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Saffron
Registered Member
      
Date Joined Jul 2008
Total Posts : 4504
| Posted 7/2/2011 4:35 AM (GMT -6) |   | Here is a simple challenge for Finale ...
I've attached a simple Finale 2005b file that directly illustrates many of the issues I've commented on over the years, and which Finale 2005b (and earlier) handles, frankly, rather badly.
The big question I would like to answer, is has this behaviour improved in any respect in later versions of Finale?
For starters, if you load this MUS file, select all, and "retranscribe", before applying spacing, are any of the problems that I've highlighted in the illustration fixed? Or are there other, new tools that have been introduced since Finale 2005b, that automatically correct these issues?
I would be very grateful if people could have a go at "automatically" correcting these layout problems (not manual editing, which I can do too even in Finale 2005b), and if the results are better, please post screenshots and explain what tools/commands you used to achieve the results!
Thanks,
Brian
File Attachment :
layout_errors_in_Finale_2005b.mus 59KB (application/octet-stream)This file has been downloaded 289 time(s). | | Back to Top | |
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Dr. Wiggy
Early music: modern methods
Date Joined Jun 2006
Total Posts : 12628
| Posted 7/2/2011 4:55 AM (GMT -6) | | Just by looking at the image, my guess would be that little, if any has been improved.
You can join the rests together that are in both layers with TGTools; otherwise, AFAIK, everything else has to be done manually.
This is, of course, not to suggest that there haven't been improvements over the years. However, most of them relate to methods by which things are done, rather than improvements in the end result. There is much that is considerably faster to achieve, even if the same achievement was previously possible.
A noticeable improvement in "result" is with the Lyric Tool, which has vastly improved the problem of spacing melismas, which was a massive "giveaway" that a piece was done in Finale. And although there are reports of less-than-perfect results with the new method, I would suggest that the errors occur much less frequently and are more easily resolved.
I have to say that whilst I hope against hope, I doubt that many long-term defects in the notation engine will get fixed until such time as there is a need for a major overhaul of the code -- perhaps when it becomes so ancient that it is no longer compliant with future OSes.
Finale 2011c, 2Ghz iMac; 2Ghz MacBook, 10.6.6
Edirol FA-66; M-Audio Oxygen 61; Yamaha PSR-410
Ancient Groove Music
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Zuill
"The Troll"
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 29077
| Posted 7/2/2011 1:21 PM (GMT -6) | | When you use voices, I believe they account for the accidentals in other voices, from what I recall.
Zuill
P.S.: Just checked. Yes, that is the case. That is one of the reasons I use voices in piano music. For choral parts sharing the same staff, you actually want the accidental to appear in the 2nd layer. For example, an alto on the same staff as a soprano is not paying attention to the soprano part, and when approaching an accidental, needs to see it if it is the first occurance in that part. That also might be true for instrumental parts sharing a staff.
"When all is said and done, more is said than done."
Finale 2002b, 2003a, 2004b, 2005b, Win XP SP3, 2011b Win 7 64bit
Favorite Forum quote: "Please, everybody, IGNORE THE TROLL!" Post Edited (Zuill) : 7/2/2011 1:26:54 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | |
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Saffron
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2008
Total Posts : 4504
| Posted 7/3/2011 3:45 AM (GMT -6) | | Thanks for your first inputs, everyone ...
Wiggy: For my uses at least, I seem to have "tamed" lyrics - even when writing full SATB+soloist vocal scores, entering/perfecting lyrics take probably 5% or less of my time. I appreciate they've "improved" in more recent versions of Finale, but from my viewpoint, they were already good enough ... for me!
Jeanne: I'd love to know what settings fix those pesky double rests ... as for the "clash" issue, you know what, I'd settle for a very simple algorithm: "make a rest in voice 2 at least [N] spaces below the lowest note in voice 1 (and vice versa)". Ooops, sorry, layer. The simple point is, currently, you have a setting in document options for (paraphrasing, don't have Finale up right now) "move rests on layer 2 [N] spaces down the staff when entries are in layer 1 (and vice versa), and all I would like is for the setting to be relative to whatever notes are in the other layer, rather than simply at a fixed offset which ignores what's actually in the other layer.
Zuill: thanks, and of all people, you'd have some clear and lucid observations. Sadly, "voices" don't do enough for the kind of music I work with, and "layers" are the obvious choice. While I understand the differences between writing a "divisi" part or writing a multi-voice piano part, I wish Finale could be tweaked, ideally staff-at-a-time, to use piano rather than orchestra conventions for accidentals - a simple staff style that obeys piano, rather than divisi, rules, would be the perfect solution.
Motet: agreed, I don't wish Finale to "break" the rules of divisi - but as I just mentioned, a staff style that could be applied to make any given staff obey the rules for keyboards would be fantastic. Currently, Finale "records" music played in via MIDI easily, and plays it back correctly, but prints it wrongly! It stops one from using audio proofing reliably.
But for everyone, my problem is that on any given project, I typically spend around 30% of the time entering notes - something I do very quickly with Speedy/Caps Lock and a MIDI keyboard, perhaps 5% of the time entering lyrics. and (& this is the bit that bothers and frustrates me) the rest of the time, say 65%, disentangling messes like the above!
Brian
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Les Preludes
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2008
Total Posts : 229
| Posted 7/3/2011 10:32 AM (GMT -6) | | We already have the "Move Rests" plug in, in the "Notes, Beams and Rests" plug in folder. I use it a lot to readjust the layer displacement when a different height is needed.
I wonder if it's possible to design a plug in that would combine rests and eliminate collisions with notes? Yes, this should be handled by the program itself, but as Wiggy stated, there may be programming challenges that make this very difficult.
Les | | Back to Top | |
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Dr. Wiggy
Early music: modern methods
Date Joined Jun 2006
Total Posts : 12628
| Posted 7/3/2011 12:45 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeannie
Surely, the Document Setting will apply to the entire document? Saffron's point is that Finale should sort out rests that need to be joined AND rests that need to be floating within the same piece.
I had sort of forgotten about the "Move Rests" plug-in, though I have used it a lot to adjust sections of a document where extra floating is required. You could in fact use it to join the double rests, too.
I do find that there are several plug-ins which I have to run as a matter of course. It might be worth making a Finalescript to run them all. In sequence. Note that if you run Patterson Beams plug-in, it undoes the TG Tools joining of rests.
Brian, if you've never written out music that has, say, four quavers sung to one syllables, then you are very lucky indeed!
If Jari could be persuaded to look at making an "Collision Avoidance" plug-in, that would sort out rogue rests and accidentals, I would pay money for that!
Les Preludes said...
as Wiggy stated, there may be programming challenges that make this very difficult.
I never said it was difficult! (Though it may be.) I just said that I doubt we will see many fixes to the core notation engine until such time as a complete overhaul becomes a necessity for MM.
Finale 2011c, 2Ghz iMac; 2Ghz MacBook, 10.6.6
Edirol FA-66; M-Audio Oxygen 61; Yamaha PSR-410
Ancient Groove Music
www.ancientgroove.co.ukPost Edited (Wiggy) : 7/3/2011 12:49:41 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | |
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Saffron
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2008
Total Posts : 4504
| Posted 7/3/2011 4:22 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeanne R said...Saffron said...
I'd love to know what settings fix those pesky double rests ... Position your notation so that two redundant rests are off to one side. open Doc. Opt. and select Layers. Then move the dialog off to the other side so that you can see those rests. Now look for "Adjust floating rests by" and your default is probably 6 in Layer 1 and -6 in Layer 2. Select Layer 1 at the top and DEselect the adjustment. Click APPLY or press ALT-A if the button is not visible. Select Layer 2 at the top and experiment with DEselecting the adjustment or inserting various other offsets. Report back  Jeanne EDIT: On reviewing the entire para addressed to me, I see that you knew about this function. You just didn't associate it with the duplicate rests? You were focused on the note vs. rest overlap? Two different issues of course. In that same dialog, you should experiment with "apply adjustments only if notes are in other layers" too. The trouble is that that affects stem direction, too. Ugh.
Jeanne, thanks for that ...
... one of the doc settings I've used for years is the spacing option which ignores manual adjustments - at least when I first enter a score. This way, I can combine duplicate rests quite quickly, by simply giving each one a sideways tweak in Speedy, at which point it jumps back to the default position. As I say, I can do this stuff manually, but when entering a lot of music of this type, I spend, seriously, a lot more time tweaking than I do actually entering notes!
Brian
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Vaughan
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 1999
Total Posts : 4984
| Posted 7/3/2011 4:44 PM (GMT -6) | | I'm not sure how difficult it would be for MM to program these things in Finale but some of them are a bit easier in Sibelius. It puts in the f-natural on the third beat of measure 4 by default, but it also puts a natural on the last note in layer 1. It prevents the collision of the c-natural on the 4th beat of measure 2 by offsetting it correctly. It keeps the rests in different layers separate, as Finale does, but if you remove them in one layer, the rests in the other layer jump to the default position. This is certainly better behavior than Finale's. Another thing Sibelius does better: if you have notes in layer one and want to start notes mid-measure in layer 2, as soon as you hide the initial rest in layer 2, the stems in layer 1 which are above the hidden rest(s) flip back to their default positions, behavior which is almost always desirable. While we're at it, Sibelius deals with enharmonization within a measure very well: if you enter a g-sharp and you change it to a-flat, the next g-sharp you enter will, by default, be changed to a-flat (until the next measure when this function is reset). I haven't had time to experiment with Magnetic Spacing to see if the collisions with rests/notes in different layers can be prevented, although cross-layer accidental collisions are dealt with much better in Sibelius. Finale is due for a new version soon. It wouldn't surprise me if they came out with something like Magnetic Spacing. At any rate, if we complain about these things, they might be able to implement some of them in the next release.
Vaughan
Finale 3.2 - 2011c, Sibelius 4 - 6
Tobias Giesen's plugins, full version, Robert Patterson plugins, Dolet 5 plugin
MacOS 10.6.8
MacPro 6GB, MacBookPro (2011) 8GB
Kontakt 4.2
AmsterdamPost Edited (Vaughan) : 7/3/2011 9:22:10 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | |
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chipzoller
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2003
Total Posts : 413
| Posted 7/3/2011 9:19 PM (GMT -6) | | Saffron, congratulations, these are the things I've been screaming about for years. In my opinion, much of the current code in Finale which, as well all know, lacks Unicode support and no doubt is an unbelievable tangle of years worth of code, was not designed in an ultimately intelligent way. These things you've pointed out: they are mistakes in notation practice and have been from day one. It is inconceivable to me that they would have been left this way--essentially faulty defaults--out of the gate. Why? Why would it, in 98% of cases, be acceptable to have rests in one layer collide with another? Generally, you nailed it: Layers are ignorant of each other and an insufficient number of options exist to mitigate this programming oversight. And Zuill, voices are quite useful, but as Simple entry is the Finale-touted method of entry, it lacks any shortcut option to activate it. These issues, primarily dealing with layers, account for the overwhelming majority of my time in tweaking things that should have been correct from the start.
Finale 2011
Yamaha P-120
Cakewalk UM-1G USB MIDI Cable
Windows 7, 64-bit
Core i7 920 (D0) @ 4.0 GHz (OC)
6GB RAM (OCZ DDR3-1600)
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R (Ver. 1.0), BIOS F11
Mac OS 10.6.7, 64-bit
MacBook Pro 15-inch
Core 2 @ 2.66 GHz
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Jeanne R
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2007
Total Posts : 1251
| Posted 7/3/2011 11:02 PM (GMT -6) | | Wiggy said...
Surely, the Document Setting will apply to the entire document?
Yes, that's what I said in my original post, and that a plugin can be used to clean up regions. For a moment, Brian left me with the impression that he didn't know about these settings at all. But then he clarified that.
chipzoller said...
lacks Unicode support
I have to believe that this is going to prove to be a major impediment to holding and gaining market share. It has to be a deal-breaker for a growing number. A lot of things that become pet peeves are not the kind of thing one researches before buying. But this is a different matter.
Saffron said...
I'd settle for a very simple algorithm: "make a rest in voice 2 at least [N] spaces below the lowest note in voice 1 (and vice versa)".
Notice that whatever your settings, stemming/beaming and stem direction matter. (See the last two measures of your original example.) I'm not saying that someone clever couldn't make this better, make it work for you more often than it does now. But I don't think it's all that trivial. And the more I look at it, the more the separated rests seems like the least of it, not least because, at least, plugins do exist.
Just my 2ยข
Jeanne
Jeanne
Win XP Pro, Finale 2008a, GPO 3
(sometimes MacBook OSX (10.4.11) with the same Finale) | | Back to Top | |
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Saffron
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2008
Total Posts : 4504
| Posted 7/4/2011 3:29 AM (GMT -6) | | Vaughan said...
I'm not sure how difficult it would be for MM to program these things in Finale but some of them are a bit easier in Sibelius. It puts in the f-natural on the third beat of measure 4 by default, but it also puts a natural on the last note in layer 1. It prevents the collision of the c-natural on the 4th beat of measure 2 by offsetting it correctly. It keeps the rests in different layers separate, as Finale does, but if you remove them in one layer, the rests in the other layer jump to the default position. This is certainly better behavior than Finale's. Another thing Sibelius does better: if you have notes in layer one and want to start notes mid-measure in layer 2, as soon as you hide the initial rest in layer 2, the stems in layer 1 which are above the hidden rest(s) flip back to their default positions, behavior which is almost always desirable. While we're at it, Sibelius deals with enharmonization within a measure very well: if you enter a g-sharp and you change it to a-flat, the next g-sharp you enter will, by default, be changed to a-flat (until the next measure when this function is reset). I haven't had time to experiment with Magnetic Spacing to see if the collisions with rests/notes in different layers can be prevented, although cross-layer accidental collisions are dealt with much better in Sibelius. Finale is due for a new version soon. It wouldn't surprise me if they came out with something like Magnetic Spacing. At any rate, if we complain about these things, they might be able to implement some of them in the next release.
Woop! That's nearly exactly the sort of behaviour I would hope for in a program with such a long pedigree as Finale!
On the enharmonics issue, I didn't mention them in this thread (though I did in an earlier post on another thread): for this particular example, I changed the key sigs to D minor and A minor (rather than the "official" F major and C major), just so Finale would favour sharps if/when anyone tried to re-transcribe the music.
Brian
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Saffron
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2008
Total Posts : 4504
| Posted 7/4/2011 3:42 AM (GMT -6) | | Justin Phillips said...
Hi Brian,
That's a great example of some notation areas Finale should handle better. I'll bring and other comments in this thread up again when I'm back in the office on Tuesday.
Thanks, Justin, I would be very happy if this thread and some of the issues it discusses up were brought up with your colleagues and hopefully added to the "melting pot" for plans/ideas for a future release.
As you know, I've often been scolded by other users on this forum for lamenting just how much development effort has been put into playback, video, etc, over the past 6 releases (2006-2011), during which time the notation side has received comparatively little attention. Oh sure, don't get me wrong, there have been improvements (lyrics, linked parts, more ...), but it's the very foundation, the "ground floor" if you like, of basic music entry and display, which seems never to improve between releases, and which still contains many of the same basic errors as it did 15 years ago!
I would be thrilled if this aspect of Finale finally saw some attention - it would be the kick I need to buy and use my first upgrade since 2007, which still sits in its box while I remain with 2005b!
Enjoy your 4th July!
Brian
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Saffron
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2008
Total Posts : 4504
| Posted 7/4/2011 5:58 PM (GMT -6) | | Curiously, I'm an optimist. Don't know why - it doesn't always work out that way - but there you go.
I would LOVE to think this simple demo, of something of which many of us have been acutely aware for many years, might just be the encouragement to the dev team needs to leave playback/GPO/video/etc alone for 12 or 24 months, and get back into the business of developing the world class notation software that is surely the raison d'etre of Finale.
I don't have Sibelius, but am not entirely surprised that many of these sorts of issues have now been solved in that program - even before you mention "magnetic spacing". I would hate to change camps, even though Sib is originally a British product, but there must come a point when I figure Finale is being aimed at a different clientele than the jobbing musician/musical director that am I.
Until and unless this aspect of Finale is improved, I'm likely to stick with Finale 2005b ... or eventually jump.
Of course, my shopping list is even longer than the above: what about Unicode; retrospective save (at least for 1 version at a time); built-in tremolos; aesthetic beaming (like Sibelius/Patterson); dynamic optimisation; a customisable Z-order for graphics ... and more, all of which I've commented on for some years now - and none of which has been addressed while the DAW subsystem is added, overhauled, replaced and improved.
Brian
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