Converting 12/8 to 4/4

Attached is a piece that that I wrote that I’ve been told would be easier to read in 4/4 rather than 12/8. I want the same exact notes, just presented in the metric modulation of 4/4 rather than 12/8. Is this possible without having to reenter everything manually?

Uploading: Screenshot 2023-10-12 at 7.55.54 PM.png…

There’s bound to be a way, but I cannot open your uploaded screenshot…

That’s because the screenshot never finished uploading.

Apologies: here is the old music as well as a sample of how I want the finished product to look.

There’s no easy way to do this, I’m afraid. Insert mode will get you part of the way there, but it’s fraught with mishap. I would recommend re-inputting the piece.

If you have only one voice per staff, it’s possible.

I don’t think 4/4 is necessarily easier to read than 12/8, but it will change the character and feel of the piece.

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Maybe not, as a general principle, but in this case many beats are undivided, combined with other beats, or divided in half, so I can see the merits of using simple meter so we don’t see a mass of dotted beats.

As for procedure, you could try (after saving a copy for security) simply changing the meter and then massaging the contents beat by beat, going through one staff then the other, to get the durations right. It might be almost as much work as doing it all over from the beginning as @dan_kreider recommended, but you’d at least have the pitches already input.

I’m pretty sure that Dorico will at one point gain these metric modulations as a one/few-clicks feature!

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There is one other approach to this sort of poly-rhythmic activity. Instead of notating the dotted 8ths, you can notate them as 2 into 3 - see example. The final decision depends on what works best for the whole piece.
12 8  w 8th triplets

Your first 12/8 version is good readable… I totally agree with @eheilner - just change everywhere 2 dotted eights notes to the (2) tuplet.

Yes I have the same problem

With Finale, the soft, it was possible !!! With one click !!!

I’m sorry to resurrect this old thread. I dont have a solution, I’m looking for one as well and i’m just doodling out loud. There is a transform tool in Write mode, for instance app:doCommand([[MusicalManipulation.RetrogradeRhythm]]). Is there some lua-magic hidden there we can use for such convertions?

Not at the moment I’m afraid, although the devs have indicated that a scripting re-vamp is planned. At the moment, if there’s a Dorico function already available you can call it in a script, but you can’t program your own transform functions/tools.

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Thanks!