Frequently Answered Questions (FAQ)

Here you find answers to frequently asked questions. Click on the questions in the table of contents to jump to the respective answers.

General Questions Regarding The Software

Is Synfire Pro available as a downloadable product?

Not at this time. Synfire Pro and its bundled tools and drivers require a physical DVD to install. The printed user manual is very useful for learning about Synfire's new paradigms more comfortably. You will probably not want to miss it. (Back to Top)

What do HN and Synfire sound like?

Harmony Navigator and Synfire generate MIDI-Data, not Sound. Depending on which MIDI equipment you are using, your sound may vary. You may connect external Samplers, Synthesizers, Expanders or E-Pianos, as well as Software Instruments. (Back to Top)

What extra equipment do I need?

If you want to use the built-in software synthesizer of your operating system, you don't need additional components. In order to achieve a better sound quality however, you might want to host virtual software instruments on a DAW and have HN or Synfire Pro send its MIDI output there via a MIDI Loopback driver (HN2 Advanced Edition and Synfire Pro include such a driver). For recording and "live" input, you need a MIDI keyboard and external MIDI interface. (Back to Top)

Can I play virtual software instruments?

Yes. In the "Support" section of this website, you will find various articles on this topic. For the time being, you will need either an instrument running in "standalone" mode, or a VST/AU hosting program (Logic, Cubase, Bidule, vsthost, etc). (Back to Top)

Harmony Navigator

Which musical skills are required to use Harmony Navigator?

Provided you already have a vague Idea of what chords and scales are, you should just go ahead and try. Traditional notation skills are not required. You will learn about many aspects of harmony simply by doing. (Back to Top)

Registration And User Account

How do I change my password or my email address?

Login to your account, goto "Profile" and enter a new password. Your email address can be changed there too. (Back to Top)

May I use a P.O. box address?

No. We can not ship to PO boxes, because the logistics providers do not allow this. Please provide us with a full street address in order for your packages to safely arrive. (Back to Top)

Why am I required to provide my real name?

Your name is embedded with your personal copy of the software. This way you can always prove you are a legitimate owner of a software license. Your name is also used to automatically embed your copyright claim with the documents you created. It's purpose is to protect your work. If you do not provide your real name, the license and claims may be invalid. (Back to Top)

What is my phone number needed for?

Under normal circumstances, Cognitone will never call you on the phone. Your phone number is required by FedEx, DHL, and UPS for international shipping. It may be needed in case problems arise with parcel delivery (e.g. if you address was accidentally typed wrong) or customs clearing. (Back to Top)

Download and Installation

How do I install on my Mac for a non-admin user account?

Please temporarily enable admin privileges for that user account until you have installed and authorized the software (important: both must have completed successfully). After this you can retract the admin privileges from that account again. (Back to Top)

How do I install or uninstall LoopBe30?

Synfire Pro and Harmony Navigator 2 Advanced Edition include a license for LoopBe30 Internal MIDI Ports, a MIDI Loopback driver (You don't need that on a Mac: Use the Apple IAC Driver). Go to the directory C:\Program Files\Cognitone\Harmony Navigator 2 (or Synfire Pro respectively). There you find the folder LoopBe30 containing the file setuploopbe30.exe. Run this file in order to install LoopBe30. If you want to uninstall the driver, run Uninstall_LoopBe30.exe in the program files directory under nerds.de\LoopBe30. For more information on the driver, please visit www.nerds.de. (Back to Top)

Product Authorization And License Management

Why Authorization?

Authorization (also known as product activation or registration) is a now commonly accepted and proven means of "soft" copy protection. Without an appropriate measure for the containment of piracy, small software firms would no longer be able to survive in the age of broadband Internet. Authorization however, also has clear advantages for you as the customer:

You can be absolutely sure your copy is a genuine Original which has not been tampered with by third parties, possibly with added malicious or spying code. Only Cognitone can guarantee the confidentiality of the works you create with our software.
We can do without the hassle of copy protected CDs - You may freely make backup copies or your installation files and store them anywhere on your computer. You may download and install a product immediately.
Honest customers no longer have to pay a price premium to compensate for heavy losses caused by software piracy. Prices stay reasonable and steady.
An innovative and demanding product requires ongoing research and development, which is time consuming and expensive. All honest customers contribute to the funding of these efforts. It's an investment in the future of their tools, ensuring high quality and continuity.

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How does it work?

Cognitone maintains a list keeping track of which program is installed on how many different computers at the same time. This way it's impossible to install identical copies of a single license on thousands of computers. (Back to Top)

What do I have to do to authorize my installation?

Start Harmony Navigator or Synfire as usual. In case your installation is not yet authorized, a dialog will show up offering you the option to authorize now. Select "Authorize Now" and follow the instructions. You may as well start the original SETUP program (installation files), or launch the SETUP through the START menu of Windows. (Back to Top)

I don’t have a direct Internet connection on my computer. What now?

The SETUP program offers several alternative methods for authorization. You may submit your authorization data on another computer (using a standard web browser), send an email to us or print out and fax or snail mail a registration form. The online authorization however, is the quickest and most conveient of all (recommended). (Back to Top)

Can I use my product installation without authorizing?

You may use your installation for a period for 30 days without authorization. During these 30 days the program will run almost without limitations (only a few bonus features disabled). Within the grace period, you may chose to authorize the installation at any time that's convenient for you. (Back to Top)

Do I need to authorize an installation again, if I change my computer’s components?

A re-authorization is only required when main components of the hardware configuration change significantly. This is the case when replacing, for example, the mainboard, the system hard disk or the operating system. When your computer is online, re-authorization is as easy as entering your login and password. (Back to Top)

Am I allowed to use a second installation on my laptop?

According to the license agreement, only one installation is granted on a single computer at a time. However, if you want to use your product on your desktop computer and laptop alternately, Cognitone allows you to authorize a second installation for this purpose.Hence, you may authorize a total of two installations for each license. (Back to Top)

Both of my allowed installations are exhaused. What now?

In the event that your hardware happened to crash or you needed to install a new operating system from scratch, it was probably impossible to properly deactivate your old installation. You may visit your account under "Installations" and permanently discard the installation as "lost" to make room for a new authorization. This, however, can not be undone. Please carefully read the instructions on the website before submitting such a deletion. (Back to Top)

What if I need to replace hardware components when I can't go online?

Any significant change of the hardware configuration will start a new 30 day grace period during which you may run the program almost without limitations. You merely need to authorize your installation for the new hardware at any time within that period. (Back to Top)

What is deactivation good for?

Cognitone offers its customers the unique possibility to "park" a currently unused installation by deactivating it. You may deactivate an installation before installing a new operating system, for example. You may also use the same installation alternately on two computers by deactivating the currently unused installation respectively. (Back to Top)

Do I need an email address for the authorization?

Yes. A Cognitone user account is required to store your licenses and installations, which means that you also need an email address. (Back to Top)

Why does Cognitone need my address?

When you purchase a software product in the online shop, a billing and shipping address is required to fulfill your order. The same holds true for product downloads (except demos and free downloads, of course). Email addresses are anonymous and do change frequently. Cognitone occasionally sends confidential information by postal mail (e.g. vouchers for upgrades). Please be sure the information you entered is correct. This way we are able to reach you for important notifications even if your email address has changed. (Back to Top)

What kind of information is transfered during authorization?

Your product's serial number and a hardware key. The hardware key is kind of a random number computed depending on the presence of hardware components in your computer. This number doesn't contain any particular information about the hardware or software installed on your computer, nor any personal information. It's sole purpose is to distinguish your computer from other computers. (Back to Top)

What does Cognitone do with my authorization data?

Cognitone uses your hardware key and serial number solely to keep track of how many installations are active for each software license. The information is useless for other purposes. (Back to Top)

How secure is the Online Authorization?

Authorization data is transfered in encrypted form. Anyway, even if somebody managed to intercept the transmission, the information would be completely useless for him. It only works on your hardware and doesn't contain personal information. (Back to Top)

What happens to my license in the event that Cognitone no longer exists?

Cognitone would publish a patch or generic serial number free of charge and available to everybody that will unlock all installations forever. We warrant that to all our customers. (Back to Top)

What do I have to do if I want to sell my license?

The license you originally purchased is personal. Therefore, you can't just hand it over to someone else. If you want to sell it or give it away, please let us know once you found a buyer and we will terminate your license and the buyer will obtain a new license from Cognitone. This service is free of charge for downloadable products. For products that require the shipment of a new DVD to the buyer (Synfire Pro), we might eventually ask for a small fee that covers the costs involved (at this time we don't).

Note that the same license can not be resold more than two times. A second hand owner may resell it once, after the second resale, the license receives NFR status (not for resale). Please if you have sold your license or have any further questions. (Back to Top)

Solutions to Technical Problems

No Sound: I can't hear any sound after a fresh install

In case you can not hear any sound despite you have selected the correct output in Audio and MIDI Setup, this is almost always because the mixer volume for the built-in Microsoft Windows Synthesizer is turned off. You will find the mixer in the task bar (click on the speaker icon at the bottom right of the screen). You should see multiple faders, one of which is assigned to the synthesizer (the mixer looks different depending on the installed sound card brand).

Please also have a look at this Troubleshooting Guide: No Sound. (Back to Top)

No Sound: Muting a particular instrument also mutes other instruments

In the palette window, instrument muting is related to a particular MIDI port and channel. In case there are not enough sounds available for the instruments used by a pattern (i.e. categories like "piano", "guitar" oor "bass"), it may happen that different instruments are allocated to the same sound (and hence, muted too). It is a good idea to have at least one General MIDI (GM) device enabled, so there are always enough default sounds avaialble for all categories. (Back to Top)

MacOSX: Program does not respond to mouse clicks after starting

This was a bug with versions 1.5.1 and earlier. Please update to the most recent version. (Back to Top)

MacOSX: After installing on Leopard, HN complains about "The MIDI subsystem configuration failed"

The error message reads E0543 "The MIDI subsystem configuration failed [11]. Required system components could not be found. Please uninstall and re-install the software.". Please read this article for a solution. (Back to Top)

Windows: Computer suddenly reboots during installation

This strange behavior was observed in conjunction with certain versions of the software "Spyware Doctor", which doesn't seem to like a MIDI driver being installed. Please disable or uninstall Spyware Doctor while setting up Harmony Navigator. (Back to Top)

Program won't start. No messages shown, nothing happens at all

On the Macintosh, this happens if you try to install Harmony Navigator on MacOS X 10.3.9 or earlier. HN however requires at least MacOS X 10.4 Tiger or later. On a Windows PC, this behavior may point to another (possibly crashed) instance of the program still running invisibly in the background. Please open the Windows task manager and terminate HN.exe (or SynfirePro.exe). This should free up all locked files and resources. (Back to Top)

Installation doesn't start or crashes half way through

The downloaded file may be incomplete or corrupted. Please do not use download managers, e.g. GetRight, Mass Downloader, Fresh Download, or Star Downloader. Please download all files the conventional way. We suspect our server can not handle mass downloaders well. (Back to Top)

Windows Vista: Installation and Authorization Issues

These problems have been fixed in version 1.5 and later. Please update your installation to the latest version. (Back to Top)

Error Message: MSVCR71.DLL can not be found

This library file is usually included with a new Windows installation. However, it happens that it is missing from some systems for some reason. Please get the file and its installation instructions from our download section. (Back to Top)

Message: "Error: Sharing Violation" during Install/Uninstall (Windows)

This message points to another (possibly crashed) instance of the program still running invisibly in the background. Please open the Windows task manager and terminate HN.exe (or SynfirePro.exe). This should free up all locked files and resources. Another possible cause for this are insufficient access rights for the current user to write to the folder "C:\Program Files\Cognitone". Please set the access rights for this folder manually such that all users have full access to it. (Back to Top)

Instruments don't sound like expected

It is likely that there are not enough sounds available in your Audio and MIDI setup, in order to allocate a suitable sound to each instrument being used by the built-in patterns. You should always keep at least one General MIDI Device (GM) enabled, so there are enough default sounds for each instrument category available. (Back to Top)

HN stops responding to MIDI input in the palette window

This was an issue with 1.1.3 and earlier. Please update to the most recent version. (Back to Top)

General Questions

What does the animal logo stand for?

It's a prehistorical gecko under hard X-ray penetration. That's really not healthy. You should never try this at home. We guarantee, however, that no live animal was hurt during the production of this picture. (Back to Top)