I’m new to Dorico from Finale, which just closed-down shop. I went ahead and upgraded to Dorico to see if it would have the functionality I need. I’ve been experimenting with it to check out a specific aspect: how it handles tied notes.
This issue has been handled before (but the forum isn’t allowing me to place the link, so search for “Combine tied notes” in Dec 2022).
However, I can’t get Dorico to do what I want. Here’s my work process:
Write out vocal parts in Ableton, where I do my recording.
Export MIDI from Ableton, then Import into Dorico.
Pretty simple. The problem, I want anywhere I have a 1/16th notes tied to an 1/8th note of the same pitch to be notated as a dotted 1/8th note. Like this…
A typical pattern I have in my music is dot-1/8th + dot-1/8th + 1/8th in a half-measure. I can get these results by doing the “force duration” thing, but I REALLY don’t want to go through the process of manually doing this everywhere. But playing with the notation options of the flow doesn’t result in any change to my music. What gives? Does the software not go back and re-flow everything according to whatever changes you make?
BTW: I’m not a musician, I’m an amateur music-hacker, so the less technical language the better.
Welcome to the forum, @JohnJhon. I’m afraid I don’t think there are any options on the Note Grouping page of Notation Options that will produce your desired result with no intervention. If you create a time signature using the Shift+M popover and enter [3+3+2+3+3+2]/8 you’ll get an 8/8 time signature with the grouping you’re after, but of course it won’t say 4/4 as you are probably expecting.
Some have found that entering the initial measure as 4/4, and then applying a 16/16 measure configured as Daniel suggests, allows one to hide the 16/16 time signature and only custom configure the initial 4/4 measure using forced duration.
One may have to configure beaming manually, but one can then copy/paste the rhythm and use lock duration to change pitches.
Thank you both for these suggestions. I was able to make it work! Here’s the exact process, for those who need it in the future.
The [3+3+2] / 8 was only applying the pattern to half the measure, whereas there are many times when the pattern appears repeatedly in the same measure. So, what I really needed was [3+3+2+3+3+2] / 16. But the crucial step was using “Force Duration” correctly. The process:
Select all elements (i.e. notes, measures, etc.) that you want to affect
Turn “Force Duration” off for the elements
Apply [3+3+2+3+3+2] / 16 any measure before those to be affected
Turn “Force Duration” on for the elements
Delete the custom additive time signature
Go through and turn “Force Duration” off to revert anything you don’t like
Results, applying to all measures, then selectively reverting measures…
Is this faster than individual modifications? It will depend on the music. I like that I can apply the beat pattern all at once, and a single keystroke will allow me to undo what I don’t like – as opposed to three keystrokes per combination of tied notes to implement what I want in a piece-meal fashion.
