Custom tempo marking

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Brent
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Post by Brent » Fri Feb 02, 2018 3:12 pm

I'm transcribing a bunch of '20's and '30's swing tunes, and I'd like to be able to create a tempo marking that indicates two eighths to be played as dotted eighth-sixteenths. There is a shape in the accompanying library to indicate standard swing markings (two eights to be played as the first and last note of a triplet) but that's not quite accurate for this period. I fooled around with the shape creator, but my results were pretty miserable. I checked the Maestro font library, and couldn't find anything in there that might help.

Has anyone had any experience creating this marking?

As always, thanks for your time and input.

...Brent


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motet
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Post by motet » Fri Feb 02, 2018 3:30 pm

You may be able to do it as "text" with Maestro Times.

Brent
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Post by Brent » Fri Feb 02, 2018 4:29 pm

Thanks. That was a great suggestion. Unfortunately, I can't set it up completely. There is no 'note' character that has a dot attached, and when I enter the dot character it prevents the following 16th beam from reaching the note character to its left. Without the dot the beam is complete. With the dot there is a blank spot in the beam.

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miker
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Post by miker » Fri Feb 02, 2018 4:35 pm

This? I used the Maestro times characters, and applied tracking of -125 to the second grouping.

(Thanks to Mark Adler for teaching me about that!)
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Screen Shot 2018-02-02 at 8.30.42 AM.png
Screen Shot 2018-02-02 at 8.30.42 AM.png (108.34 KiB) Viewed 5381 times
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Brent
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Post by Brent » Fri Feb 02, 2018 4:57 pm

That's awesome. Exactly what I'm looking for. Now, what do you mean by negative tracking? I've never heard that term before.

Thanks!

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michelp
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Post by michelp » Fri Feb 02, 2018 5:38 pm

Copy this :
ŒÂ = Œ»˘Ë
paste it into an expression, select the whole block and change it to Maestro Times.
Michel
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miker
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Post by miker » Fri Feb 02, 2018 5:44 pm

Tracking is adjusting the overall “tightness.” Select the text, and look in the text menu. You will see a line for Tracking... Play with the numbers to get what you want/need.

Michel’s characters are correct, but they will still need the adjustment. A program like PopChar really helps with things like this. It’s available for both Mac and Windows.
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zuill
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Post by zuill » Fri Feb 02, 2018 5:55 pm

Actually, Michel's way uses a different approach. It uses an extra character to fill the gap, so no change in tracking is needed. However, the trade-of is that the dotted 8th-16th group is wider. If it needs to be narrower, than not using the extra character and changing the tracking is the way to go.

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motet
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Post by motet » Fri Feb 02, 2018 6:06 pm

To my eye there should be more space because of the dot.

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miker
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Post by miker » Fri Feb 02, 2018 6:12 pm

I see. He must have added a overbar character. The last time I tried that, I still had to fiddle with it, but the situations may not be quite the same.
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michelp
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Post by michelp » Fri Feb 02, 2018 6:29 pm

FYI, the block on the right (after =) is composed of 4 consecutive characters (no space, no tracking indeed), and the dot is in third position, created with the following symbol, seen here in Arial.
dot.jpg
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Michel
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Brent
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Post by Brent » Fri Feb 02, 2018 8:27 pm

Got it! I appreciate your input so much. I did a copy and paste, and then messed with the tracking number and, voila!

This forum is always the best for great and timely advice. Been using Finale for over 25 years, and there are still lots of things to learn.

Thanks again!

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