Flat slurs

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John Ruggero
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Re: Flat slurs

Post by John Ruggero »

Thanks, JoshNichols. That's good, because if that is the default size, the default is smaller than anything I've seen, and I would change it. But perhaps you made them smaller to deal with the spacing issues.
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tisimst
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Re: Flat slurs

Post by tisimst »

I doubt Josh did anything on purpose here. The default functionality in Dorico is to shrink that symbol to 66% its size in the font. Why? I’ll never know, especially since the symbol it pulls in is already at the appropriate size *by design*.

Actually, to make the functionality worse, if you change the cautionary clef scale in the engraving option to something larger than 75%, then it uses a scaled down full size clef instead of the smaller cautionary clef. The workaround is go to the symbol editor, bring in the right cautionary clef glyph and scale it up to 150%. That way, you can leave the engraving option to scale it down to 66% (which cancels out the 150% scaling) and Dorico will then use the right symbol at the correct size. Frustrating that this is even necessary, but that’s how it works at the moment.
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John Ruggero
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Re: Flat slurs

Post by John Ruggero »

Thanks, tisimst. Has this been discussed at the Dorico discussion board? I did a search but couldn't find anything. If not, you might bring it up there.
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tisimst
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Re: Flat slurs

Post by tisimst »

I thought I had communicated this directly with Daniel some time ago, but I may have only imagined that I did lol.
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benwiggy
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Re: Flat slurs

Post by benwiggy »

I don't think that Dorico 'double dips' the scaling. There's an Engraving Option for the size of clef change clefs, but the default should be a 66%-sized clef, even if it is the small glyph.

You're right that from 71% upwards, it uses the standard clef glyph, scaled. More confusingly, the small clef glyphs are always Bravura, no matter what font is currently selected. Except for ottava clefs....

But, if you want 100% size clefs, just changing the Engraving Option works.
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tisimst
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Re: Flat slurs

Post by tisimst »

You are kind of right, it doesn't double-dip in Dorico because Dorico precedes the scaling by doing things under the covers that it doesn't for 3rd party fonts, not even Petaluma.

And you are correct, the cautionary clefs are ALWAYS Bravura because they are hard-coded to use the "small" stylistic alternate which is the size (in the font) of the normal sized clef instead of the real cautionary clef that is at its smaller, but real size. But why don't they just use the cautionary clefs that are already at the right size? That's what I've never understood. Why have a dedicated slot in SMuFL for a real-sized cautionary clef if you don't use it?

(Actually, there are a bunch of things that Dorico does that don't follow SMuFL, but that's for another thread. I'm sure they've got their reasons, but it bothers me as a font designer that even the creator of SMuFL deviates from it occasionally.)

So, it doesn't look like it double-dips because the "small" stylistic variant clefs are scaled up in Bravura such that when Dorico scales it down to 2/3, it just so happens to match the real cautionary clef's size in Bravura. Actually, I believe they are the exact same glyph, just that the "small" treble clef is the scaled-up cautionary clef. Now, if you make the scale smaller in Dorico, like 1/3, oh, you'll see that it definitely keeps scaling it down. Kind of annoying behavior, but most people won't even know that it's going on if they just use Bravura and use the built-in settings.

I think we're off on too much of a tangent from Flat slurs now...
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JoshNichols
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Re: Flat slurs

Post by JoshNichols »

John Ruggero wrote: 18 Feb 2021, 21:24 Thanks, JoshNichols. That's good, because if that is the default size, the default is smaller than anything I've seen, and I would change it. But perhaps you made them smaller to deal with the spacing issues.
Hi John,

I didn't change the default. Everything Abraham is saying is right.
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John Ruggero
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Re: Flat slurs

Post by John Ruggero »

Sorry, just continuing this tangent a little further...

I think I would have to see it all in action to really understand the issue presented by tismist, but in any case, the end result is not an acceptable small clef for my uses, and I would do what is necessary to change it, which seems quite possible in Dorico.

There are issues in designing small clefs so they sit properly on the staff that I discovered when I was working on my treble clef. Simply scaling down a big clef doesn't work very well, yet the small clef has to resemble the large one. I finally accepted the fact that compromises have to be made and am fairly happy with my small clef and use it exclusively. But I did use the Maestro small clefs in the Ravel example above because they was easier to insert as expressions on the fly.

Here is an example of my large and small treble clefs. The bass clefs are Maestro.
small clef example.jpeg
small clef example.jpeg (28.43 KiB) Viewed 3599 times
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tisimst
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Re: Flat slurs

Post by tisimst »

John Ruggero wrote: 21 Feb 2021, 03:32..., yet the small clef has to resemble the large one.
Not meaning to argue with you, but this has hardly been true throughout the ages of music engraving. Check almost any score published more than 50 years ago and you'll find that the small cautionary clef is often quite different than its full-sized companion for a number of reasons. The resemblance you speak of has only become "standard" with digital scoring because it was easier to design a single clef then scale it within software to the needed sizes. It's laziness, but it gets the job done. Proper cautionary clefs at least are optically sized and weighted, but this is not the norm.
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John Ruggero
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Re: Flat slurs

Post by John Ruggero »

Sorry, I didn't understand your last comment, tisimist. To me it is self-evident that the large and small clefs should resemble each other, in the sense that they should look like members of the same family. I just looked through some editions by the major publishers and that seems to be the case. Here are some old editions from Associated Board and Durand. I could post many more. To me, they resemble each other even though the small clef has been modified to sit better on the staff lines.
Associated Board.jpeg
Associated Board.jpeg (50.06 KiB) Viewed 3581 times
Durand.jpeg
Durand.jpeg (65.12 KiB) Viewed 3581 times


I found a few cases where the clefs didn't resemble each other, and I find it unappealing. So I wouldn't do in a publication what I did in the Ravel example and use a small clef that was markedly different from the large clef.

Making such a small clef that lies properly on the staff is not easy, as I discovered, and simply scaling a large clef down by a certain percentage didn't work, at least in my case.
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