Finale Forum

The default one-beat rest in 6/8 in Finale is a quarter+8th. This drives me crazy. How can I make the default to a dotted quarter rest? Do I have to manually do this every time? FYI the time signature is set up correctly as 6/8 - two dotted quarter note (not six 8th note). Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

You must be talking about what "Fill with rests at end of measure" creates. Look at MIDI/Audio->Quantization Settings/More Settings/Allow dotted rests in compound meters.

Amazing! Thanks!!

There is an oddity with this (Mac only I think) which is not a bother in 6/8, but can be annoying in 9/8 and 12/8: dotted minim (half) and dotted crotchet (quarter) rests appear in the wrong order with ‘fill with rests’ in 12/8, while dotted minim appears instead of two dotted crotchets in 9/8. It's been around for a while and reported many times, but still seems to be there in F 26.3 (I've just tried and get the results shown).

That happens in the Windows version, too.

I avoid "Fill With Rests". I've never used it. I'm not sure if it has been there since I started with Finale 3.1, but whenever I encountered it, I immediately turned it off. It's one of the first things I do when installing a new version of Finale. Hand notation required a knowledge of the math needed to properly notate. I approach this aspect of notation in Finale the same way. So, I make the rests the way I want. There are situations where I need to do things a little differently than what might be proper, but fits the moment. With the automated feature turned off, I have full control. With the feature on, I spend more time undoing things than I wish to spend.

Zuill

I find "fill with rests" a great time saver myself, since I do very long pieces and ever little thing helps. I forget all the bugs and quirks of Finale's handling of this, but finally arrived at the conclusion to use "fill with rests" but turn both "allow dotted rests" settings off. I seem to recall they do odd things when copying actual notes, also (or is it the other way around?).

I don't use dotted quarters in compound meter, so that perhaps makes the feature easier for me. I do like to use dotted half rests in 12/8, so have to remember to fill those measures by hand and not let Finale fill, but I rarely do music in 12/8. The biggest gotcha is that I do use dotted eighth rests (followed by 16th note) in simple meter, so in that case I have to remember to fill in the trailing rests myself, or Finale will turn the earlier hand-entered dotted eighth rest into an eighth and sixteenth. I will admit that this does foil me sometimes, and I have to go back and fix it (if anyone knows of a way to search for an eighth rest followed by a sixteenth rest, I'd like to hear about it!). If Finale would just leave whatever I enter by hand alone, then all would be perfect.

I find "fill with rests" a great time saver myself,...

So do I, it is way more accurate than it is wrong most of the time for what I do. But I am not a huge fan of dotted rests especially dotted half rests.

I find the second measure here cleaner than the first: In thinking about the other recent thread here, I found another case where "fill with rests" does something bizarre, where you only fill in one or two notes of the triplet. Not that someone would be likely to do that.

Another approach: uncheck "Fill With Rests", enter notes where needed, then Select All, and apply Utilities/Check Notation/Fill With Rests. This allows you to edit measures if needed without deleting extra rests, and then check to make sure that no measure is left behind. That utility does not check for overfilled measures. Speedy can do that. Also, the plugin "Check Region for Durations" can do that as well. Come to think of it, that plugin can do both: fill with rests and delete extra notes.

Zuill

P.S.: This post is not a reply to Motet, but to the others about workflow associated with filling with rests.

Does the utility or plug-in fill the measures differently from what the entry methods do?

I don't think so. It seems to utilize quantization settings, as well as applying oddities in dotting rests (or the order of those).

Zuill