Finale Forum

I am again campaigning to ask people to ask Finale to learn how to change durations, without changing rhythms!
Also - please confirm you cannot change 3 quarters in 3/4 time to 3 8th notes, each on a beat and followed by an 8th rest. Finale creates 3 successive 8th notes for me. Does someone know how to fix this?
My past complaints to Makemusic resulted in an admission that "this is how Finale works".
Recently someone here told me Dorico knows how to solve another problem - intelligent enharmonics in atonal music.
Dorico can do what Finale cannot. The 6 screenshots attached here show before and after using the software's tools to halve the note values. Feel free to tell me what I am missing - "often wrong - seldom in doubt" is what my friends say about me!

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/wa9se89n ... 9injt&dl=0

Sounds like maybe Dorico is a better compositional tool, letting you change your mind more easily. Maybe you should switch to that. They likely have a competitive upgrade.

In my case I've worked out how the music will be notated before putting it into Finale, so don't notice these shortcomings. I think TG Tools and maybe one of the JW plug-ins will turn quarters into eighth+eighth-rest like you want.

Plug-ins/TG Tools/Modify Rests:

AND THE PRIZE GOES TO Motet!!!

Not even the Finale techs I've asked over the years thought to look at TG's "Modify Rests" as the answer to the problem of how to Change Durations!!!

So I won;t have to switch to Dorico after all!
(Just kidding! How many years of working with Dorico before I find a functionality missing from it which Finale has! There's a huge 'sunk cost' in learning a complex software like music notation software.

YOU FIXED IT!

Now - how do I break the news to MakeMusic?

--
--- on the down side - seems this tool is limited to ONE change of duration - halving note values. [is this true?]

So if you've filled bars with dotted halves in 3/4 and want to change them to halves or quarters - back to one-at-a-time. So 1990s!

BurtGoldstein wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 24, 2024 10:48 pm

So if you've filled bars with dotted halves in 3/4 and want to change them to halves or quarters - back to one-at-a-time. So 1990s!

I don't know what's "1990s" about it, but I suspect the reason there's no way to do that is that there's little if any call for it.

I don't know how to find out if that's the reason.
It would seem to me there have been over the years many composers finding FInale not up to the tweaking needed for a good MIDI mockup, whi therefore use a DAW like Logic or Performer.

THEN then would have to export MIDI, as I was often asked to do, to be imported into a notation program so the copyist can prepare score and parts for a real (analog) recording session.

Since virtual instruments can have different release times and 'feels', I for one certainly find a frequent need to change some of the durations I used in my DAW into what I know real performers want to see.

Certainly changing the durations by an user-supplied denominator seems more needed than Quantizing to dotted 64th notes, which Finale thought important enough to include!

Does the Lua gang take requests?

I am sure some do - I will try to find someone willing. I a still recovering from a famous programmer at the Lua site chastising me by saying he believes if a user wants a function they should write it themselves!
I am glad my surgeons don't have this view!

Did you see

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=22758

I used to think finale couldn't change durations. But now I've realized it's just a matter of preparation.

Hi Tony,

Thanks for the link - I usually remember how to augment but you've got a good checklist.

However augmentation is not changing duration alone it is changing rhythm as well.
In my example, my complaint was that Finale misunderstood halving durations as creating a diminution - the opposite of augementation.

So I am aware Finale can do augmentation and diminution (only by 2, not 3 right?)

What I wqant is Finale to change durations.
Just durations!