Various Line Settings

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Peter West
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Re: Various Line Settings

Post by Peter West »

Ah, yes indeed, I did change it once. At the Finale version that first allowed to specify staff size in cm (previously you had to work it out by % reductions). At that time I changed from

Page reduced, system 100%

to

Page 100%, system set to specific staff size.
Indeed, I forgot about that.
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John Ruggero
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Re: Various Line Settings

Post by John Ruggero »

OCTO, my confusion arose in seeing that no matter what the page reduction, system reduction, or staff reduction, the line thickness and other settings in the Document Options remained stubbornly the same as measured in inches and centemeters. What kind of a magical line stays .01585 cm thick when reduced by 15% in page reduction, system reduction, staff reduction or by any combination of these? I don’t think that this enigma makes things easier for a user.

This never bothered me previously, because I never looked at these measurements in setting up files. Here was my previous work flow (engravers, please do not v…):

1. Open one of my templates, generally a piano solo, which was derived from a Finale Default File. This template contained mostly Finale defaults including the 100% page reduction and a staff size at 85% =.72 cm. If there were cue staves, they were set previously to 65% = .555 cm by use of the Resize Tool.

2. Input music in page view, generally from a sketch, composing and refining as I went. (I can’t compose in Scroll View.)

3. Format in page view, using page reduction as needed because of layout concerns. The page reduction could be slight or up to 90%. All formatting, adjusting etc. was done by eye, as if copying by hand.

Thank you, Peter and Knut for showing us your work flows upon which I will now model my own. (I am sorry that your concerns about music spacing and reduction are terra incognita for me at this point; I hope that soon they won’t be.)

However, no matter what the work flow, the fact that that Finale’s absolute values for line thickness etc., expressed to the exquiste accuracy of 5 decimal places, are completely incorrect except when using a staff designed for children, bothers the heck out of me. But of course, my new settings are in SPACES and therefore accurate, which does make me feel somewhat better!
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OCTO
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Re: Various Line Settings

Post by OCTO »

John, I feel exactly the same.

About 7 years ago I had a great "privilege" to have my music copied by persons who didn't have idea how to use Finale. So now, when I want to edit that piece, everything is resized in a strange way, starting from staff, system, page, fonts... Now I realize why it happens.

I have recently checked MuseScore. As far as I have tested it, there are numerous distances available, but they differ for each setting. For instance, cm or inches are for page sizes (makes sense), engraving spaces for music symbols and everything connected with the staff. Text is shown in points (as with general font).

Staff reduction (by %) can be useful only with reduced staff in piano + something literature (or equivalent).
But here too should settings differ (in reduced staff). Example is staff lines and barlines, which ratio differs from the normal staff.
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John Ruggero
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Re: Various Line Settings

Post by John Ruggero »

Thank you, OCTO, for sharing my concerns.

Knut's formula of 25% increase for every 75% reduction leads, I think, to good settings, except for the bar lines, which became progressively too thick with each decrease in staff size. The followings settings seem to produce better results:

For a .7 cm staff:
Barline: 0.15 space

For a .6 cm staff:
Barline: .14 space

For a .5 cm staff:
Barline: .135 space

For a .4 cm staff:
Barline: .133 space

Here are new compromise settings for piano plus cue line(s), the combination of .7 cm. + .5 cm. staves:

Staff line: 0.11 space
Ledger Line: 0.15 space
Barline: 0.15 space
Stem: 0.11 space
Hairpin line: 0.125 space

And my complete revised settings for standard size staves in cm. based largely on Knut’s formula but fine-tuned by eye:

For a .7 cm staff:
Staff line: 0.1 space
Ledger Line: 0.125 space
Barline: 0.15 space
Stem: 0.1 space
Hairpin line: 0.125 space

For a .6 cm staff:
Staff line: 0.120 space
Ledger Line: 0.150 space
Barline: 0.14 space (previously 0.183 space)
Stem: 0.120 space
Hairpin line: 0.150

For a .5 cm staff:
Staff line: 0.130 space
Ledger Line: 0.160 space
Barline: 0.135 space (previously: 0.190 space)
Stem: 0.130 space
Hairpin line: .0.160 space

For a .4 cm staff:
Staff line: 0.130 space
Ledger Line: 0.166 space
Barline: 0.133 space (previously 0.2 space)
Stem: 0.130 space
Hairpin line: .0.166 space

For all sizes of staff:
Hairpin opening: 1.33 spaces
Last edited by John Ruggero on 18 Nov 2015, 22:48, edited 1 time in total.
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OCTO
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Re: Various Line Settings

Post by OCTO »

Oh, John, that was useful!
I will put yours and others settings in to an excel spreadsheet for the further reference.
I find that excel-spreadsheet can help in the logical customization, by entering values by exponential values or else, it is easy to create a good settings sheet.
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Knut
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Re: Various Line Settings

Post by Knut »

Nice work, John!
It's a pity Finale doesn't support different line widths on different staff sizes within the same score.
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John Ruggero
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Re: Various Line Settings

Post by John Ruggero »

Thank you so much, OCTO and Knut. I am glad that you feel that this might be of value. I had considered a spreadsheet that would extrapolate values for all sizes of staff. Yes, it is a pity about the different line widths, but I found that the .11 setting was not too bad as a compromise.

I accidentally omitted the hairpin opening setting suggested by Knut and will now insert it at the end of my previous post.
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Peter West
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Re: Various Line Settings

Post by Peter West »

Knut wrote:Nice work, John!
It's a pity Finale doesn't support different line widths on different staff sizes within the same score.

I don't think this is correct. I'll have to export to illustrator later and check the exact line weights, but as an experiment I made new file with 2 staves. Set the staff line weight to 0.2 spaces. I know it's extreme, but I wanted to see clearly what was happening.

I then used the resize tool and reduced one staff to 30%. Again, very extreme, but it was in order to see the effect clearly on screen. There is no doubt that the staff line weight was reduced.If it had not been there would be barely any white space between the lines!

What this seems to indicate is that whatever page or system reduction you use, whatever staff size you set up, the settings in Lines and Curves are fixed and predictable, not related to the hypothetical default size that we never use. However, if you reduce the size of a staff using the % tool, that staff's lines will be reduced in thickness.

You may or may not want this, but at least we've confirmed how it works. (In Finale, of course, Sibelius may be different)

Peter
Finale 2008/9/10/11/12/14, Sibelius 6/7.5, In Design CC 2015, Illustrator CS4
Knut
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Re: Various Line Settings

Post by Knut »

Peter West wrote:
Knut wrote:Nice work, John!
It's a pity Finale doesn't support different line widths on different staff sizes within the same score.

I don't think this is correct. I'll have to export to illustrator later and check the exact line weights, but as an experiment I made new file with 2 staves. Set the staff line weight to 0.2 spaces. I know it's extreme, but I wanted to see clearly what was happening.

I then used the resize tool and reduced one staff to 30%. Again, very extreme, but it was in order to see the effect clearly on screen. There is no doubt that the staff line weight was reduced.If it had not been there would be barely any white space between the lines!

What this seems to indicate is that whatever page or system reduction you use, whatever staff size you set up, the settings in Lines and Curves are fixed and predictable, not related to the hypothetical default size that we never use. However, if you reduce the size of a staff using the % tool, that staff's lines will be reduced in thickness.

You may or may not want this, but at least we've confirmed how it works. (In Finale, of course, Sibelius may be different)

Peter
Different staff line settings was what I meant. Sorry for not being clear.

As far as I know, there is no way to compensate for the reduced line width of a small staff when mixing staff sizes in a score without also increasing the line width on the larger staves.
Peter West
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Re: Various Line Settings

Post by Peter West »

OK, we all understand, it's the same. Sorry to be pedantic.
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