I’m working on a project that someone else wrote in 3/4, but really should have been in 12/8. We’ve been working up to this point in 3/4 for ease of conversation, but now I need to prepare the score for a recording session, and want to convert the file to 12/8. Any thoughts on a good way to do this? (I’ve never seen a great solution in any notation software, but I imagine this is something that comes up a lot…)
In general, I’m not able to find a way to just reduce all durations by half, which seems like it would solve most of my issues here… Is there a way to do that I’m missing?
This isn’t going to be as simple as it sounds at first. The equivalent to 3/4 in triple meter is 9/8, not 12/8. 12/8 is equivalent to 4/4. So the bar lines are going to be in the wrong places even if you can find a way to convert the note values.
Sorry, but I don’t know a way to convert the note values globally anyway!
Maybe the OP means 4 bars of quarter-notes in 3/4 should become 1 bar of 8th-notes in 12/8 ??
One way to halve the note values is go into insert mode, then change the individual notes as required. Each change will squash up the music as required. Don’t bother what happens with Docrico creating tied across at this stage - a group of tied notes is effectively “one note” for this operation. This is simple, but tedious to do correctly on a long score. You can correct any mistakes of course, even if you didn’t see them in time to hit “Undo” - just change the note length again to its correct value and the music following it will move as required.
Moving the bar lines is easy- just define a new 12/8 time signature at the start.
It might be easier to check what you are doing if you define the 12/8 time signature before you start halving the note values.
Sorry, I could have been more specific. Rob was correct that the song was written in 3/4, and 4 bars of 3/4 should become one bar of 12/8. (This is something I have found happens often when doing string arrangements for pop tunes, but usually I do the transcription as well, and just convert on the fly)
Thanks for the thought about doing the insert mode. That mostly would have done the trick (although, been really time consuming, for a 9 minute track…), however, there were some 4/4 bars that were correctly labeled, that would have become problematic, as those time signature changes don’t move with the insert mode (as far as I know).
I think just a way to proportionally change the duration of a region of music would be the best way to resolve this kind of issue, as Dorico will be good about re-doing the bar lines. (This is a common feature in other scoring and sequencing programs, so I imagine it will appear here at some time.)