Strange spacing between voices?

[bopeuph]

I've never seen this before, and the voices are far enough away from each other that this should be needed.

Usually the beats are properly aligned unless something is a second apart from another voice. Not when they're a third or fourth apart.

[motet]

You mean layers, not voices, and that this should not be needed, I think. It looks like layer 2 is offset everywhere by a tiny amount. I assume you've respaced. If so, can you attach your file exhibiting the problem? It only needs to be a few measures.

[bopeuph]

Oops, yeah, you're right. I don't know why I said voices...I've only come across voices once in 20 years, and I don't even know how to get back into the voices tools without looking it up!

But yeah, this file is incredibly small, anyway. So here it is.

[bopeuph]

Also, the only thing I think that could have happened here, was that I started entering layer 1 notes into layer 2, and when I caught it (on page 2), I just finished it out and used the move/copy layers tool to put them in their right place. The stem directions were all wonky (which, again, is something that I've never seen before; usually fixing the layers the program knows exactly what to do with the stems), but I ended up clearing all data except notes and smart shapes to fix that issue. Spacing, however, was not fixed.

[motet]

Well, that's bizarre. It seems to be only second trombone, second baritone, and cello (which can't play below a C, by the way). I will continue to explore.

[bopeuph]

Yeah, it was in the trombone voice I did it. Baritone and cello were copied over.

Yeah, I'm torn about that cello part. I know it's out of range, and I know they meant it to be a bass part on the bottom, but we all know bass transposition, too. I'm probably going to just clear out that bottom octave. Honestly, this is for a church gig I'm playing at, and I'm tired of getting a 4-page score to play bass on and try to read that mess on a single stand. So this one's KINDA a freebie.

[motet]

Go to Document Options/Music Spacing, and set Manual Positioning to Clear. Then select all in the Selection tool and respace. Then set Manual Spacing back to Ignore. (Whatever that means--I've never understood that setting.) This must have happened as you were entering those parts, but I couldn't say exactly what you did to cause it.

[motet]

Cello and bass were commonly written on once staff in older music. It's assumed that the bass will sound an octave lower. Bass players will just take the notes beyond their range up an octave.

[bopeuph]

Go to Document Options/Music Spacing, and set Manual Positioning to Clear. Then select all in the Selection tool and respace. Then set Manual Spacing back to Ignore. (Whatever that means--I've never understood that setting.) This must have happened as you were entering those parts, but I couldn't say exactly what you did to cause it.

That did the trick! Thanks!

Cello and bass were commonly written on once staff in older music. It's assumed that the bass will sound an octave lower. Bass players will just take the notes beyond their range up an octave.

Yeah, it's these pesky church composers who never understand the the rules or the history. The copyist in me wants to make it look identical to the original. To be honest, I don't know why they have the score and not the parts, but making parts for everyone is a good lunch break for me.