Would it be possible to add the option to search for multi rests bar next to the amount of seconds that an instrument is not playing to get cue suggestions? The publisher I work for, asks for cues when a player has 4 or more bars of rests.
We did consider this when we were first implementing the feature, but it’s not actually a very good measure of whether or not a cue would be useful: at very slow tempos 4 bars might not be long enough, while at very fast tempos it really wouldn’t make sense to give a cue after only 4 bars. So we decided against it, and at present we have no plans for this.
I disagree with that assessment. It’s far more difficult to count 35 bars rest at a fast tempo than to count 8 bars at a slow tempo, even though the elapsed time might be the same. Both real time elapsed and number of bars rest to count are important metrics depending on the situation. It would be very useful to have both options in the cues suggestion dialogue.
David
Welcome to the forum, David, and thanks for your feedback. We don’t have any current plans to add this, but I have found that it’s wise to never say never.
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Thanks for the welcome and the quick reply, Daniel.
Optimal cue creation still requires a large amount of human judgement, and different players/groups within an orchestra expect different length/frequency of cues within the same piece, so for a notation program it absolutely makes sense to offer both time based and measure based options…
I’m working for a publisher and their golden rule is: if the player has more than 8 bars of rest, I have to insert cue notes…so ‘seconds’ don’t help a lot and counting in bars would be of much bigger help to be honest…
That’s a slightly strange golden rule, unless the publisher also has a golden rule about the range of tempos the music they publish must occupy!
It’s generally not too difficult to work out the length of a number of bars in seconds (we could even add a little calculator to the panel at some point). Divide 60 by the number of beats per minute for the number of beats per second, then multiply by the number of beats in eight bars. So, for example, for 96 beats per minute in 3/4, you would do 60 ÷ 96 × (8 × 3) = 15 seconds.
(And, incidentally, don’t you think 15 seconds is a bit short to require a cue? I’d like to think most musicians can sustain their attention for more than 15 seconds…)
Maybe they’re a drummer…
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I recently did cues for an opera, and there are so many other factors besides tempo and exact timing. What’s really important is what is likely to be heard by a given player, and gives them a sense of the shape of the music.
Trying to reduce cueing to rules seems a fruitless pursuit to me. Yes, some rules can be gleaned, but not enough to make good cueing truly automatic.
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There is a useful plugin in Sibelius for doing just this, and I found it very useful to show me the appropriate spots.
Yes Daniel it is easy to work out the length. But if you have many tempo-changes and you use the great ‘cue tool’ of Dorico, that doesn’t really help imho 
But thanx anyway.