At a complete loss calculating tuplet ratios

This is only partially Dorico related.

I have cadenza-like passage, it’s 21 “eighth” notes spanning a whole measure.

But I am having trouble getting that giant tuplet to work.

What am I doing wrong?

I’m selecting 8th notes as my unit,
then triggering tuplet creation,
and then choosing 21:8,

Isn’t that right? since I want 21 notes to fit in the time of 8?

Or am I missing something?

Yes, you must be:

Are you creating these during Note Input, using the popover?

In any case, I always add the note value to the ratio. This way it doesn’t matter which Note value I have selected.

In your case it would be 21:8e

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Nice tip!

… btw that’s only right in a 4/4 or 2/2 measure… are we sure that’s the time signature?

“whole measure” would indicate that it is one of those.

I find with Tuplets, odd things happen if the Carat is not active. So, make sure you are in input mode first.

yup it was “one of those” (insert sneering emoji)

:wink:

and doing 21:8e worked perfectly!

I’ll have to remember that. I’m awful with this type of thing.
I very rarely write these sort of freely flowing chopin-esque cadenza passages, but it DOES happen, every once in a very-rare while.

Thank-you all for the help!!

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I do it so rarely that I really have to focus when entering pick-up bars lol

Pickup bars: you really don’t need to calculate the part of the measure numerically: you can just input your pickup notes and then input a barline (with shift-B)

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That works graphically, but it creates a second (hidden) meter unnecessarily. Writing a proper pickup in the initial meter also automatically numbers the pickup bar 0.

It works on my side (measure numbering). I’m not aware of a problem with the hidden meter … am I overlooking something?

pickup

… and sometimes it’s just easier than calculating:

Auftakt 3

It’s just the signpost at the first barline that feels messy to me. It can be done without that.

On the other hand, since I hadn’t tried your way, I didn’t know that it also makes a bar 0.

On a third hand, I always recommend a pickup bar of whole or half beats only, for clarity.

Yes, I can understand this. I would use it in non-trivial cases like in my second example, not for 3/8, 1 of course

Or input notes at the end of the first bar, then use the Insert mode Global Adjustment of Current Bar scope, and delete the rests at the start (just standard delete using Backspace/Delete).

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Even easier in some cases - thanks Lillie!
I think it would also work entering the notes just at the beginning of the bar and delete the superfluous rests in Insert Global Mode.

The outcome seems to be identical in each case, right? (If I do understand the program logic right…)

So, where is the list of letters for note values? “e” for eighth makes sense, but what about the rest of the note values? “t” for 32nd, “s” for sixteenth, “q” for quarter, etc???

See Tuplets popover • Dorico Pro Help • Reader • Steinberg

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Page 10 has that list:

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