Music Composer version 4.10 REFERENCE MANUAL Music Composing, editing, converting and playing software Effective Software Solutions Copyright 1993-1996, Effective Software Solutions. All rights reserved. This manual and the software described in it are copyrighted with all rights reserved. Under the copyright laws of the United States, this manual and the software may not be copied, in whole or part, without the written consent of Effective Software Solutions, except in the normal use of the software or to make backup copies. This exception does not allow copies to be made for others, whether or not sold, but all material purchased (with all backup copies) may be sold, given or loaned to another person. You may take the software from one computer to another, but you may use the software on only one computer at a time. Effective Software Solutions Clayburn W. Juniel, III 1928 E. Camelback Rd. #623 Phoenix, AZ 85016-4143 USA Phone: (602)274-6905 Fax: (602)274-6851 Email: clay1@primenet.com web http://www.primenet.com/~clay1 Music Composer INTRODUCTION: With this program you can create a program from scratch. Load an existing sequence and edit that. You can add notes, delete notes, modify note volumes, and change the note channels. You can add notes via a MIDI keyboard or use the keyboard on the screen to add notes exactly where you want them or enter notes on the sheet music form. You can also add and modify all types of MIDI messages including system exclusive messages. You can play the music also. There are three modes to Music Composer. Keyboard: You can play notes on the keyboard on the computer screen by clicking the mouse pointer on the keys. Spread Sheet: Here notes are placed on a spread sheet like form. You can add notes or any MIDI item by double clicking the mouse pointer in any cell. You can also edit any item by double clicking on that cell. There are 16 tracks. Sheet Music: Here notes are placed on the form like sheet music. The music can't be played in this mode. it first must be converted to the spread sheet mode. Sequences are created in blocks. Each block is a set of MIDI notes and messages that are in a set of 16 tracks. Each sequence block can be played separately. If you wanted to repeat a melody you would just create it as a separate block. MENUS: APPLE MENU About GS Composer Window gives name and version of program. Also author's name and copyright information. Configure preferences This dialog window has several check boxes allowing you to set preferences as to which warning messages to show and which music sequence files to enable icons for. And which music files you can select from when opening a music file. If the icons are enabled you can launch Music Composer by double clicking on the sequence files. See LAUNCH ICONS for a further discussion of icons. Help There are two windows under this menu item. Show Icons shows and gives names for all of the icons used in the spreadsheet. Manual shows this manual on line with a find and find next feature. FILE MENU New: Creates a new sequence. Clearing out the old sequence. There can be two different types of sequences. Spread sheet sequences and Sheet music sequences. The New menu item only clears out the one of the mode you are in. Open: Open a sequence file from disk. Including the instrument bank and wave. You can load SynthLAB, Music Composer, Music Studio, and Sound Smith format files. You can also load Standard type 0 and 1 MIDI files. Choice of files shown is controlled by the preference dialog box. The choices for the preferences dialog is shown in the get file dialog window. There is also a check box to select all files. When the preference for Music Studio files is chosen, only binary type files ending in the suffix .SNG are presented for selection. Also when the preference for Standard MIDI is chosen only files of Apple II MIDI files are selected. But when you check the box 'Check all files' all binary files are checked to see if they are Music Studio files and all files that are not of a known music type are check to see if they are Standard MIDI files. Be forewarned if you have a lot of files in a directory this can take a long time. Open Instrument: Open a instrument bank and wave. Import sequence: A sequence file created with this program can have up to 64 separately playable blocks. Each block is like a separate sequence file without the header information. When you import a sequence file you create another block and add that file to blocks that already exist. It imports SynthLAB and Standard MIDI format files as the sequence blocks. Revert to saved: Revert the sequence to the lasted saved sequence. Close: Close a new desk accessory window. Save: Save the sequence file currently in memory. Save as: Save the sequence file currently in memory. Allowing you to rename it. Save sheet as: Saves the sheet music sequence. Export SL sequence: Saves the sequence block you are currently editing as a SynthLab file format. Export MIDI file: Exports a type 1 MIDI file of the present sequence block. Delete sequence: Delete a sequence file that is not locked. This will also delete any file type that Music Composer creates. Initialize disk: This will initialize 5 1/4 and 3 1/2 inch disk only if you need them to save your work to. If the disk to be initialized was already initialized once it will just be erased. Page Setup: Set the page to print the way you want. Print: You can print both the spread sheet and the sheet music sequences you are editing to paper. Twelve beats (72 cells) are printed per paper page of the spread sheet form. And four screens of sheet music are printed per page Quit: Exit this program. Gives a warning if something has changed and you need to save your work. EDIT MENU Undo: Does nothing in this program Cut: Copies the selected information to an internal clipboard only. It then deletes the selected information. You can cut tracks, measures, beats and single notes. See the sections on COMPOSER SPREAD SHEET and SHEET MUSIC INTERFACE for more detailed information on this and the other edit functions. Copy: Copies the selected information to an internal clipboard only. Without deleting it from the spread sheet cells. You can copy the same as in the cut above. Paste: Paste the information from the internal clipboard to the spread sheet cells at the point of the selection. If more then one cell is selected then it is pasted starting at the upper left cell of the selection. If tracks are pasted then the tracks pasted to are erased then the items are pasted to the tracks. If rows are pasted then the rows beneath that are moved down (or MIDI notes and messages are moved up in clock ticks). Clear: Clears the selected information from the spread sheet cells. Also assessed by the DELETE key. Change instrument: Changes the instruments (channels) in the selected area. Move Instrument: Move instrument only works when an entire single track is selected. See the section on COMPOSER SPREAD SHEET for more details on selecting an entire track. You can move all the instruments of a certain number to any of the 16 tracks. Block: This controls the creation, deletion and editing of the sequence blocks. A dialog window is created with several options. Delete block deletes the block number chosen with the scroll bar beneath it. Edit block sets the spread sheet cells to edit the block number beneath it. When this button is chosen the dialog window is removed and you are ready to edit that block. Block count tells you how many blocks there presently are. New block creates a new sequence block. When this button is chose the dialog window is removed and you are ready to edit that block. Continue removes the dialog window without changing which block you were editing. The present block number appears on the right of the system menu bar. Key equivalents: Delete block -- DELETE KEY Edit block -- E KEY New Block -- N KEY Go to page number: You use this command with a hard copy printing of the spread sheet sequence block. There are two beats showing on the spread on the computer screen. There are 12 beats that are printed to paper. This command will take you to the beat that is at the start of the page number chosen. Go to marker number: You can place a marker icon anywhere in the spread sheet. Set a number in data1 and use this item to go to that marker Transpose down: Transpose notes in selected area by one half steps down. Transpose up: Transpose notes in selected area by one half steps up. Volume down: Transpose volume down in selected area up by chosen amount Volume up: Transpose volume up in selected area up by chosen amount New note duration: Sets the duration that a notes play in the selected area. The duration can go from 128th of a note to 2 notes. This is for fine tuning notes that are of 2 note duration or less. Select all: Select all midi items for edit functions. Go to stop: This will take you to the place in the spread sheet where the music stopped playing. Or if the music is still playing to where it played the last note. Go to next marker: Choosing this menu item will take you to the next marker in the spread sheet. Find System Exclusive: This command will take you to the next system exclusive message in the spread sheet. Fade in: The volume of notes and volume control will "fade in" in the selected area. Fade out: The volume of notes and volume control will "fade out" in the selected area. Play zone: The notes in the selected area will be played. SETUP MIDI: This control MIDI input and output. A dialog window is created with several options. Choose one of the Omni, Poly, and Multi radio buttons for the mode. Omni means all MIDI message channels (instruments) are accepted through MIDI and forced to one channel (the basic channel). Poly means only those MIDI messages that match the basic channel are accepted. Multi means all MIDI message channels are accepted without being changed. Choose a basic channel with the scroll bar. With SysEx in checked when a system exclusive message is received it will be recorded in the spread sheet cell. MIDI in and MIDI out control whether MIDI in or out is enabled. Vel Comp adds the value to the volume of the incoming MIDI note message. Keyboard equivalents: Omni -- O KEY Poly -- P KEY Multi -- M KEY SysEx in -- S KEY MIDI in -- I KEY MIDI out -- X KEY Sequencer: This controls the sequencer functions. The clock can be set to internal or MIDI port. Count off beats lets that many beats "count off" after the play or record button is pressed before playing or recording starts. With metronome checked a metronome plays to the beat. With Key start pressed playing or recording doesn't start until after a key up (note off) MIDI message is received. This program will recognized MIDI START, CONTINUE and STOP messages. What the MIDI record and MIDI play radio buttons do is decide whether these messages are for recording or playing. If you click on the radio button that is chosen then both will be not chosen. Beat to controls the timing of the beats. The beat time effects the metronome as well as how many beats are in six cells in the spread sheet. See COMPOSER SPREAD SHEET for more information. Display Sharp/Display Flat decides whether notes will be displayed as the lower note sharped or the higher note flatted. Key decides which key the notes are in on the sheet music interface. If a column of notes are selected the the key is inserted there, otherwise the key is for the entire measure. Key equivalents; Internal -- I KEY MIDI port -- X KEY Metronome -- M KEY Key start -- K KEY MIDI Record -- R KEY MIDI Play -- P KEY Beat to -- 1 - 7 KEY Track out: Track out controls where the output of the sequencer goes for each track. A dialog window is created allowing you to chose. Key equivalents: Synthesizer -- 1-0 KEY and 1-6 Keypad MIDI port -- Shift 1-0 KEY and Shift 1-6 keypad Track to channel: Track to channel will map each track of the sequencer to a certain instrument. A dialog window is created allowing you to set this. If that channel is set to 0 then it will play what the MIDI instrument says. Volumes: Volumes brings up a dialog window that lets you chose the volume that each instrument is played at through the sequencer. It also lets you choose the system volume. MUSIC Composer: Go to the composer window Keyboard: Go to the keyboard window Sheet Music: Go to the sheet music interface Convert sheet: Converts sheet music sequence to spread sheet form. Player: Player brings up a dialog window letting you choose which blocks to play when. You can choose the number of play positions up to 128. For each play position (up to the number of play positions) set a sequence block number. You can play the same block several times. With loop checked when the last play positioned is played it will "loop" to first and start again. With Scroll checked the notes and MIDI messages scroll on the screen when you Play or Continue music. Key equivalents; Loop -- L KEY Scroll -- S KEY Play block: Plays the sequence 'block' that you are editing Play from position: Play from the start of a selected area to the end of the block. You can click on any where and start playing from that point. Kill all notes: Kill all notes will stop any hung notes from playing. INSTRUMENTS Choose an instrument for the basic channel Key equivalents: Instruments 1-10 -- SHIFT KEY 1-0 Instruments 11-16 -- SHIFT KEYPAD 1-6 KEYBOARD This is the keyboard on the screen. With it you can play and record notes from instruments. You can set the keyboard volume and whether the first key on the left is C1 or C2. In recording mode you can record a single note. The note recorded will be the last note played before you press Done. For every note recorded there is a MIDI note on and note off. The time till the note off is when you released the last key. To exit recording mode without recording a note press the cancel button. To enter the recording mode you start at the spread sheet. While holding down the COMMAND KEY double click in an empty cell at the beat and track where you want the note to be. You will be taken to the keyboard in recording mode. When you press Done you will be take back to the spread sheet and the note will be in the spread sheet. Key equivalents: C1 -- > KEY C2 -- < KEY COMPOSER SPREAD SHEET The composer spread sheet is where you do your editing, recording, and playing of sequence files. At the top are several controls. Starting at the left are the play tracks. For each box that is checked that track will play. You can choose which tracks to play or not when recording and playing. Below that is the record track. You can choose only one of these to record your MIDI input to. If you select the track that is already chosen then it is de-selected. Other tracks switches between tracks 1-8 and 9-16 You can set the play tempo with the tempo scroll bar. The Play button plays the sequence file according to the settings in the Player dialog window. The Record button starts recording MIDI input. It records into and plays the present sequence block set for editing. The track set for recording is erased then the recorded input is put in that track. The Stop button stops playing and recording. The Continue button continues playing from where you last stopped playing. If you hold down the SHIFT KEY and choose the Continue button you will continue recording. This option doesn't erase the recorded track. It starts playing - recording at the beginning of the present sequence block set for editing. You can then start recording where you hear you left off. While music is playing and/or recording most of the functions of the program are still available to use. I wouldn't recommend cutting, copying, pasting, or clearing anything at this time. Key equivalents: Play tracks 1-8 -- 1-8 KEY Play tracks 9-16 -- 1-8 KEY Record tracks 1-8 -- 1-8 KEYPAD Record tracks 9-16 -- 1-8 KEYPAD Other tracks -- O KEY Play -- P KEY Record -- R KEY Continue playing -- C KEY Continue Recording -- SHIFT-C KEY Stop -- S KEY Below The above controls are the 8 track names. Four tracks can be shown at once. To see other tracks use the scroll bar at the bottom. You can change the track names by clicking on the track name. This will bring up an edit window allowing you to change the name. SPREAD SHEET CELLS Below the track names are the spread sheet cells. This is where the MIDI notes and messages appear and are edited. Structure of the spread sheet cells There are 16 tracks. Four tracks can be seen at once. To see the other tracks use the scroll bar at the bottom of the window. For each track there are 2 beats showing. Each beat is marked by a small color bar at left of the spread sheet at the start of each beat. There are 6 cells per beat. To see other cells use the scroll bar at the right of the window. When printing a hard copy 12 beats (72 cells) are printed. starting at the first small color bar on the left every 12 one has a number in it representing what page number it would be if printed. When MIDI notes or other messages appear in a beat they start at the top of the beat and go down. If there are more notes or messages then 6 per beat then the notes and messages pass 6 will not be seen. If that is the case here is what you can try to see more of the notes or messages. Many sequence files created have all the instruments (channels) in one track. You can use Move instrument to move some instruments to other tracks. You can go to the setup menu and choose Sequencer. Change the beat to to a faster beat. This will mean less notes or messages per beat. If you still think there are notes or messages that are not seen you can cut and paste notes to another track. See Editing cells below for more details on this. Selecting cell(s) There is a color bar just below the track names. If you click there and entire track will be selected. If you hold down the mouse and drag it you can select several tracks. If you move pass the right or left edge of the window the tracks will scroll. If you click on the color bar on the left all the tracks in that row will be selected. If you hold down the mouse and drag it you can select several rows. If you move pass the top or bottom of the spread sheet cells then the spread sheet will scroll. You can select an individual cell by clicking on that cell. If you hold down the mouse and drag it you can select several cells. If you move pass the boundaries of the cells the spread sheet will scroll. The edit menu commands Change instrument, Fade in, Fade out, and play zone work on entire beats. Therefore although only one MIDI note or message in a beat is selected, all the notes or messages in that beat will be effect by the action of the menu command. Editing cell(s) The Undo function in the edit menu does nothing to the spread sheet cells. To cut or copy select the area then choose the edit menu command. If you are cutting or copying more then one track (but not choosing the tracks by the color bar at the top of the spread sheet cells) All of the MIDI note or message items in the bottom selected beat area might not be cut or copied. You can possibly avoid this by dragging the mouse to select the next empty row below where you want to cut or copy. This paragraph describes why you might not copy what you selected. It gets a bit technical so you can skip it if you want. When MIDI notes and messages are created two things they are given is a track and a time stamp. The track is really a conceptual thing and has not much to do with how a note plays. But it does make editing sequences easier. The time stamp tells when to play the note or message. The spread sheet is separated into beats and tracks. Lets say a beat is 96 clock ticks long (This is set by the beat to in the setup menu sequencer window). Each beat would start at 0, 96, 192, 288 etc. The time stamps on the notes and messages could be anything (1, 103, 219, 307). The notes and messages within a beat fall within a 96 tick range. The notes and messages in the sequence are ordered by time stamp and not track. If you try and select say only two cells in a beat the program will count tell it reaches the third item in a beat range then it will cut or copy up to that. Track 1 might have time stamps of 0, 10, and 20. Track 2 has time stamps of 15, 30, 40 the program would stop when it found the third item in track 1 and would not find the second item in track 2. It has to stop here to keep the relative timing of the items the same. To edit an individual MIDI note or message double click on a single cell. To add a MIDI message double click on an empty cell. To add a MIDI note hold down the COMMAND KEY while double clicking on a empty cell. See KEYBOARD for further details of recording a single note. When you double click on a cell an edit MIDI item dialog window appears. In this dialog window there are 4 items that can be edited. The type (see list later). The channel (instrument). The Data1 and the Data2. An icon appears next to the type scroll arrow. And the name of the type appears next to the word type. Data1 may also have a an icon and it name is just below the type name. For some of the MIDI types certain things can not be edited. In most cases the scroll arrow next to that item is deactivated. If you double clicked on an existing MIDI item then the type scroll arrow is deactivated. Some MIDI items are not editable and will not bring up a dialog window when you click on them (see list below). When you click on an system exclusive item or choose the OK button when the data type - system exclusive - is showing then you get the MIDI system exclusive message editing dialog window. If this is a new MIDI system exclusive message then the byte # scroll arrow is deactivated. You choose each byte value (0 - 127) then use the Add byte button to add the byte to the system exclusive message. You can then choose another byte value and repeat. The byte count shows how many bytes are in the message. You can have a total of 16,375 bytes in one message. If you double clicked on an existing MIDI system exclusive message then the Add byte and Cancel buttons are deactivated. You can't add any more bytes to the message but you can edit the bytes that are there. Just choose the byte # then edit that byte. You can save the MIDI exclusive data to a separate binary file with the export button. Key equivalents: Add byte -- A KEY Lyrics behave a little differently then the MIDI messages. There can only be a total of 256 separate lyrics. If you COPY a lyric from one place to another it is the same lyric. If you change the lyric in one place it will be changed in the others. Lyrics can only be 15 letters long. To create a lyric double click in an empty cell. Find the Control type. Then scroll down with the Data1 arrow to find the Lyric and hit the OK button. List of MIDI messages and what in them can be edited individually by double clicking on them. Type Editable Channel Data1 Data2 Marker x x x Set beat x x x Set tempo x x x Note off Note on x x Poly after touchx x x x Control x x x Program change x x x x Mono After touchx x x x Pitch bend x x x x System exclusivex x F1 Song positionx x x Song select x x x F4 F5 Tune request End exclusive -- You should never see this icon MIDI clock F9 Start Continue Stop FD Active sensing System reset A brief description of what the various MIDI message icons mean. And what data1 and data2 mean in the seq item editor. Marker.. Is used by the MIDI Synth tool but not by Music Composer. Its icon is included just because some other program might use it. Set beat.. Sets the amount of time that goes by for each beat. MIDI Synth does some internal checking every beat. The smaller the number the faster the beat. 96 is a quarter note. Also the built in metronome beats to this. Data1 beat value Data2 nothing Set tempo.. Changes the tempo up or down by the amount in data2 Data1 + or - Data2 tempo change value Note off.. Stops a note from playing that was of the same channel and same note value. Data1 note value Data2 unimportant Note on.. Plays the note. But if data2 is 0, it is a note off Data1 note value Data2 volume Poly after touch.. This is a MIDI message sent by keyboards with individual pressure sensitivity for each voice. Data1 note value Data2 pressure amount Control.. Controls several functions. Nine of which are defined in Music Composer. Data1 holds the icon for a particular function. Data1 Volume.. Controls the volume of the channel(instrument). Data2 volume amount Data1 Sustain.. This is a sustain switch Data2 0 is off, 127 is on Data1 Lyric.. This is where you can create a lyric. When you press return in the midi item edit box, you get a line edit box where you can create a 15 character lyric. Data2 not important Data1 Local Control... This MIDI message is used to disconnect an instrument's keyboard form from its internal voices. The voices can then be controlled via the MIDI in port. Data2 0 is local control off, 127 is local control on. Data1 All notes off.. This turns all notes off Data2 not important Data1 Omni on.. Turns omni mode on Data2 not important Data1 Omni off.. Turns omni mode off Data2 not important Data1 Mono on.. Turns mono mode on Data2 Determines how many mono channels the receiving instrument should allocate to its internal voices. Data1 Poly on.. Turns poly mode on Data2 not important Program change.. Changes the current preset sound on a MIDI device Data1 the preset number(0 - 127) Data2 not important Mono after touch.. This MIDI message is transmitted by a pressure sensitive keyboard. Data1 pressure amount Data2 not important Pitch Bend.. This message is sent when the pitch bender is changed Data1 amount of pitch bender change Data2 finer resolution of change System exclusive.. These are system exclusive messages. F1.. Is nothing Song Position.. This indicates the position of a song in a MIDI sequence. Data1 position pointer 1 Data2 position pointer 2 Song select.. This message is sent to a drum machine or sequencer to select a preset song. Data1 song number Data2 not important F4.. Nothing F5.. Nothing Tune request.. Tells a MIDI device to preform its tuning routine if it has one Data1 not important Data2 not important MIDI clock... Timing sent by an external MIDI device Data1 not important Data2 not important F9.. Nothing Start.. This MIDI message starts a sequence. Data1 not important Data2 not important Continue.. This MIDI message continues a sequence playing that was stopped Data1 not important Data2 not important Stop.. This MIDI message stops a sequence playing. Data1 not important Data2 not important FD.. Nothing Active sensing.. MIDI devices send this message to say they are still connected. Data1 not important Data2 not important System reset.. A MIDI device receiving this message is reset to its default settings. Data1 not important IMPORTED MUSIC STUDIO INSTRUMENTS When Music Composer imports a Music Studio file it also imports the instruments. The xxx.wbnk file can be in the same directory as music file. Or it can be in a waves subdirectory located on the root directory of the volume that the music file is on or that Music Composer is launched from. Music Composer creates a xxx.Bnk and a xxx.Wav file for the imported file. You are given a chance to name these files. It saves these files in the same directory as the original music file. It will not overwrite a file that is already there. If one already exist you must rename it. If you don't need to create another set of xxx.Bnk and xxx.Wav files, delete the name from the edit window when asked for a wave bank name. Some if not all the created instruments will need to be adjusted with SynthLAB If this task is to daunting you can always load an instrument bank with similar instruments and use that. SHEET MUSIC INTERFACE This is where you add notes as if you were writing them on a sheet. You choose this mode from the MUSIC menu under 'Sheet Music'. Most of the menu item commands will work in this mode. The mouse pointer becomes a note symbol when it is over an area where a note can be placed. When choosing an instrument from the instrument menu the note mouse pointer changes colors. Instrument 1 through 15 are available. You can choose instrument number 16 but it will not function correctly. To place the note, rest measure bar on the sheet just click the mouse button. To remove same click on it again. To place a lyric first choose it in the type popup menu. A dialog box will appear where you type the lyric. There can only be 15 characters for each lyric. After you press OK The lyric can be moved at the bottom of the screen. To place the lyric press the mouse button. To choose another lyric click on lyric in the popup window again. There are three controls on the sheet music interface window. The first is a pop-up menu that lets you chose to place a note, rest, measure bar, tie, lyric or or repeat. Placing a repeat will be discussed later along with Editing. Also in this control you can choose natural or sharp or flat and dot or triplet and accent. The second control is just an indicator of which note frequency. The third control is a pop-up menu that selects the note or rest duration. When you place a rest it automatically goes to the top of the sheet area. You can remove a rest by clicking on the same rest with a rest. To place a tie you must have two notes of the same frequency. Place the tie below the first note and click the mouse button. The tie will automatically stretch to the next note. To do any editing, cut copy and paste, and to add a repeat you must select a range of notes. To do this move the mouse pointer toward the bottom of the sheet music form. It will turn into a square block. You can click the mouse pointer and a column will be selected. You can click and drag to select a range of columns. THE SPLASH SCREEN The splash screen was displayed by 'Splasher' another program from Effective Software Solutions. The graphic was created by Alan Chaess. If you don't want the splash screen displayed simply lock the program file 'Music.Composer' LAUNCH ICONS I hope here to discuss how the Finder deals with icons. If you don't use the finder there is no reason to read any farther. There are three different sources for document icons. The finder has some built in(Plain vanilla). Old style icon files with file type $CA located in the Icons directory of the boot volume. And rBundle icons. Programs that uses a rBundle when first launched stores information in a DeskTop file that is located in the Icons subdirectory of the volume(disk drive) that the program was launched from. If there is no DeskTop file or Icons subdirectory one is created. Each source of icons want to tell the Finder which files to display as which icons. Now if there are several conflicting sources for icons how does the Finder choose which ones to use. After some reading and checking myself here is what I believe to be the case. Each volumes icon subdirectory is checked in turn. You can check in which order they are checked by the order in which they appear on the desktop. Of course the boot volume is checked first. The first icon definition that the finder comes across is what is used. If there is a DeskTop file in the boot volume it is looked at first. There can also be conflicts within a single DeskTop file. If that is the case the program that was launched first for the first time has its icons used. Then any old style icon files are checked next in the boot volume. They are checked in the natural order that they are in the subdirectory. There is no guarantee that the Finder will show you this natural order. You may need some other file utility to show you this. After that volume has been checked the next volume in line is checked in the same manner and so on. Finally the icons internal to the finder are used. What this all means is that the icons you expect to appear may not be used. There could be some other source of icons overriding them. You can use the preferences in Music Composer to not select a type of file. But if you select to use a type of file it might be be chosen because some other source of icons got to it first.