Pure MIDI Rest Input?

Dorico
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Back before Finale, I used a notation program called “Encore”. It used the letter “R” on the keyboard to toggle between note and rest entry, which was fine unless you inadvertently got “out of step” while “touch-playing” in music on a MIDI keyboard in step time, while reading a score.

Finale had a different way of doing things: to enter a rest during step time (Speedy) entry, you could play any cluster of three adjacent semitones. This took a little getting used to, but ultimately was wonderfully fast, as your “QWERTY” hand could concentrate on entering note durations, while your “MIDI” hand just played in the notes - and rests - and most importantly, you could never get “out of step”.

In Dorico, I discover that we are back to the “Encore” method, only using comma (“,”) rather than “R” to toggle between rests and notes. Weirdly, it feels “clunky” compared to the Finale method, which got me to wondering:

Is there any way to enter an explicit rest on a MIDI keyboard, without having to press “,” first, and then again after, to return to note entry? For example, could I (say) assign one of my MIDI keyboard’s drum pads to be an “enter a rest” command?

Or have I missed something that’s already in there?!

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What strikes me here is that you want to input rests. Dorico does it for you, just move the caret to the next note. You can either use the right arrow (in conjunction with the rhythmic grid), or select rhythmic values and space bar.

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I very rarely enter any rests explicitly! Mostly I set the grid fine and move the caret.

Also if you have (say) a phrase of quavers alternating with quaver rests, just enter it all as crotchets, select the whole and change the duration (either using shift-alt-left, or a new duration). There are lots of options.

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And if the rhythmic grid doesn’t happen to be fine enough for a given rest, just select that value and press Space to advance by that value. The correct rest will appear only when the next note is entered, but you can see the caret advance.

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I have 0 on the numpad set to “Advance caret”, which moves the caret forward by the currently selected note duration.

Since I’ve got one hand on the numpad anyway, to set the durations, it’s very easy to press. It mirrors Finale’s Simple Entry, if I remember correctly.

You could set a MIDI command to that, in Preferences > Key Commands.

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AHA! That’s probably the bit I missed! Middle of doing my first-of-month archiving/backups, but as soon as they’re done, I’ll check that out. Thanks :slight_smile:

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Thanks Folks! Advancing the Caret is what I needed to do, rather than toggle between Note and Rest modes. Getting to like Dorico (and this forum!) already … :slight_smile:

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