On Jun 9, 2005, at 9:05 AM, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
At 06:55 AM 6/9/05 -0400, Christopher Smith wrote:
On Jun 8, 2005, at 5:53 PM, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
I need to take a lengthy section of mixed note values and rhythms,
and
change all of them to the same (smaller) note value, filling out the
note's
remaining value with rests. (Because of the variety of mixed values,
it's
not as simple as making certain notes staccato, saving as Midi, and
reloading.)
For a minute, I thought the Rhythmic Subdivisions plugin might help,
but no, because it doesn't add rests; it just changes the length of
the
notes.
Yup. I was there. And also to other plugins that might have a secondary
feature.
But why doesn't your trick of staccato, save as MIDI, re-load (perhaps
mixed with Retranscribe from Mass Edit with different quantize values,
applied to Partial Measures as necessary) work? That's what I would
try.
It does. But I can re-enter the entire score faster than adding
bajillions
of articulations to some notes and not others, changing quantizations,
etc., etc. Plus I still have to deal with dotted rhythms that have to
be
changed by hand.
Cubase has (had?) an option Set to Value (or Set Length? I don't
remember exactly the name), which did exactly what you are looking for.
If your own sequencer has something like this, you wouldn't have to
screw around with articulations.
I was hoping, if not a plugin, that maybe there was even a slightly
different entry mode with the latest Finale. We got Speedy Insert a few
versions ago, so I hoped we might have a new change/fill option
(something
like: cursor over quarter note, hit '3' and watch it change to
sixteenth
note + rests.)
Somewhat OT explanation: Pretty much as usual, I'm composing. I work a
piece out in my head, scribbling on a cheat-sheet of music paper to
remind
me what to do at the computer. I circle bits & pieces in the notes
with big
arrows and Post-It notes. Then I 'engrave' from mental image to screen,
where copy/paste/drag/drop/alter shortcuts are very handy. Overall,
music
programs lack compositional tools, so I'm jumping around with Finale,
Sonar, Midimage, AMG, etc., for some help and using Midi as the
transfer
format. For compositional tools, I'm not sure if Finale Script is the
thing
to look at, but it sure would be great to be able to do scut-work
things
like shorten+fill, split notes in multple pieces (such as turn a
quarter
into eights or quintuplets), expand values and tupletize, one-step
parallel
motion, explode respecting instrumental ranges, shift areas right
without
changing note values, make the score a single measure (to avoid
Finale's
measure orientation), etc., etc. The canonic utilities were really a
helpful addition. A good chunk of compositional labor is the busywork
of
applying theoretically simple actions to paper.
I hear you! One tool that I have been expecting ever since I started
using Finale is what was called in Cubase "Legato", which might be
better called "Mimimize Rests" or something like that. It just makes
every note selected full value. And of course, the contrary, which is
what you are trying to do.
I also often wish I could select individual notes for copying to
another staff, the way every sequencer I have ever seen works. Finale
only allows that in Note Mover for a measure at a time, which is next
to useless for these purposes. Messing around with Mass Edit filters
and Explode/Implode sometimes does what I need, but the amount of brain
CPU cycles I expend on this when I should be thinking about music is
counterproductive.
And for that matter, it would be REALLY useful to be able to select
discontiguous parts of the score for applying edits, like selecting
only a few notes, then a few more notes, then one more note, and
transposing the whole lot up or down an octave (or any other interval,
of course!) without affecting the notes in between.
Christopher
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