Finale Forum

Is it possible in Finale to select some compasses (or measures) and then play them forever in loop? I don't want to actually have the written sheet having repeats in them, I just want to have some chord progressions on loop so I can try to improvise over it.

Thanks

Hi,

You could reate a copy of some measure and put repeats around them: you can choose a high number (within the repeat dialog box) to repeat as much as you like.
Perhaps I didn't understand completely what you need, because this sounds to obvious.

kind regards,
Erik

I have found that the maximum number of repetitions is only 20. You can enter any number that you want, but you only get 20.

Actually the "Maximum Repeat Passes" is a document option.

The default value is 20 passes, but you can change that value to a higher number.

See the attached screen shot.

Hi Peter. Like I said, you can enter any number that you want, but it won't actually repeat more than 20 times.

Hi Warren,

I opened your attached document, went to
Document Options - Repeats
and upped the max. number of repeat passes to 30.

When I then played the document back, I was able to get all the 30 repeat passes.

See the attached document.

Tip:
When you play back the document, the Playback Controls will count the repeat passes for you.

The document that I sent has 30 repeats selected, but only plays back 20. Perhaps it is a Mac vs Windows thing

I apologize peter. You are correct. It never occured to me that you would be able to enter a value that was higher than somewhere else in the document. Why in the world does such a setting exist. That is incredibly stupid. Oh, I guess they had the percussion guys work on that feature.

Warren Barnett wrote:...It never occured to me that you would be able to enter a value that was higher than somewhere else in the document. Why in the world does such a setting exist...

I could be wrong here, but I think that the idea behind the "Maximum Number of Repeat Passes" is to avoid that Finale freezes when the playback button is clicked (because the user inadvertently has created an infinite repeat loop).

If 20 Passes is too low a number for you, then just increase the number (would e. g. 50 Passes be enough for you?).

I see how it makes a difference here. It puzzles me as to why I can enter a number larger that the document options specify. It seems to me that Finale should at least give me a message saying something like "If you want to enter a number larger than that specified in the Document Options, then you need to change the number in the Document Options"

Indeed!

Don't forget to send MakeMusic a feature request about a such message.

Thanks by the answers, but I think my point was not understood. I want something that allows me to easily repeat a couple of compasses so I can improvise over it. I don't want to have to mess around and have to introduce repeats and whatever. That'd mean that each time I wanted to improvise over a couple of compasses, I'd have to go and add the repeats, and then when I decided I wanted to record something with midi with finale, I'd have to take them away, and then to improvise over them again I'd have to add them again and etc.

If anyone has used Guitar Pro, they will recognize this feature as "Played looped / speed trainer" (because this is what usually guitarrists do to train a couple of compasses, they select them and then play them on loop over and over again so they can play along with the track).

Finale doesn't work that way. It sounds like you want a DAW, not a notation program with playback features.