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"MIDI Tool - Tempo - Scale" not accurate

Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 5:44 am
by billrow
I am trying to use the Scale function within the MIDI Tool to create tempo changes, and it doesn't generate the tempos that I specify. For instance, if I select an area and enter "From = 90 ; To = 150" under "Scale Tempo", it creates a line that instead goes from 90 to about 135. I am selecting "Absolute", rather than "Percent of original". Changing the "In Increments" value doesn't seem to help; although it isn't clear to me what kind of values it wants in the increment field. Any ideas?? Thanks.

UPDATE.. (didn't want to retype everything) It seems that it will get to the desired ending tempo, but it just takes more time than I would like. If I select a region of six measures or more, it will scale from 90 to 150 correctly. If I try to do the same increase within four measures, it only "makes it" to about 135. For three measures, only gets to about 125. Is there some limit on how quickly it can change the tempo??

Re: "MIDI Tool - Tempo - Scale" not accurate

Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 12:16 pm
by N Grossingink
Your user info says you are using Finale 2003. Is that still the case?

N.

Re: "MIDI Tool - Tempo - Scale" not accurate

Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 3:15 pm
by billrow
Forgot about changing my profile info. I am now on Finale 25.5.0.290.

Re: "MIDI Tool - Tempo - Scale" not accurate

Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 3:33 pm
by N Grossingink
Take a look at the attached file. I was able use the MIDI tool to get an accel. from q=90 to q=150 in the span of 2 measures, checked with a metronome. As I'm a little rusty when it comes to playback, here are the steps I took:

√ Human Playback on.
√ In the initial tempo head, q=90 is set in the playback tab in the expression designer under "Tempo".
√ 2 bars later, q=150 is also set in the playback tab.
√ The "accel." has no playback effect assigned.
√ In Human Playback Preferences, in the MIDI data tab, I set all 4 drop down menus to "HP - Incorporate Data".

There may be different, better ways of doing this and I'm sure others will offer suggestions.

N.

Re: "MIDI Tool - Tempo - Scale" not accurate

Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 3:40 pm
by zuill
The only thing needed to get the MIDI tempo data into a file is the MIDI Tool. There's no need for expressions. However, I have no issue getting the correct behavior from the MIDI Tool. I think we need to see a sample file from the OP to test things out.

Zuill

Re: "MIDI Tool - Tempo - Scale" not accurate

Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 5:35 pm
by N Grossingink
zuill wrote:The only thing needed to get the MIDI tempo data into a file is the MIDI Tool. There's no need for expressions. However, I have no issue getting the correct behavior from the MIDI Tool. I think we need to see a sample file from the OP to test things out.

Zuill
If I remove the expressions from the file I posted, the tempo at the beginning is correct and accelerates to q=150 in the 3rd measure. But in the 4th measure the tempo drops back to q=90. What am I doing wrong?

N.

Re: "MIDI Tool - Tempo - Scale" not accurate

Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 5:50 pm
by zuill
Did you remove all the expressions? If I leave the accel., HP gets confused, and does what you said. I know one would want that there, so, to over-ride the confusion, then you would need the other expressions.

Zuill

Re: "MIDI Tool - Tempo - Scale" not accurate

Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2018 5:41 pm
by billrow
An example file is attached. Here is what I did, using the MIDI tool, and my results:

Select measure 1 - set all to 100
Select 3 measures (5-7) - scale from 100 to 150
Tempo only reaches about 116
Select measure 13 - set back to 100
Select 4 measures (17-20) - scale from 100 to 150
Tempo only reaches about 132
Select measure 25 - set back to 100
Select 8 measures (29-36) - scale from 100 to 150
Tempo still only reaches about 132

I realized for this test I had Human Playback set to "Standard". Wasn't sure if that would make a difference, so I tried a few more tests. These results were even more concerning, as there seems to be some randomness. Here are the results (file attached is based on the first test):

Test #1: HP="Standard". Tempos reaches for the three changes - 116 / 132 / 132
Test #2: HP="None". Tempos - 116 / 125 / 144
Test #3: HP="None". Tempos - 116 / 140 / 144
Test #4: HP-"Standard". Tempos - 116 / 132 / 144

Any thoughts?? If I could count on it being consistent, I could at least do the tedious task of figuring out what max value to use to get what I want; like maybe scaling up to 200 to actually get it to 150. But if it doesn't do the same thing every time, even that wouldn't work.

Re: "MIDI Tool - Tempo - Scale" not accurate

Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2018 6:16 pm
by N Grossingink
Just so's you know, I took your latest file and entered the tempos as I had originally suggested. Seems to play back properly. File attached.

N.

Re: "MIDI Tool - Tempo - Scale" not accurate

Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2018 7:07 pm
by zuill
Okay. Now I see what's up. There are 2 ways to scale the tempo. One is to do it with the MIDI graph open, and by dragging over the bars in the graph. The other way is when in the score and highlighting the actual measures. It seems the second way works, but not the first.

So, do it the second way. And, please report this to tech support.

Zuill

Re: "MIDI Tool - Tempo - Scale" not accurate

Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2018 7:42 pm
by billrow
Eureka! That solves it! It wasn't clear to me that you could just select measures directly from the score. Thought you had to use the little graph thingy. Actually much easier this way. Thanks to everyone for the advice!