Finale Forum

Hi all. Breaking secondary beams should not have to be done one at a time, for crying out loud. I would have sworn this would be something that Finale or a third party would have provided a plug-in for by now, there have been so many other more complex advancements.

Now, I know perfectly well how to use the secondary beam tool. It's an action of many steps to just break the secondary beams on one damnable note. I have large a score in need of MANY such breakings (32nd-note runs, sets of triplets, you name it) and the tendons in my hand are screaming. I cannot be alone in this.

There should be a GLOBAL way to break secondary beams in a score/part. It seems exactly the sort of process fit for a computer. You would select a range of bars and tell it to break all secondary beams, with radio-button options to do it by the eighth or quarter or whatever is sensible and which largest value secondary beam to break, and then press enter and be DONE, maybe even with the dialog box remaining open for more breaking (like the Easy Tremolos box stays open).

Why oh why do we not have this? Or do we? Help!!! If you feel as I do, please add your comments and improvements on the idea - perhaps someone will notice!

In hope,
David

The full version of TG Tools has a utility called "Beam Breaker" which has options for breaking secondary beams. If you don't own the plugin, you can download a free 30 day demo to try it out. This probably does not work on a global basis without unintended beam breaking, but might speed up the process. Also, if you set the Edit Filter to copy "Special Adjustments > Beam Adjustments" you can copy and paste from region to region, a potential time saver.

It might help if you post part of a file and describe exactly what you want to do. Maybe someone will have some ideas to help.

N.

Thank you NG. I will look into the full version of TG right now. If it cuts down even half the time it will be worth it.

I'll look into the Edit Filter shortly. You're saying if I have, say, a run of 32nds across two beats and that same rhythmic run is used elsewhere, then I can break the needed beams in the first instance and copy/paste essentially only the beaming (without disturbing pitches) to the other instances? Cool if that works.

David M wrote:I'll look into the Edit Filter shortly. You're saying if I have, say, a run of 32nds across two beats and that same rhythmic run is used elsewhere, then I can break the needed beams in the first instance and copy/paste essentially only the beaming (without disturbing pitches) to the other instances? Cool if that works.

Correct, it works.

The filter even works with different rhythms, it copies the breaks in corresponding rhythmic positions regardless of the note values and the placement in the measure. For example, you may copy breaks every eighth from a run of 32nds or 16th-triplets to other values, and also from beat 1 and 2 to 2 and 3 etc.