Dorico slurs and beams

Have your scores reviewed by other users. Comment on old and new published scores and on publishers.
benwiggy
Posts: 835
Joined: 11 Apr 2016, 19:42

Re: Dorico slurs and beams

Post by benwiggy »

The stem length seems to be just as important as the angles themselves. I also suspect the use of the "ideal" in "ideal slant" suggests multiple factors at play.

Changing my beam settings to "1/4, 1/4, 1/2, 1/2, 1/2" (up to a 6th) seems to work just as well, and is probably a little bit more consistent. Fred, what do you have for 7ths and beyond?
User avatar
Fred G. Unn
Posts: 435
Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 13:24
Location: NYCish

Re: Dorico slurs and beams

Post by Fred G. Unn »

Here's what I currently have and what was in that last image I posted anyway:
Image
User avatar
Fred G. Unn
Posts: 435
Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 13:24
Location: NYCish

Re: Dorico slurs and beams

Post by Fred G. Unn »

Ignore that ^^^. Like I said, my beam settings seem to be changing daily right now, and here's the current version:
Image

New settings score even higher on the Ross test I posted earlier, 56/81, and fix the most egregious beaming errors like the previous 3rd system of pg 105.

Image

I have "natural stem lengths" selected instead of "snap to line" so some of the ledger line beams will never match Ross. This is with 0, 4 stem shortening too.
User avatar
Fred G. Unn
Posts: 435
Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 13:24
Location: NYCish

Re: Dorico slurs and beams

Post by Fred G. Unn »

benwiggy wrote: 05 Oct 2021, 09:26 Stem Shortening rules were -3 and 3. Shortened Stems rule was ON.
One possible downside of these settings is that an upstem quarter on -3 with a normal 3.5 space stem now won't reach the top staff line. It's very tiny and virtually imperceptible at printed sizes, but if you zoom way in there's a tiny gap there that isn't there with -2 and 3. Obviously -4 and 3 will make the gap much more noticeable if you want to compare.
User avatar
Fred G. Unn
Posts: 435
Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 13:24
Location: NYCish

Re: Dorico slurs and beams

Post by Fred G. Unn »

In case there are any Finale users lurking and trying to make sense of any of this, the Stem Shortening setting is as below:
Image

Finale doesn't have this setting so the default in Finale would simply be 1,1. That is Finale starts shortening upstems at location 1 and they are immediately fully shortened. This doesn't look very good.
Image

Thankfully Patterson Beams automatically fixes the stem lengths even though there isn't actually any beaming.
Image

If I draw lines to show exactly what PB is doing ...
Image
... then in Dorico-speak using PB results in the Stem Shortening setting of 1,4.

This gets complicated in Dorico because a tiny adjustment in the length of a stem may cause it to snap to a different sit/straddle/hang location and there are a lot of influencing factors.
benwiggy
Posts: 835
Joined: 11 Apr 2016, 19:42

Re: Dorico slurs and beams

Post by benwiggy »

That's very useful, and explains it perfectly. I can see that Dorico's defaults are designed to even out the shortening: start it earlier, and grade it in.

The gap is almost imperceptible; but changing the rules affects all my beaming for the worse! Dorico's results are a synthesis of several different parameters: the stem lengths, the shortening criteria, and the beam angles (plus all the specific case rules). To be honest, although my settings don't make sense, they still seem to provide a good compromise.
Screenshot 1.png
Screenshot 1.png (12.98 KiB) Viewed 222340 times
I can change the settings to -2, 4, and reduce the quaver short stem height to 2.5 spaces, and I broadly get the same beam results; but there's a knock-on effect to the 'horizontal beam inconsistency' issue. Hmm. More work needed.
Screenshot.png
Screenshot.png (35.03 KiB) Viewed 222336 times
User avatar
Fred G. Unn
Posts: 435
Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 13:24
Location: NYCish

Re: Dorico slurs and beams

Post by Fred G. Unn »

benwiggy wrote: 07 Oct 2021, 06:55To be honest, although my settings don't make sense, they still seem to provide a good compromise.
I'm finding a lot of my settings don't make sense! All my n/8 beam angles are nonsensical, but I guess they are better thought of as just numbers that are needed to interact with all the other variables, not really actual angles.

Ross on pg 85 states that stems on the equivalent of Dorico's -1 and 0 position are "quite often more effective at 3 1/4 spaces." I had my stem shortening at 0, so I changed it to -1, which of course messed up some other values. Setting the 3rd to 5/8 fixed most of them though.

I'm getting way worse results than you on the horizontal beam consistency test.
Image

Ugh.
Anders Hedelin
Posts: 274
Joined: 16 Aug 2017, 16:36
Location: Sweden

Re: Dorico slurs and beams

Post by Anders Hedelin »

Thanks, Ben and Fred for a very interesting thread. I can't say that I follow you in all technical particulars, but I can imagine that a part of the shaping (up) of a new program is taking place just here and now.
Finale 26, 27 on Windows 10
benwiggy
Posts: 835
Joined: 11 Apr 2016, 19:42

Re: Dorico slurs and beams

Post by benwiggy »

One other thing:

After loading my options in another document, I've changed the Slants for Narrow Beams to 1/4 for intervals greater than 2nd.
User avatar
Fred G. Unn
Posts: 435
Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 13:24
Location: NYCish

Re: Dorico slurs and beams

Post by Fred G. Unn »

I cranked my narrow beam threshold way down for testing so it's essentially turned off in anything I posted here. I found it was affecting too many things. I'll turn it back up for actual work, but it seemed like it was just getting in the way because I couldn't always tell what was as result of the regular beaming settings, and what was the narrow beam settings.
Post Reply