NOTATIO

From the another topic's post:

John Ruggero wrote:Beam thickness is not something that I have delved into yet, so I just use the Finale default.

I always liked more fat beams. They represent musical shapes and notehead movements in a more visually appealing way.
This is example of a theory test I did a long time ago. I have used a bit bolder font, Engraver - for this purpose.
The thickness is 1.234mm/0.0486in/3.5pt

I'm pretty sure beam thickness is fairly standard at a 1/2 space. If it's larger than that, won't it mess up some of the sit-straddle-hang rules designed to avoid wedges?

Fred G. Unn wrote:I'm pretty sure beam thickness is fairly standard at a 1/2 space. If it's larger than that, won't it mess up some of the sit-straddle-hang rules designed to avoid wedges?

As long as the increased thickness is achieved at the expense of the gap between the primary and secondary beams, as in Octo's example, I don't think wedges will be a problem. Beams in plate engraved scores are often thicker than half a space. If used with the Patterson Beams Plug-in, I think too much beam thickness will mess up the results, though, and in any case, one probably shouldn't increase the thickness more than half the thickness of the stafflines.

I have my beams set at 12.5 EVPUs without gap compensation, corresponding to the Patterson Henle-Beams settings, even though I use Beam slants more in line with Ted Ross' recommendations. This works fine, but then again, it is a very slight increase.

Knut wrote: I have my beams set at 12.5 spaces

12.5 EVPUs maybe? 12.5 spaces would be interesting, LOL!

Fred G. Unn wrote:

Knut wrote: I have my beams set at 12.5 spaces

12.5 EVPUs maybe? 12.5 spaces would be interesting, LOL!

Haha, you're right. Post edited!

How to explain to the non-finale folk what EVPU is?

OCTO wrote:How to explain to the non-finale folk what EVPU is?

It's a unit of measurement where 24 EVPUs = 1 space. Knut's 12.5 EVPUs would be just a tiny bit over 1/2 a space.

In experimenting with the 12.5, I noticed something very strange: why is the Finale default beaming for A different from B? For me, A is correct in both cases. B produces stems that are too short. Same notes going in the opposite directions should have the same beaming, correct? Then when I tried the 12.5, it actually changed some of the beam positions!

John Ruggero wrote:Same notes going in the opposite directions should have the same beaming, correct?

Yes, the direction shouldn't matter. That's very odd, I'm not sure exactly what settings are triggering that result. According to Ross, E-F should be hang-straddle so the first A is correct and B is wrong, and F-G should be straddle-sit so A is wrong and B is correct.

Did you run Patterson Beams? I have my default beaming settings set so they work nicely with Patterson Beams, which I then run on every single file I ever work on. Here is what I get by default after running Patterson Beams, without any manual tweaking involved:
(Ignore the fact that the beams look slightly displaced to the right. That's just at this resolution of jpeg, they print fine.)