Finale Forum

I have a score in 4/4. Originally the tempo was going to be about 60. I've decided it should be 120 instead. So quarter notes will now become half notes, half notes become whole notes, etc. And there will be twice as many measures.

Now, if I select all and choose "change... durations," it halfway works, but messes things up. It seems to only change durations when there are durations there to change. If some instruments are tacit for a few measures, those measures don't get changed. As a result, all of the parts get out of phase with each other and nothing lines up anymore.

I also tried fooling Finale by changing the meter to 8/4 with(out) re-barring and then changing back to 4/4 with(out) rebarring. It didn't work though.

It seems there must be some easy way to do this. Any help would be much appreciated!

The time I tried it, I had to do only a few bars at a time, otherwise there were problems, similar to yours.
Try 4 bars at at time, some editing will probably be needed anyway.

pellegrin42 wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 30, 2023 10:07 pm

I have a score in 4/4. Originally the tempo was going to be about 60. I've decided it should be 120 instead. So quarter notes will now become half notes, half notes become whole notes, etc. And there will be twice as many measures.

Now, if I select all and choose "Change... Durations," it halfway works, but messes things up. It seems to only change durations when there are durations there to change. If some instruments are tacit for a few measures, those measures don't get changed. As a result, all of the parts get out of phase with each other and nothing lines up anymore …

Before you Change the Durations, first convert all Default Whole rests (= empty measures) to Real Whole Rests (= non-empty measures containing an actual entry, namely a real whole rest).

This can be done quickly because - fortunately - there is a plug-in for that very conversion (use the Selection Tool).
First, select the entire score.
Then run the plug-in:
Plug-ins menu > Note, Beam, and Rest Editing > Change to Real Whole Rests

Now you can safely run the utility Change Durations.

When you are done:
Plug-ins menu > Note, Beam, and Rest Editing > Change to Default Whole Rests

Thank you Peter. That worked beautifully.

There is/was a JW plug-in that handled doubling and halving much better, though it hasn't been ported for Apple Silicon.