LI>Set the balance for Wave and Synthesizer in the middle. <LI>Set the volume for Wave and Synthesizer about half way up. <LI>If you are recording from a high-impedance microphone, like the ones designed to be plugged directly into a computer's sound card, make sure that it is plugged into your sound card's mic jack. <LI>If you are recording from a low-impedance dynamic or condenser microphone, like the ones designed to be plugged into a PA system, you need to either run them through a microphone pre-amp or mixer with line level output, and connect its output to your computer's line jack. <LI>If you are recording another audio source, such as the output of a tape deck, connect its line level output to your sound card's line jack. <LI>Press the Play [>] button on the Mixer screen. </dir> If you are trying to play a song with Audio Tracks: <dir> <LI>View the Synthesizers screen. <LI>Try selecting different Audio In port or a different Audio Out port. <LI>View the Mixer screen <LI>Click on Instrument in the active track's Type column to change the track-type from Instrument to Audio. <LI>Press the REC button to start recording. <LI>Press the stop button or the REC button again to stop recording. <LI>Press the play [>] button to play back the recorded track. </dir> If you are trying to record an Audio Track, and are unable to monitor what you are recording through your headphones: <dir> <li>Click the <IMG align=absMiddle border=1 hspace=0 src="speak.gif"> to bring up the Volume Control window. <li>Make sure the Microphone's and Line-In's select box is checked. Adjust the volume to a level that sounds good for monitoring. <li>Make sure you are using head phones instead of a speaker if the microphone is close to your speakers, or you will hear feedback. </dir> If you are trying to play a song with Instrument and Rhythm Tracks (MIDI): <dir> <LI>You need to decide if you trying to get songs to play on an external Synthesizer attached to your computer by a MIDI cable, or through your computer's sound card. <LI>View the Synthesizers screen and try changing the Midi Out Port to a different value. <LI>This field controls which device on your system to send MIDI songs to. <LI>Values like MIDI Out would send it to synthesizers connected to your computer by MIDI cables. <LI>Values like MIDI Synth would send it to the internal synthesizer built into your computer's sound card. <LI>Also on the Synthesizers screen, try increasing the value for Master Volume controls. <li>You may have MIDI Sync set. That should only be set if you want to start recording/playing when you press the Start button on your synthesizer. To turn it off, <dir> <li>Select Mixer from the View menu. <li>Press the Sync button just below the Time: field. <li>Uncheck the box named Record and Play wait for external MIDI Start event to begin. <li>Press the OK button. </dir> </dir> If you cannot get a song to play on an external synthesizer after installing the MIDI Manager accessory: <dir> <LI>If you want to hear the music played on a synthesizer connected to one of your external MIDI ports, you need to do the following: <LI>View the Synthesizers screen <LI>Click on the MidiPort your synthesizer is connected to <LI>Now, click the New Patch Library button. <LI>In the dialog window, type the name of your synthesizer in the field named "Unique name you want to use when referring to this synthesizer" <LI>Click the OK button. <LI>Repeat the above steps for every synthesizer you want to add. <LI>View the Mixer screen <LI>Next to each track, click on the Synthesizer you want the track to be played on. <LI>Press the Play button. </dir> If this does not fix the problem, <a href="#ReportBug">please send us a diagnostic log file</a> <hr> <h3><a name="NoMonitor">I hear no sound when recording an Audio track</h3> <dir> <li>View the Mixer screen. <LI>Make sure the active track Type column is Audio and not Instrument or Rhythm. <LI>Click the <IMG align=absMiddle border=1 hspace=0 src="speak.gif"> to the right of the Mixer screen's Duration field. This brings up the Volume Control window. This window controls the relative volume that various devices contribute to the sound card's Line-Out signal. <LI>Select Properties from the Volume Control window's Options menu. <LI>Select the sound card you want to use in the field named Mixer device:. <LI>Click the o Playback button and check all boxes in the field named Show the following volume controls: <LI>Press the OK button. Examine the various volume controls in the Volume Control window. These determine which audio sources contribute to sound produced by the speakers connected to your sound card. <LI>Make sure that the Mute check boxes under Microphone is NOT checked. <LI>Set the balance for Microphone in the middle. <LI>Set the volume for Microphone about half way up. <li>To avoid feedback and to keep each track clean of signals from other tracks, connect headphones to your SoundCard's speaker jack rather than speakers. <li>Try recording again. </dir> <hr> <h3><a name="WavFiles">Playing Audio tracks on Web Browsers</h3> When you record Audio tracks, Anvil Studio creates a different .WAV file for each track. These .WAV files are saved in the same folder as the song's .MID file, and have the same first 4 letters of its filename. For example, if the song is named "ThisIsMySong.mid", the audio tracks will be saved in files with names like "Thisg_a.wav", "Thisg_b.wav", etc. The filename of each track's .WAV file is displayed on the Mixer screen in the Instrument column. These .WAV files can be emailed and played by any Audio player, including the Windows Media player and Web Browsers. If you load the .MID file into another application, such as a Web Browser, you will only hear the Instrument and Rhythm tracks. That is because there is no standard for storing audio data within .MID files, so Anvil Studio simply stores references to the .WAV files inside the .MID files. See the section: <a href="help2.htm#MixToWav">Mixing all tracks down to a single .WAV file</a> for a description of how to mix all of your Audio, Instrument and Rhythm tracks down to a single .WAV file. The single .WAV file can then be played by any application, including Web Browsers. You can use a variety of shareware/freeware tools to convert the .WAV file to an .MP3 file, which can be 1/10th the size. Anvil Studio does not yet support creation of .MP3 files. <hr> <h3><a name="Sync">The Audio and Instrument tracks of my song play back out of sync</h3> If you use a WaveTable synthesizer such as WinGroove or SXG50 for your MIDI Output, and your song also has audio tracks, you may experience the Audio tracks playing ahead of the Instrument tracks. Similarly, tracks tied to synthesizers connected to external MIDI ports also play faster than tracks tied to the WaveTable synthesizer. This is because the WaveTable synthesizer delays its output for about half a second while it computes the necessary wave forms using software rather than hardware. You can overcome this problem by letting Anvil Studio know the latency of your device. To do this, <dir> <li>Select MIDI / Audio Device Latency from the View menu, <li>in the resulting window, click the entry for the WaveTable synthesizer, <li>set its latency property to the number of milliseconds it delays its output, usually 500 (half a second). </dir> This problem can show up at record time as well. If you record a new Audio track while playing an existing Instrument track that is tied to the WaveTable synthesizer, when you play the two of them back, it will sound like the Audio track is playing 1/2 second behind of the instrument track. The solution is the same - change the WaveTable synthesizer's latency to 500 milliseconds. Some WaveTable synthesizers, such as WinGroove, provide an alternate Audio Out device that is also delayed by the same amount as the MIDI Out. If you use such a device for your Audio Output, you need to set the Audio Out device's latency property to 500 as well by selecting MIDI / Audio Device Latency from the View menu. <hr> <h3><a name="AudRec">Audio recording does not seem to work</h3> <OL><LI> View the Mixer screen. <LI>Add a new Audio track to your song by selecting Create Audio Track from the Edit menu. <LI>Click the <IMG align=absMiddle border=1 hspace=0 src="speak.gif"> to the right of the Mixer screen's Duration field. This brings up the Volume Control window. <LI>Select Properties from the Volume Control window's Options menu. <LI>Select the sound card you want to use in the field named Mixer device:. <LI>Click the o Recording button and check all boxes in the field named Show the following volume controls: <LI>Press the OK button. <LI>This causes the window's title to change from Volume Control to Recording Control. This window now controls which hardware devices contribute to the Audio signal that will get recorded. <LI>Examine the various volume controls in the Recording Control window. <LI>Make sure that the Selected check box under Mic/Line is checked. The Selected check boxes under all other sources like CD/Aux, Mixed Input, and Synthesizer are NOT checked. <LI>Set the balance for Mic/Line in the middle. <LI>Set the volume for Mic/Line about half way up. <LI>Return to Anvil Studio's Mixer screen, but don't close the Recording Control window yet. <LI>Select the Audio Track by clicking on it and making a green dot appear at its left. This makes it the active track - the track that will get recorded. <LI>Erase the track by selecting Erase track notes from the Edit menu. <LI>Press the VU button to warm up the audio device, so you don't record power-on noise. <LI>Press the Rec button. Because of the settings in the Recording Control window, this causes the audio source plugged into your sound card's Mic or Line jack to be recorded onto the new Audio track. <LI>Press the stop button, or the Rec button again when you are ready to stop recording. <LI>Right-click the audio track's On field so that it changes to solo. <LI>This makes it the only track that will be played when the Play button is pressed. <LI>Press the Play button. <LI>Press the stop button and right-click on the track's solo field, so that all tracks are enabled again. <LI>If the track is too quiet, go back to the Recording Control window and increase the Synthesizer's volume and go back up to step 13. <LI>If the track has static noise, go back to the Recording Control window and decrease the Synthesizer's volume and go back up to step 13. </OL> <hr> <h3><a name="AudDist">I hear distortion when playing audio tracks</h3> Select Mixer from the View menu. Slide the Mix-Volume control <IMG align=absMiddle border=1 hspace=0 src="auddist.gif"> to the left. <hr> <h3><a name="ChangeSoundFont">I cannot load SoundFonts into the composer</h3> Please select How do I... from the Help menu and read the section on using SoundFonts. <hr> <h3><a name="DeleteRest">I can't delete a rest on the Composer screen</h3> To delete a rest, hold the mouse down to the left of it, and drag the mouse right until the entire rest (or rests) have a dark background. Make sure that both the treble and bass clefs are selected by holding the mouse between the two clefs. Then, release the mouse button and select the Edit/Cut or Edit/Delete menu. <hr> <h3><a name="ReportBug">Reporting a problem with Anvil Studio</h3> To help us diagnose the problem you are having, please do the following: <dir> <li>Press either shift key while starting Anvil Studio, and continue to press it until you see Anvil Studio's initial screen. This causes Anvil Studio to create a log file named log.txt in Anvil Studio's program folder. <li>Then repeat the steps that demonstrate the problem you encountered in Anvil Studio. <li>Close Anvil Studio if it hasn't already crashed. <li>If the program did not crash, a file named log.txt will be displayed on your screen. please email that file to us at <a href="mailto:support@AnvilStudio.com">support@AnvilStudio.com</a> <li>If the program crashed while producing the log file, please email the file log.txt from your Anvil Studio program folder (e.g. c:\program files\anvil studio\log.txt) to us at <a href="mailto:support@AnvilStudio.com">support@AnvilStudio.com</a> <li>If you cannot find the file log.txt, please download and run the program <a href="http://www.AnvilStudio.com/DrSetup.exe">www.AnvilStudio.com/DrSetup.exe</a> which will find the log file and gather setup information and send it to us. <li>If the program crashes, could you also include any error message or number that showed up on the screen when the program stopped. </dir> If you encounter a Setup problem, please download and run our Setup Diagnostic tool from: <a href="http://www.AnvilStudio.com/DrSetup.exe">www.AnvilStudio.com/DrSetup.exe</a> (It is very small and just take a few seconds to download.) <hr> <center> Copyright © 1997-2001 by Willow Software </body> </HTML>