Beam placement feedback

Dorico
1

Hello,
getting things straight- I don’t expect Dorico to handle every possible beam placement, but there are things that can be fixed,
which the attached image demonstrates.

Beaming.jpg
Beaming.jpg1216×426 47.6 KB

“A” is Dorico’s default which has 2 problems:

  1. The stems are very long. maybe it could pass by itself, but not in contrast with the next bar.
    2.The space between the 32nd’s beams is not widened to allow better placement, causing an ugly wedge at the bottom (yes, It shows in print).
    I’ve tried enabling “widen gap between 32nd’s beams”, but it hasn’t widened.
    “B” is my edit, which I find better (you can disagree), albeit I couldn’t control the secondary beams separation in order to widen the gap and eliminate the wedge.

I got a couple of suggestions to mitigate such issues:

  1. adding a minimum stem length value for 32nd’s and shorter (which now exist for 16th and shorter)/
  2. let the user control the placement of secondary beams, if only for separation and not the slant.

thank you,
Ariel

2

The long stems are, as you have identified, caused by the fact that Dorico won’t allow the stem on the 32nd note in the bottom space to get that short by default, which in general I agree with. If you change the ‘Shortened stem length for 16th (semiquaver) and shorter’ to 2 instead of the default 2.5 then you will find that you get the beam placement you want in this case, though of course possibly at the expense of others elsewhere in the music.

The widening of 32nd beams only occurs under certain circumstances, and not, I think, when the 32nd doesn’t occupy the whole width of the beam, though if you really want to know chapter and verse on exactly when this can happen I could find out.

I agree that in principle we should allow the adjustment of the vertical placement of secondary beams, and I hope we will be able to address this in future.

3

Thank you Daniel.