MIDI tool not scaling correctly

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Ekir75
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2019 11:46 am
Finale Version: 26
Operating System: Windows

Post by Ekir75 » Wed May 05, 2021 7:30 pm

I'm trying to do some fine tuning on my piece using the MIDI tool. Going through note by note, phrase by phrase, section by section, etc. is time consuming enough, but the MIDI tool is making it exponentially more challenging.

Here's what I'm experiencing.

A have a 4 measure passage, and this is what I'm trying to accomplish:
M1: Scale modulation 16 to 48
M2-4: Scale modulation 56 to 24 over the first two beats, and then from 24 down to 8 over the remainder of the phrase (final two beats plus last two measures.

When I select the MIDI tool, Edit Continuous Data, 1-Modulation, and then select measure 1 for the first staff, the visual comes up above the staff. The modulation is set to the standard 64 for the whole measure. I select the whole measure for that staff, and then select Scale from the MIDI tool menu. I enter 16 and 48 as the parameters and hit enter. The result is that the measure scales from 16 to 18 rather than 16-48. I clicked UNDO and tried it again a couple times-even restarted my computer and tried again, and each time, the same result was returned.

So, I went with plan B. I selected the measure with the MIDI tool and clicked out of the visual. I selected Scale, set the parameters to 16 and 48 and hit enter. I clicked back into the visual, and it was scaled correctly. I continued with the next three measures in this fashion (not using the visual), and I successfully got the MIDI data to do what I wanted it to do. Voila, I thought. I just can't use the visualizer. I can live with that.

So, I went to drag the MIDI data from staff 1 to the remaining 4 staves in the String section, but it didn't transfer correctly. The first measure in these staves is now set to a modulation level of 0 for the whole measure. Measure 2 is correct, and measures 3-4 are a wild pattern of 16-48-16-48-16-48 at random intervals.

I hit UNDO, and worked on the second staff measure by measure as I had done with the first staff. It worked, tedious as it was.

I then selected the first measure of staves 3, 4, and 5 and tried to scale them all together as well (without the visualizer), and staff 3 worked correctly, but staves 4 and five were set to a zero value.

It seems like the only thing that works is to do every single measure of every single staff separately without using the visualizer and without being able to drag MIDI data from one staff to another. This is going to take a ridiculous amount of time, and it shouldn't work like this. I used the MIDI tool all the time to do this kind of work, and every since the upgrades about 5-6 years ago, the MIDI tool has been buggy.

For reference, it's only Scale that I'm having an issue with. Set To, Add, etc. seem to be working correctly both with and without the visualizer (knock wood).

Does anyone have any suggestions (or a solution/work around) for this issue?


User avatar
motet
Posts: 8230
Joined: Tue Dec 06, 2016 8:33 pm
Finale Version: 2014.5,2011,2005,27
Operating System: Windows

Post by motet » Wed May 05, 2021 8:06 pm

I haven't used the MIDI tool, and it may be a fine tool, but if it were me I would get out the calculator and do what you're trying to accomplish by using expressions with playback specifying the calculated metronome setting. The expressions need not have displayed text.

tss-music
Posts: 31
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2021 3:07 am
Finale Version: 26.3
Operating System: Mac

Post by tss-music » Sun May 09, 2021 11:26 pm

I was having a similar problem recently, and the useful advice I received was to never use the MIDI tool visualizer. Select the bars you want to edit in the score display and then use the MIDI tool pulldowns. The discussion is here:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=19906

Good luck,
Tom

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