I’ve just recently got a chance to review the tremolo function of dorico and noticed that tremolo beams are not centred between stems as one would normally expect.
As the screenshot, the gap on the left side of the tremolo is noticeably narrower than the gap on the right. I’ve set the tremolo beam inset value to 3/4sp (which is my ideal value) for the above example, and the issue becomes more apparent when I adjust the inset value to 1/8 sp:
The tremolo beams appear to be shifted towards the left stem, giving a visually unbalanced and, I would argue, incorrect engraving outcome.
What makes it particularly confusing is that dorico’s own engraving options menu suggestes that the inset value is measured between the right edge of the left stem and the left edge of the right stem.
I would appreciate it if the team could take a closer look at this behaviour, and in the mean time, I would welcome any suggestions for workarounds to achieve a properly centred tremolo beam.
Thank you!
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With some effort, you can control how close the tremolo beams are to the stems on each side to achieve the last bar below:
The first bar has a quarter note chord and a quarter note inside a hidden 2:1q tuplet. The second bar has each half note inside a 4:1e tuplet in another up-stem voice. The third bar hides the tuplets, applies a two strokes multi-note tremolo to the half notes and hides their noteheads, ledger lines and accidental in engrave mode. The fourth bar combines the first and third bars. The last bar uses the Stem adj. property in engrave mode to adjust the length of the stems and the Voice column X offset property of the hidden notes to adjust how close the tremolo beams are to the stems on each side. Finally, the tremolo beams are selected in engrave mode and the handles at the ends are moved vertically until the top of the upper beam is aligned with the ends of the stems.
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Thanks. That’s a decent workaround, although it does envolves creating some additional voices and creating extra mess when making further edits to notation.
At this point, the remaining question is whether this behaviour is in fact the intended design in Dorico, or whether it is simply one of those small engraving details that has not yet drawn any attention from the Dorico team.
I doubt that this behavior is intended. I suspect that the tremolo beams are inset from the left edges of the stems on both sides and that the thickness of the stems is not being taken into account. In the following image, the stem thickness is reduced to 1/200 spaces and the beam inset is reduced to 1/50 spaces:
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This will be even clearer with very thick stems:
(just as a notice: the accidentals have no influence here)
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