VIDEO: Resized staff and symbol sizes

Discuss the rules of notation, standard notation practices, efficient notation practices and graphic design.
Post Reply
User avatar
wess-music
Posts: 51
Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 10:40

VIDEO: Resized staff and symbol sizes

Post by wess-music »

Dear Colleagues,

I have communicated with OCTO few hours ago and he kindly suggested to start new treat about above mentioned subject with the attached link for VIDEO illustration..

So, it is a short footage uploaded on Youtube in which I've illustrated the technique already described in a previous tread "Resized staff and symbol sizes" started from OCTO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj1Z6y5Cbyk

The Video is Full HD (1920 x 1080p).
Some bouncers use be default HTML5 playing at automatic and reduced resolution of 720p.
In order to see more details, please switch your Youtube to Flash mode. Thus you can select 1080p.

Thank you for your attention.

Best regards,
Wess
User avatar
wess-music
Posts: 51
Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 10:40

Re: VIDEO: Resized staff and symbol sizes

Post by wess-music »

Here is the second Video.
It is dedicated to the so called "Rounded ledger lines".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ3pHmV ... e=youtu.be

This video is not slowed down.
I am very tired at the moment and that is why the gesture of the mouse are not very precise and a bit shaky.
In my daily work for all this manipulation I have already predefined custom batch commands and what we see in about 4 minutes may be performed in one go for less than 30 sec.
BTW – I do never apply rounded ledger lines to grace notes, but here the most important are the settings and ... my sport spirit.
User avatar
OCTO
Posts: 1742
Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 06:52
Location: Sweden

Re: VIDEO: Resized staff and symbol sizes

Post by OCTO »

Absolutely fantastic Wess! Your perfection and ideas are always astonishing me!

I noticed that you have exported as .ps than converted to .pdf.
What is the purpose?
Actually I have some problems with Inkscape, with fonts. I tried different settings to export from Finale and import to Inkscape, but many items are missing, or replaced by some letters.

Concerning your second video, have you tried to have for the reduced symbols to keep the same line weight? It means that the regular staff lines, regular stems and ledger lines equals to the lines of reduced staff and grace notes.
Freelance Composer. Self-Publisher.
Finale 27.3 • Sibelius 2023.5• MuseScore 4+ • Logic Pro X+ • Ableton Live 11+ • Digital Performer 10+ /// MacOS Monterey (secondary in use systems: Fedora 35, Windows 10)
User avatar
wess-music
Posts: 51
Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 10:40

Re: VIDEO: Resized staff and symbol sizes

Post by wess-music »

Dear OCTO,

Today you asked me about the software for the videos:
It is "Camtasia".
The funny music I embedded – 2 tunes from short movie soundtracks I composed ca.10-15 y. ago and a song by friend of mine, song writer, that I arranged for him.
_____________


"I noticed that you have exported as .ps than converted to .pdf.
What is the purpose?"

It is well known that most of the colleagues face problems with the substitution of one to another glyph when opened in third party software.
"Printing" first to PS helps, because the PS-interpreter could be from HP (for LJ PS printers they are one of the best).
I have installed Large Printer PS driver on my MAC and use it permanently on all may machine since 2009.

Thus man can get first class PS file and everything in the following processes goes perfect (most of the time).
Second – if you import EPS graphics in your Finale file (within Finale program) and need to print as PDF – nothing happens.
Any vector graphic does not interpret as vector but as bitmap. Even worst – with very low quality.
This is an issue of Finale, nonetheless. For 27 yeast this program went through many more or less successful version or even like the recent – the worst one.
Sibelius might be consider as a non-pro, I agree, but it has perfect interface for working with external files and now Finale in this respect is still behind. Finale does not import SVG. It could export with many errors, but can not import.

It happens "time to time" to print through PREVIEW, just for proof reading, but when I was in one of my meeting with colleagues at Schott, the tech guy insisted to use Adobe Distiller and the Pro versions of Acrobat. It turned out ti be very important and really helpful.

When using third party PS driver you can manage the black of the printout. With the genuine Preview driver is not like that.
I stopped experimenting any more because I have already set up my workflow after many unsuccessful attempts.

I hope that the above explanations may help not only to you, OCTO, but to whom it may concern.
____________

"Concerning your second video, have you tried to have for the reduced symbols to keep the same line weight?
It means that the regular staff lines, regular stems and ledger lines equals to the lines of reduced staff and grace notes."

This is not good at all.
I have experimented with this too. The result is truly "analog" – just like the one seen in old scores, but when printed on paper – IMO and this is only personal perception – there is no the expected balance between both stave lines. We get use too much the quasi perfections of the straight thin lines produced by highly developed devices nowadays. With other words I can not express the result. I do stay pretty reserved.
Even such program like Score utilises different lines for normal and small staves.

I worked on the videos till 6 this morning, one hour after you were already awaked (as you wrote me privately earlier today)
In such situation when I am extremely tired my mind is caching many things together and one of them was really the same question you spotted.
Imagine, the old timer engraver had only one spick for thin elements like stems and of course different rostrals (like 5 spick fork) for staves.
How sharp are they – none can say! But in our situation this depends on our settings.

The real need to perform the tricks with outlined symbols (shown in the vide) was because of the everlasting problem with the weight of Maestro font. I do not use it in my work since 1999, but I can not say that I have totally avoided, because I need it for the lectures with my student at the University and only for one customer.
Maestro suffers from the balance between symbols. I am not here to criticise my colleagues, font creators, but the same issues are found in November – too much contrast on thickness between G/F/C-clefs and all articulation/dynamic symbols...

IMO the thiner element in any glyph must not the less than staff line. This principle was kept as a base in SCORE and this is a low for me.
I hope Knut will agree about this. I mention him, because I know he also have such great experience this his font(s).

And at the end the main reason why there is no any inters from myself to maintain the same line width for main and reduced staves:
As a starting point –  this would be a lot of extra work in illustrator or Inkscape.
There are 4 main type of lines that differs between both sized stave. These are Stems on normal notes, on Grace notes, Staff lines and Smart shapes.
The last ones will be omitted for known reasons – they don't play such a role and also cold be easily adjusted in Finale or Sibelius.

But the other 3... Even workings with batch processing to save time, the amount if time it is not negligible that is needed for this adventure.
And at last – there is real danger to get embolden lines and much thiner music symbols.

Working with one very well calculated and balanced music font all this extended work in Illustrator is needless.
I use it just for complicated shapes that could not be done in Finale's graphical editor.

And also, one fact that must be taken into account – the proof raiding.
This dedicated perfection on every single lines would be in vain if there are new correction in your score, because you have to repeat the whole process again.
On every single page I spend ca. 2-3 minutes, sometimes even less that 1.
BUT: for a composition with 50-100 pages is would be considerable time.
I have customer that readily appreciate what I am doing – looking into details, but for all other persons, who are in a hurry – what?
It does not work for all instances we face every day.

However, I dedicated my active live on this job. And inner conviction propels me ahead to share this experience and skills with you and my student.
I hope it is not matter of loosing time, because I do believe, part of my live could be found there – between staff lines and their content.

Best regards,
Wess
User avatar
OCTO
Posts: 1742
Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 06:52
Location: Sweden

Re: VIDEO: Resized staff and symbol sizes

Post by OCTO »

WESS - that was a huge answer!

Thanks for the considerable time for such a detailed reply.
wess-music wrote:I hope that the above explanations may help not only to you, OCTO, but to whom it may concern.
That was helpful. I stil have problems for some symbols to display correctly in Inkscape. I will investigate it furher.
wess-music wrote:
OCTO wrote:Concerning your second video, have you tried to have for the reduced symbols to keep the same line weight?
It means that the regular staff lines, regular stems and ledger lines equals to the lines of reduced staff and grace notes.
This is not good at all.
I have experimented with this too.
I have commented that in Lilypond thread, an example notated by Pierre viewtopic.php?f=7&t=37&p=559&hilit=ledger#p559
I will definitely investigate that idea. Personallym, but just personally, I think that reduced staff in Finale/Sibelius gets to thin. Also for grace notes.
wess-music wrote:The real need to perform the tricks with outlined symbols (shown in the vide) was because of the everlasting problem with the weight of Maestro font. I do not use it in my work since 1999
Oh, that is something.
I think we all try to find the golden-font, that would be distinguished and well designed. Truly, it is really hard.
Freelance Composer. Self-Publisher.
Finale 27.3 • Sibelius 2023.5• MuseScore 4+ • Logic Pro X+ • Ableton Live 11+ • Digital Performer 10+ /// MacOS Monterey (secondary in use systems: Fedora 35, Windows 10)
User avatar
John Ruggero
Posts: 2453
Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 14:25
Location: Raleigh, NC USA

Re: VIDEO: Resized staff and symbol sizes

Post by John Ruggero »

Wess, thank you so much for taking time to explain all of these incredibly valuable things from your workshop. I am hearing things that I am now eager to implement. You are making such an important contribution to music. It is an honor to share this Forum with you.
M1 Mac mini (OS 12.4), Dorico, Finale 25.5, GPO 4, Affinity Publisher 2, SmartScore 64 Pro, JW Plug-ins, TG Tools, Keyboard maestro

http://www.cantilenapress.com
Post Reply