Esoteric question for powerusers only: time sig with 2 fonts

General notation questions, including advanced notation, formatting, etc., go here.

Moderators: Peter Thomsen, miker

JBorum
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Nov 28, 2017 8:12 am
Finale Version: All since 96 or 98
Operating System: Mac

Post by JBorum » Tue Nov 28, 2017 8:23 am

I'm trying to emulate this score's time signatures, which use a large numerator and smaller denominator. Is this possible with real time signatures or is the only possibility some kind of fakery?

Expressions and staff lists are a possibility. So is a custom font in which the 0 is actually a small 4 and the time signatures are set to display as 4/0. However, I'm hoping for real time signatures because the piece I'm working on will be 400+ bars with time signature changes almost every bar.

I think the answer is no, it's impossible, and it must be faked. Please prove me wrong.

Image

It's probably irrelevant, but I'm in 2014.5 right now.


BuonTempi
Posts: 1297
Joined: Fri Aug 20, 2010 8:59 am
Finale Version: Finale 27
Operating System: Mac

Post by BuonTempi » Tue Nov 28, 2017 11:57 am

I don't think so: there is no separate setting for the font (size) of each part of the time sig. You would have to fake it in some way.

Given the nature of the score, you might benefit from fin-tuning each page in a vector artwork editor, such as Illustrator or Affinity Design anyway, where you could adjust the denominator easily.

Dare I ask what the purpose of a smaller number is?

User avatar
N Grossingink
Posts: 1786
Joined: Mon Dec 19, 2016 2:50 pm
Finale Version: 27.3
Operating System: Mac

Post by N Grossingink » Tue Nov 28, 2017 12:39 pm

The custom font idea won't work - Finale won't allow a time signature of 4/0.

I would set the time signature to display only the top number - set the vertical position of the bottom number so it is present, but off the page (minus 30 inches will do it). Enter the bottom number as an expression. You can set the positioning so that it auto-positions each time and enter them using a metatool shortcut. See the attached file.

N.
Time.png
Time.png (74.03 KiB) Viewed 1769 times
Attachments
Time.mus
(41.77 KiB) Downloaded 129 times
N. Grossingink
Educational Band, Orchestra and Jazz Ensemble a specialty
Sample: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pFF5OeJDeLFGHMRyXrubFqZWXBubErw4/view?usp=share_link


Mac Mini 2014 2.6 Ghz, 8Gb RAM
OSX 10.15.7
Finale 2012c, 25.5, 26.3, 27.3

User avatar
elbsound
Posts: 196
Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2016 10:06 am
Finale Version: Finale 2014.5
Operating System: Windows

Post by elbsound » Tue Nov 28, 2017 5:09 pm

N Grossingink is right: Finale won't allow a time signature of 4/0.
But it allows for example 4/1 or 4/2. So if you still follow the font way, it depends on how many different denominators you need.
If your score has three different denominators (e.g. 2/2, 3/4 and 6/8) it won't work.
If it only has x/4 and x/8 or x/2 and x/4, it's possible with the font approach.

But the font approach is not faster than assigning an expression to each measure.

Post Reply