Classroom setup

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This page contains classroom setup notes for the CCARH lab in Braun, room 129.

Lab 1 (Computer with HP scanner & Yamaha DX7)

Lab 2 (OS X Mac)

Usually the guest account will be open on the computer for local use. You can request an individual account from you-know-who if you need one (to prevent other people from deleting your files accidentally or on purpose).

Lab 3 (Computer in corner)

Lab 4 (Computer connected to the projector)

Getting sound from the Lab4 computer to the speakers

  1. Plug in the 1/8" audio jack into the back of the computer. It is plugged into the sound card which is the bottom card on the back of the computer. The green-color hole is the place to plug it in.

    Usually step (1) should already be done, since the speaker cable is usually plugged into the computer (but sometimes it is plugged into the computer facing lab4). On the Lab4 computer the plastic green part of the plug on the sound card is actually missing, so plug the cable into the hole which is wider and does not have any plastic color marker.

  2. Check the volume setting on the taskbar in Windows. Typically the volume will be muted. Click on the volume icon in the system tray to verify that the volume level is not zero, and that the mute option is not checked.
  3. If there is still no sound, double-click on the volume icon in the taskbar to open up the detailed volume control. Verify that the audio output volume is not zero, and also the MIDI output if you are playing MIDI sounds from the sound blaster card (but usually the MIDI sounds in programs are coming from the WAVE output since the Microsoft software synthesizer is being used). The following image shows the "Play Control" window which will appear if you double-click on the volume icon in the taskbar. Make sure that the "Play Control" volume slider is high, the "Wave" volume slider is high, and the "MIDI" volume slider is high (if you plan to use MIDI). In the following example, the MIDI volume is set to zero, so it will not be audible.
  4. If there is no sound coming from the speakers, then it is possible that the audio input switch for the speakers is not set correctly. The switch is a little box to the left of the screen on the Epson scanner computer. It should be set correctly. Just switch it around to various input until I hear sound on the speakers (that presumes that the computer is outputting audio correctly, however). Only do this as a last resort, since it is rare for the switch to be set to some other audio input. Things become difficult if the display resolution

Displaying a Laptop on the projector

  1. There is a loose VGA cable (and a white DVI-VGA adaptor for Mac computers) on the floor near lab 4. Plug the VGA cable into the laptop computer's VGA output.
  2. The laptop must now be told to send video out to the VGA connection. This is dependent on the type of laptop. Often windows laptops have a hardware key (such as Fn+F7) which toggles through the display options. Windows 7 computers often auto-detect that a cable is plugged into the VGA video out and will start sending a signal automatically. Mac OS X has a display option in its main settings under the apple menu.
  3. Once the laptop is connected, there is a video switch attached to the left side of the lab4 computer (underneath the counter). Turn the switch to the "laptop" setting.

Displaying Lab4 on the projector

  1. The projector cannot handle resolutions greater than 1280x1024. Its preferred resolution is 1024x768. The usual resolution of lab4's monitor is 1600x1200. Therefore, you must decrease the resolution of the screen temporarily when using the projector.
  2. Right-click on the far left side of the screen with the mouse (the far left side of the screen, since right-clicking on the HTML display will not bring up the display menu). This will bring up a menu. Select the "Properties..." option in that menu.
  3. Click on the settings tab in the Properties window which appears.
  4. Choose a resolution of 1280x1024 or lower (1024x768 is preferred).
  5. If no video is being displayed, then make sure that the video selector switch attached to the left side of the computer is not set to "laptop".
  6. It will take several seconds for the video to be displayed. You can usually see the text "perfecting image" when the projector has found a video signal, and it is getting ready to display that signal. If it cannot find a video signal, you will usually see the text "Scanning..." being display from the projector.

Restarting the Lab4 computer

When the computer is restarted, there is confusion in the detection of display screens. The computer wants to use the display projector as the screen, so the normal screen will become blank after Windows starts up. The easiest way to work around this problem is to turn on the projector, and open the Nvidia control panel on the right side of the taskbar. Then in an obscure menu item in the Nvidia control panel, select the correct screen. The most direct process is to unplug the projector's cable from the back of the computer in order to prevent it from being detected when the computer is being restarted. That involves unscrewing it from the back. The projector's cable should be the DVI cable furthest from the window.

Lab 5 (Computer with EPSON GT-15000 scanner)

Lab5 is typically turned off because the CPU fan gets noisy after running for a few hours. It is preferrable to turn off that computer at the end of the day to prevent the fan from wearing out when noone is around.

To use the Epson Scanner, first turn on the scanner by pressing the gray on button on its front left side. Then wait about a minute while it warms up and does diagnostics. Then you can start the scanning software which is available from the taskbar.

General Notes

Storing files on the Windows computers

Getting MIDI input into Finale

Getting MIDI working with programs can be tricky, although the connection is usually stable once it is set up (until someone unplugs something, or changes software settings). Here are some tips for hunting down the problem with MIDI input into Finale:

  1. Make sure that the music keyboard is turned.
  2. Make sure that the MIDI (or USB) cable from the music keyboard connects into the computer.
  3. To test if MIDI is coming in. Click on the "Speedy Note Entry" tool, then click in some measure. Press some notes on the music keyboard, and then press keypad 5 on the computer keyboard. You should see quarter notes appear in the measure. The numlock key must be active, so try pressing int to get the LED next to the "1" on the keyboard to light up if you do not see notes appearing in the measure.
  4. If you still do not get any notes in the measure. Go to the "Speedy" menu at the top of the screen and make sure that the "Use MIDI device for input" option has a check next to it. Some people use the enter key for note entry in speedy note, and they may turn this option off in order to do so.
  5. If you still do not get any notes in the measure, then check that the MIDI input device has been assigned. Go to the "MIDI/Audio" menu at the top of the screen, select the "Device Setup" option, and then the "MIDI Setup..." option in the menu which appears. In the window which appears, make sure that the MIDI Input device is set to the correct device (if there are more than one).
  6. If you want to hear the musical keyboard through the computer (for example if you are wanting to listen to the click track and the musical keyboard notes at the same time), then select the menu option "MIDI/Audio→Device Setup→MIDI Thru..."