Figured bass font in Sibelius

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Harpsichordmaker
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Joined: 10 Apr 2016, 08:19

Figured bass font in Sibelius

Post by Harpsichordmaker »

I am using Norfolk font, the Sibelius version of Bravura, and I am fairly happy with that (I do like Opus as well, however).
The authors didn't port the figured bass glyphs from Bravura to Norfolk, so I am obliged to use the Opus figured bass font which I don't like at all (I do like the Bravura glyphs).
I was thinking about porting me porting the Bravura figured bass glyphs in a font for Sibelius (I am aware of the mapping issues), but wonder if any fine figured bass font for Sibelius does exist already.
Thanks for advice.
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odod
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Re: Figured bass font in Sibelius

Post by odod »

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benwiggy
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Re: Figured bass font in Sibelius

Post by benwiggy »

There's been a recent discussion about the free Sebastian Figured Bass font.
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=249

I really like the style of the letters, which are nice 18th-century modern face, similar to time sig numerals. There are different characters for different vertical positions of the same numeral, and the font is designed so that typing three different figures will stack up under each other. (Hence the zero-width.)

I have no way of knowing whether this would work well with Sibelius. I use it for chord suffix libraries in Finale, where it works beautifully (except for the issue mentioned in the other thread.)

You can of course make your own version of it using a font editor, should you need to.
Harpsichordmaker
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Re: Figured bass font in Sibelius

Post by Harpsichordmaker »

I did try and port the Bravura glyphs for figured bass in a Sibelius mapped font. In fact, I started with a copy of Opus figured bass font and ported all the glyphs in their proper slots. Many glyphs I did create by twining two glyphs, for example, Bravura lacks the figure bass altered glyphs, such as :f :n6 so I had to take the :f AND the :n6 separately and copy-and-paste in the appropriate slot.
Some symbols I had to tweak or compress, etc.

I then opened a file (a sonata by Pepusch) I already had, and just changed the text style for figured bass from Opus figured bass to the new font (size 13.5 pt).
The music font is Norfolk (a derivative from Bravura) and I just made staff lines and stems thicker. Everything else is Sibelius 8 Standard, so please forgive spacing and the other engraving-related issues.

I didn't test the font in each and every condition, but in "normal" conditions it seems to behave well. Would you please give a look at the two pdfs attached? one is Opus figured bass, the other is DS figured bass, the "new" font.

Of course, please ask if you'd like to work on the font to refine it. I'll send the font. As I told you, I am not a font expert at all.
Just please don't share the font before assuring everything is ok with copyright issues with Bravura, Daniel Spreadbury or Steinberg.
Thank you,
Dom
Attachments
Pepusch-OpusFigBass.pdf
(102.2 KiB) Downloaded 467 times
Pepusch-DSFigBass.pdf
(104.09 KiB) Downloaded 470 times
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John Ruggero
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Re: Figured bass font in Sibelius

Post by John Ruggero »

In case you are looking for a general impression, I find the DS font much more visible and therefore more appropriate for figured bass than Opus. However, the symbols are a little large and positioned a little far from the staff and from each other vertically for my taste. On the other hand, the 76 suspension is too compressed. I would enter the two numbers individually on the appropriate beats.
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Harpsichordmaker
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Re: Figured bass font in Sibelius

Post by Harpsichordmaker »

John Ruggero wrote:In case you are looking for a general impression, I find the DS font much more visible and therefore more appropriate for figured bass than Opus. However, the symbols are a little large and positioned a little far from the staff and from each other vertically for my taste. On the other hand, the 76 suspension is too compressed. I would enter the two numbers individually on the appropriate beats.
Thank you very much, John.

I downsized the symbols and positioned nearer the staff, see the attachment. The figures are now nearer vertically each other.
Attachments
Pepusch-DSFigBass.pdf
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John Ruggero
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Re: Figured bass font in Sibelius

Post by John Ruggero »

That looks very good to me, Harpsichordmaker. The distance of the figures from the staff looks best when the systems are not too close together as on most of the pages. But if the systems are close, the figures might be a little closer to the staves they are associated with. For example, the first figure 42 on the first page seems somewhat disassociated from its staff. For the sake of consistency, that might dictate a constant minimum distance between the systems so the figures can remain at the same distance from the staves throughout.
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