On Oct 14, 2006, at 4:42 AM, Christopher Smith wrote:
Some things Finale doesn't do well in spacing: when there is a large interval, or when the stems change direction, Finale spaces the two notes exactly the same as if there was a small interval or no stem direction change. I never realised it before, but hand-engraved parts often push the spacing a bit to make them LOOK identical, while they aren't identical according to strict measurement.
I think this is a recurring theme in Finale's spacing shortcomings. I used to do quite a bit of high-end work where I had the luxury of devoting extra time to spacing tweaks in order to make everything look just right. I'd guess that more than half of my tweaks were in this category -- ie, nudging things so that to the eye it appears to be even/balanced/aligned/whatever as opposed to Finale's attempt which really *was* mathematically even/balanced/aligned/whatever, but didn't *look* as much so.
When there is a lot of room, Finale is actually pretty good, but it needs more and more tweaking as the density increases.
Absolutely true. I remember some crowded and complicated systems where I'd spend a half an hour on just one system, to get it just right. Loose music, on the other hand, was a breeze and needed few if any tweaks.
Perhaps someone with a fine engraver's eye will make a "Score spacing plugin" one day, kind of like Patterson Beams. But I bet all the engravers will STILL tweak the results!
If only I had the time and resources, I would love to pursue a project like that -- particularly with regard to lyrics. Back when I was still active (I haven't done any significant engraving work in a few years) I gave quite a bit of thought to what sort of algorithms I'd use for such a plug-in, roughly following my own standard operating procedure when cleaning up a piece.
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