Hi all. I need to put some quarter tone accidentals into my score. I can find the 24 EDO in “tonality system” and it shows the accidentals on the panel, but they won’t get into the score, though the “normal” accidentals have no problem.
I work in update 3. What have I missed?
Bet greetings and thanks for a lot of help so far 
Per Dybro
Try typing “open” into the shift+K popover, to create an open key signature; then the 24 EDO accidentals should work.
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Thank you Stephen, it works!
Here’s a question – what if I wanted to use a normal key signature but – ever so often – use a quarter tone? I’m working on such a piece now which is basically in B major, but also has an E quarter-tone flat – in a few measures.
By the way – merely selecting “24-edo” from the dropdown menu in the right panel with key signatures doesn’t alone let you use the quarter tones, it seems (for now) you actually have to create an “open” key signature via popover only…
Not sure if this answers your question, or is the officially correct way of doing it, but I added a custom key signature (B major) to the 24-edo system… see attached file… hard to explain every step…
CustKeySign.rar (271 KB)
I think you should really be able to use quarter-tone accidentals in regular keys, but the problem is that, as you’ve found, the active tonality system gets set back to 12-EDO whenever you create a “normal” key signature. I will talk to the team about this and we’ll try to figure out the right solution. In the meantime, Frank’s workaround will certainly work, though it is a bit laborious.
So, I’ve created an Atonal key at the beginning of my piece. I click on the note I want to change, choose 24-EDO (it shows the quartertone accidentals). As soon as I click on one, it returns to 12-EDO and won’t give me the symbol. I’m jumping through hoops and I keep on landing where I started.
Welcome to the forum s_ferre.
Having created and selected the tonality system you want, you then need to put it on the page by adding a key signature, or else - like everything else in the right panel - it’s the potential for something you could add to your project rather than something that’s actually in it.
See Steinberg for more detailed instructions.
I already added an Atonal key signature at the beginning, and even tried adding one just before the note (which is bar 2). Nothing. It keeps reverting to 12-EDO as soon as I choose the quarter-flat.
The order of events is absolutely crucial:
- Select something on the page where you want the new tonality system to go.
- Select the tonality system in the right panel.
- Without deselecting the item, add the key signature.
Are you absolutely sure you’ve carried out the steps in this order?
Yeah, the order was the problem. Seems backwards and convoluted to me.
I don’t do much with quarter tone accidentals, but today I was trying some ideas. I figured I ask if there is a way to specify in the Shift-I popover to do something like “F#=F quarter tone sharp”? Not sure on the syntax and couldn’t find anything in the help file.
Yes, the popover can do this! See this page of the manual for the (many) details, particularly the “[n] divisions” bits.
I was looking in the popover pdf which doesn’t have (or I didn’t see it) the n divisions bits. Thanks.