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Re: Case of the Disappearing Slur

Posted: 06 Aug 2017, 09:34
by Knut
No worries, Florian.

In my experience, cut slurs in plate engraving actually are quite perfectly tapered, albeit somewhat asymmetrical, due to unevenness in pressure. Dorico's slurs look more like punched slurs, which are typically thicker in the middle and have a more abrupt tapering than cut slurs. These punches seem to have been used mostly for ties, and in the minority of cases where relatively short, perfectly symmetrical slur shapes would suffice.

As a result, Dorico's slurs are fine as long as they are relatively flat, but whenever a more bulky or asymmetrical arc is required, they become ugly. Their attractiveness also depend a lot on the amount of inset used, and as such seem much less susceptible to user preference than they should.

Re: Case of the Disappearing Slur

Posted: 06 Aug 2017, 10:07
by Florian
Yes, I see what you mean.
After comparing a few pages with Dorico, Finale and beautifully cut slurs in earnest I must admit that Dorico's slurs are not generally closer to the 'original'. What's more, their more 'interesting' (less balanced) shape becomes annoying after a while even for flat and symmetrical shapes, whereas Finales's slurs remain perfectly unobtrusive.

Re: Case of the Disappearing Slur

Posted: 06 Aug 2017, 11:15
by Knut
Florian wrote: 06 Aug 2017, 10:07 Yes, I see what you mean.
After comparing a few pages with Dorico, Finale and beautifully cut slurs in earnest I must admit that Dorico's slurs are not generally closer to the 'original'. What's more, their more 'interesting' (less balanced) shape becomes annoying after a while even for flat and symmetrical shapes, whereas Finales's slurs remain perfectly unobtrusive.
I'm very glad that we see eye to eye on this, Florian.

Unfortunately, my impression is that the majority of the Dorico community, at least those coming from Sibelius, are quite content with the Dorico slur shapes, and seem to regard their idiosyncrasies as authentic. As they are no doubt the result of an aesthetic choice made by the developers, I have my doubts whether they will be improved upon in future, at least to the point where you can recreate Finale's shapes more or less exactly with appropriate settings, but we'll have to wait and see.

Re: Case of the Disappearing Slur

Posted: 06 Aug 2017, 17:02
by John Ruggero
Thanks for the Sibelius example, odod. I don't find the slur proportions at all thick or off-putting. If anything they are a little thin for my taste. Judging from this and the lack of complete uniformity in the starting and ending positions of the slurs over the 32nds, may I assume that this is not the Sibelius default but represents hand adjustment and your personal settings?

Schonbergian, I think that you should rethink your ledger line thickness.

Thanks for a very interesting discussion, Florian and Knut. Ease of use through automation is nice, but not the driving force for many engravers. Dorico will have to produce results at least as good as Finale if it hopes to appeal to them.

Re: Case of the Disappearing Slur

Posted: 07 Aug 2017, 19:30
by Fred G. Unn
John Ruggero wrote: 01 Aug 2017, 16:55 What do Notatio members think about this issue and are there techniques that might make the second approach easier to implement in Finale?
Just saw this thread and if you haven't tried it, TGTools/Modify/Modify Slurs could possibly be of some help. Here's the default Finale way of doing it (started from New Document Without Libraries) with TGTools Modify Slurs run with "Use Engraver Slurs" unchecked and both "Fine tune" settings set to 100 (normal).
TGSlurs.jpg
TGSlurs.jpg (128.81 KiB) Viewed 12796 times
Still not the greatest, but considering that is the Finale default with no hand tweaking whatsoever other than running Modify Slurs it could be a timesaver.

Re: Case of the Disappearing Slur

Posted: 07 Aug 2017, 22:35
by John Ruggero
Thanks, Fred. I'm embarrassed to say that I don't have TGTools.

I just realized that I never actually posted what a untouched Finale Default file looks like with the Maximum Slur Angle set to 90 degrees. It is pretty much what you have even without the TG Modify slurs. As you said, it only needs a little hand work,
Slurs Finale 90 degrees.jpg
Slurs Finale 90 degrees.jpg (14.77 KiB) Viewed 12790 times

Re: Case of the Disappearing Slur

Posted: 07 Aug 2017, 23:57
by erelievonen
I must admit that I don't see what was the benefit of using TGTools in Fred's example, since John's last example on a Finale default file actually looks better to me. The only thing that I can see TGTools has done in Fred's example is to make the two longer slurs too flat in shape.

Re: Case of the Disappearing Slur

Posted: 11 Aug 2017, 18:05
by OCTO
In Finale's slur settings you can either have "lift" or "stretch". I believe that Finale should be able to combine these two (by the percentage each), not to exclude any. Than it will be superior to Sibelius.
(I don't know for Dorico, I haven't used it yet).

Re: Case of the Disappearing Slur

Posted: 12 Aug 2017, 15:29
by John Ruggero
On their own, various lift and stretch settings over a wide range that I tried did not have any effect in the example under discussion. I don't know if combining them would yield different results, but the ability to do so might be an excellent Feature Request at MM.

I have Engraver Slurs on and use a maximum lift of .75 spaces in my template as was discussed in an earlier thread. I didn't see a significant difference between the results input in a Finale Default file and in my template.