Turning sixteenth triplets into eighth triplets

[GoldmanT]

I’m confused by the way Dorico handles note lengths and bars, it seems to let me end up with less beats than there are in a bar without filling it up with rests (like Musescore would).

I’m stuck with the attached bars, which are in 4/4, but none of which add up to 4 beats. The triplets should be 8th notes, not 16ths, what’s the easiest way for me to turn them into 8th notes? The CtrlAltShft RightArrow to double the durations doesn’t seem to work, ends up with a mess of notes, not neat triplets.

(somehow they are playing back correctly as 8th note triplets, not sure how that is happening…)

[hrnbouma]

Dorico’s tuplets are quite flexible: you can show any number of note values in the space of any other. In this case, three 16ths in the space of 4. Indeed they will play back correctly—under the hood there’s no technical problem with them, just a notational one. The bad news is that, after some experimenting with Insert Mode, I’d say the easiest way (or at least the most predictable) to fix this is probably to delete the passage and re-input it in the “proper” 8th-note triplets…

Out of curiosity, how did you end up with this notation? Is it an XML import of some description?

[GoldmanT]

Thanks, I did think that I could have re-written it by now!

I started with a string of 16th notes and tried to tupletise them into 8th note triplets but must have entered the fraction wrongly. It got picked up by a player who suggested setting the time sig to 2/4, they’d obviously interpreted them as being twice as fast as the 8th note triplets I’d intended so I do need to fix it.

[Lillie_Harris]

You can fix this quite easily by following these steps:

1. Activate Insert mode (key command I)
2. Select the triplet numbers (just the number 3s, not the notes inside them)
3. Press Delete to delete them, and let the notes inside contract to their default durations (ie sixteenth notes)
4. Select the notes that should be triplets
5. Press 5 to turn them into eighths (with Insert mode still active, they push each other back rather than overwriting the next note)
6. With the now-eighth notes still selected, press ; for the tuplets popover
7. Enter 3:2e (three notes in the space usually occupied by two, with the specification that the beat unit is an eighth note)
8. Press Return

[hrnbouma]

Deleting the triplet numbers results in this, with or without Insert mode activated. However, between steps 2 and 3 you can then select & filter rests, delete them with Insert on, then proceed as described. Caveat: slurs don’t behave nicely, you’ll need to re-input those. (Hence also my “predictable” qualification.)

[Derrek]

Then deactivate Insert mode.

[GoldmanT]

Got it thanks, am finding that once I’ve done something once it clicks into place and it’s easy the next time.