Score Editor: Score Set Layout request to Apple

[Music Spirit]

Greetings fellow Score Anoraks .... a term of endearment I assure you

 

In preparing parts from a Score I still find that one of the most annoying deficiencies of the Score Editor is that it cannot REMEMBER a Score Set Layout and transfer it to another instrument.

 

To do this for each instrument which has exactly the same lines and spacings ( ie brass or sax section) is extremely time wasting.

 

Let's say you create a Score Set and call it TRUMPET with all completed line breaks etc, suppose you save that Logic Document as TROMBONE and then try and use the TRUMPET Score Set, for Trombone, Logic will not remember a thing... ie unless you call up the Trumpet Scoreset again.

 

Does anyone agree with me that to add a saveable Score Set template would be a feature worth requesting in a future version of the Score Editor?

 

Ideally I have misunderstood the program and perhaps there is a way to do this .. which an expert might be able to comment on ( Prof J Asher, Ski, Flowerpower, CCT, Doug.... ?)

 

best

 

MS

[FlowerPower]

In preparing parts from a Score I still find that one of the most annoying deficiencies of the Score Editor is that it cannot REMEMBER a Score Set Layout and transfer it to another instrument.

Hi!

There actually isn't really such a parameter as a "score set layout" in Logic, not out of the box. There's Staff Styles, Score Sets, Score Project Settings etc. Max Bars/Line is part of the Project Settings, not the Score Sets. You can import score sets between projects, and you can save different score sets inside a project, but neither of these options will help you since what you describe isn't a part of these settings. I guess this is exactly what you want to change.

 

Does anyone agree with me that to add a saveable Score Set template would be a feature worth requesting in a future version of the Score Editor?

Logic already has the ability to save score sets, and to make a template song which you can import score sets from, so I guess what you really want is that some of the current project settings are remembered either per track or per region, or as part of eg. a Score Set (or a Staff Style)?

 

I guess there are a few current ways to achieve what you want. One of them would imply that you save a few projects called eg. "Layout 1", "Layout 2" etc. and copied the MIDI notes etc into a project which already has the global project settings you want.

 

Or, if what you want is really simple - just use a template with the right Score Project Settings for all your Instruments, if possible. (SIngle Instruments have a different Max number of Lines per Bar than FUll Score).

 

Alternatively - if you have, say, three different "layout needs" in a project, print all the parts needing Layout 1, then change the Project Settings, and the print out all the parts which need "Layout 2", and so on.

 

You could possibly also see if it's possible to copy/paste the notes etc from one Instrument into another Instrument (one with the desired # of bars/line and so on), after having deleted the notes etc for that instrument first.

 

If many users want Max Bars/Line and some other parameters to move from Project Settings to somewhere else, I'm sure it's doable - but in that case, a new version of Logic with this change also needs to deal with song created before this change was implemented - otherwise existing songs could end up looking all wrong.

 

Maybe all you need is a Copy/Paste Layout command?

[Mr. V]

In preparing parts from a Score I still find that one of the most annoying deficiencies of the Score Editor is that it cannot REMEMBER a Score Set Layout and transfer it to another instrument.

 

To do this for each instrument which has exactly the same lines and spacings ( ie brass or sax section) is extremely time wasting.

 

Let's say you create a Score Set and call it TRUMPET with all completed line breaks etc, suppose you save that Logic Document as TROMBONE and then try and use the TRUMPET Score Set, for Trombone, Logic will not remember a thing... ie unless you call up the Trumpet Scoreset again.

 

Ideally I have misunderstood the program and perhaps there is a way to do this .. which an expert might be able to comment on ( Prof J Asher, Ski, Flowerpower, CCT, Doug.... ?)

 

best

 

MS

 

Hopefully one or all of the heavy weights that you invoked above will respond to your concerns.

 

I may be mistaken, but it seems that you are using the term Score Set when you're really concerned with Staff Styles.

Using your example of Trumpet to Trombone, you would Duplicate the Trumpet staff style and rename it Trombone. Staff styles are saved with the project so Logic will remember this within a given project.

 

You can import staff styles to a Template so that they are always ready to go.

 

It is good practice (so say I as a reader and viewer of Asher & Zanger's tutorials... ) to duplicate the staff style for each track. For instance, if you have 3 separate tracks of trumpet, you should Duplicate the Trumpet staff style for each track (ending up with 3 or 4 Trumpet staff styles). This means that if you adjust the spacing of one, it will not mess up the appearance of the others.

[ski]

Score Sets can be used to prepare single instrument scores (i.e., parts) as well as multiple instrument scores. In fact, it's recommended to prepare an individual Score Set for each part that you want to extract from a larger score in lieu of using Logic's built-in "part extraction feature". The term "feature" here should be though of in the context of a feature film about someone going insane trying to extract parts using that feature.

 

Each Score Set remembers not only which instrument(s) you want to display, but most importantly, the formatting of the score in terms of where line breaks occur on a line-by-line basis for each part or system in that part. You can also adjust the scaling and make other adjustments on a part-by-part basis.

 

So let's say you have a piece for two instruments: piano and flute. To prepare the parts for the individual players, create a Score Set for just the piano, and another just for the flute. Or, to create a part that contains both piano and flute (which will be more useful than just a piano part for the pianist), create another Score Set that contains both parts. Here, the line breaks, scaling, and other attributes can be different for each Set you created.

 

HTH

[Ashermusic]

There is this book by this guy named Jay Asher edited by this guy named Peter Schwartz.......

[Music Spirit]

Ski & Jay - thanks for your replies. ( I have the book by the way .. remember? on what page do you address this issue?)

 

Am I misunderstanding something gents... ?

 

Here is my question again: You have a 3 horn arrangement. All the line breaks etc, coda signs, all phrasing, markings are identical and the notes are identically placed ( except for different harmony lines)

 

My point Ski - is that the Score Set does not seem to remember the line breaks for the individual Instrumental parts - even if I make a single document for each instrument. ... your flute/piano example does not apply - because those are necessarily different with double and single staves.

 

I am talking about single line instruments with the same length, same phrases.

 

You complete the trumpet part - there seems to be no way to paste the alto sax and the trombone parts into the same line break format. Do you see what I mean? The time consuming issue is to keep having to reformat each part's Line Breaks from scratch which I find a time consuming business for long parts especially.

 

I am aware that the Score Style would change for Alto and Trombone - but it would be great to have Logic "remember" a set template... with all the layout details remembered..markings/phrasings/slurs etc but especially the Line Breaks

 

Or perhaps that is not such an appealing or necessary idea?

 

PS Thanks V for your contribution - but I am definitely not talking about Staff Styles. I am talking about invididual instrumental parts

Edited December 16, 2012 by Music Spirit

[Music Spirit]

You could possibly also see if it's possible to copy/paste the notes etc from one Instrument into another Instrument (one with the desired # of bars/line and so on), after having deleted the notes etc for that instrument first. [.....]

 

That is exactly what I have tried and what is not possible, it seems.

 

Maybe all you need is a Copy/Paste Layout command?

 

Indeed, A Copy/Paste Layout Command would do the trick

 

But this does not seem to provoked an Avaaz rush of support ...

 

thanks to all anyway

 

MS

[ski]

Hi MS,

 

A couple of things, for clarity and confirmation...

 

1) Regarding staff styles and line breaks... Line breaks are not associated with any given staff style; you can format a score with line breaks, change the staff style on one or more parts, and the formatting will remain the same.

 

2) The content of regions have no bearing on how line breaks work either. They simply break the line (or system) when they're added. So it doesn't matter is there's a one-to-one correspondence between notes in each part or not.

 

3) It is a necessary evil in Logic to create a Score Set for each individual part and set the line breaks accordingly in each one of those Score Sets. Yes, a "copy/paste line breaks" function would be very helpful in this situation. But there's more to it than that... line break functionality in the score editor is "effed" to an even greater extent than I've exposed in my many writings about their foibles here on the forum. And I daresay that even if such a copy/paste function existed, it would still not function properly unless more significant changes / fixes were made to the way line breaks work.

 

So yes, it's extremely time-consuming to prepare parts in Logic because you have to repeat your actions (i.e., add line breaks) to each individual part. And in my experience, there is no way around this problem. Heck, it's almost impossible to explain how it doesn't work with any kind of brevity, so that says a lot right there. Egads.

[FlowerPower]

 

Indeed, A Copy/Paste Layout Command would do the trick

 

Yes, but since this isn't currently implemented, and because the score sets don't contain that kind of formatting info, my suggestion is still to try the opposite:

 

"You could possibly also see if it's possible to copy/paste the notes etc from one Instrument into another Instrument (one with the desired # of bars/line and so on), after having deleted the notes etc for that instrument first."

 

I just tried that solution, and while it's not an elegant workaround, it works (at least for what I tried it with). So - instead of copying the layout into a new track/region, you copy the notes (etc) 'into the layout' (a dummy 'template' region/track). This is only useful if your score contains a lot of formatting, because it's quite easy to format parts with the layout tool.

 

What you'd need to do to work this way is to create a dummy region on, say, track one, with the correct line breaks. If your dummy region is based on a region with actual music in it, press E to open the Event Editor, and use Select All in the Event editor before you us Backspace to delete all events in that list (the results of your Layout Tool editing will not be erased). Now you have an empty region in track with one with the correct line breaks. (Make sure you have used the Maximum Bars/Line formatting option under Project Settings/Score/Global before you start using the Layout Tools. I'm sure you know that there are individual settings for Score and Parts.)

 

Now, go to track two, copy it's contents, and use Paste At Original Position to put these events into your dummy template region. It's not an elegant workaround because for a number of reasons, but could possibly (but I'm not even sure of that! be useful if you have many tracks and very complex formatting. In most cases, the combination of Project Settings and the Layout Tool would probably b a faster solution.

 

 

On the other hand: if you use the Max Bars/Line, Constant Spacing/Proportional Spacing etc options in Score Preferences, you can get quite good results sometimes, even without using the Layout Tool. But - since the oboe player usually don't need to look at the french horn part and vice versa, in which situations do you need all the individual parts to have identical line breaks? If you set the Bar Numbers value to zero, the bar numbers will only appear at the beginning of each line, which is a simple way to find specific areas in the score without a lot of hassle. In some cases, that could be a good alternative to having parts which have identical formatting?

[ski]

Hi FP,

 

I just tried out your suggestion (with great anticipation!) but unfortunately I didn't get consistent results. Sometimes the line breaks would remain in force, other times they wouldn't.

 

After a few attempts, I deleted all regions except for my original dummy region with the line breaks, copied it to a new track, and sadly the line breaks disappeared in the copy.

 

Original "dummy" region with line breaks made using the layout tool:

 

Copy of dummy region:

[FlowerPower]

Sometimes the line breaks would remain in force, other times they wouldn't.

Hi,

Sometimes it seems that one has to add an extra line break in order for Logic to understand what you want.

Looking at your example, it seems that you may have used the Layout Tool to make the first line contain only 3 bars, but there's no orange icon on line 2 (or at the end of line 1).

Whatever the default behaviour is, the situation is confusing... but I have the feeling that if you'd add an extra Line Break in your dummy region, this line break would serve as an 'anchor' for the formatting.

 

 

 

After a few attempts, I deleted all regions except for my original dummy region with the line breaks, copied it to a new track, and sadly the line breaks disappeared in the copy.

Yes, the manual line breaks seem to be hooked up with both track number, position and region, meaning that moving a region with line breaks to another track or location means losing the line breaks (which actually makes sense).

 

All depending one why Music Spirit seem to want the same line break happening in several parts, maybe there are other solutions for his situation.

[Music Spirit]

So yes, it's extremely time-consuming to prepare parts in Logic because you have to repeat your actions (i.e., add line breaks) to each individual part. And in my experience, there is no way around this problem.

 

I think this kind of puts my question to rest for the moment thanks Ski, between you and FlowerPower, you have thoroughly gone through all the hoops to see if there was perhaps a way round this and I am really grateful for the time you took with all the examples, which are also useful as a way to remind oneself just what options there are.

 

3 points:

 

- I think that in terms of stablising or creating more of a template, the orange padlocks/max number of bars per line setting is crucial. The better the relationship between these two elements, the more stable the line breaks in a particular instrumental part/Score Set seem to function.

 

- crucial in any attempt to cut and paste notes to an existing Instrumental part, the Spacing setting in the Staff Styles would have to be identical for each Staff Style ( whatever the instrument) because it makes sense that the Line Breaks need to remain the same to be replicated identically for different instruments.

 

- perhaps it is worth making a comparison in the Score Sets menu between Format:Instrumental and Format: Score in a Logic document which has been saved just to make one Instrumental Part

 

Thanks once again for your inputs severally and jointly..

 

I would also like to ask Prof Asher to make a comment on this.... I am curious as to whether it matters much to him in the grand scheme of parts preparing

 

best

 

MS

[FlowerPower]

Hi again MS,

I'm still a little curious about when you need equal formatting on individual parts, but should anyone reading this try to work around the lack of a 'copy layout' or similar feature, there are some culprits to be aware of. Logic's formatting options are actually quite advanced: you can eg, use the Layout Tool with or without the Option key, there's a local menu (w/control click) under the orange lock pads with some advanced options etc, but the main thing I know some people (including myself) sometimes forget, is that a region can be shown with several (four?) different sets of formatting. This is why a region which looked right 5 seconds ago suddenly looks wrong, and this could be caused by something as simple as a double click on the score background, which shows the formatting for the full score (even if the project only contains only one region). And then there's the difference between a 'free' region and one which is part of a score set...

 

 

The two different looks of Ski's region is probably 'expected behaviour', because AFAIK copying a region never copies the line break formatting. Formatting seems to be limited to the original position the formatting was entered at, the original track, and the original region.

 

I've experimented further with trying to see if Logic sometimes will ignore my manually entered line breaks, with no "success" (and this is good news)...: if I have defined that my first line shall have four bars only, it will keep this formatting even if I put more notes into those bars than there's room for.

 

But due to Logic's 'deepness', it's possible to see the same region with different formatting, depending one whether All Instruments or the Score Set (if there is any) is chosen, and due to the full score vs part thing. I believe I managed to get an inconsistent result with the suggested workaround once, but haven't been able to repeat that misfortune. Therefore, I suspect, for now, that the inconsistency I had once could have simply been a result of the different formats a regions can be shown with, but I expect to be proven wrong.

[ski]

FWIW, here's one of my previous posts on the subject (from 2008):

 

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=32812&p=169549

[Music Spirit]

you can eg, use the Layout Tool with or without the Option key, there's a local menu (w/control click) under the orange lock pads with some advanced options etc, but the main thing I know some people (including myself) sometimes forget, is that a region can be shown with several (four?) different sets of formatting.

[....] due to Logic's 'deepness', it's possible to see the same region with different formatting, depending one whether All Instruments or the Score Set (if there is any) is chosen, and due to the full score vs part thing.

 

This is extremely useful FP ... I was totally unaware of the Menu under the orange lock pads and just had a look.

 

You raise a number of avenues to explore ( Part vs Score) etc ..and I am going back to the drawing board to experiment ..

 

Many thanks for your thoughtful input

 

best

 

MS

[Music Spirit]

FWIW, here's one of my previous posts on the subject (from 2008):

 

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=32812&p=169549

 

This is indeed a useful thread thanks Ski, and I see it like an 'evergreen jazz standard' that should be played again and again the repertoire of posts here.

 

Though I am concerned that perhaps you are living in the past a bit ( Logic 9.1.5 in your signature) - surely your are on 9.1.8 like the rest of us very hip Score Cats here....

 

.. but then maybe being a Beta Testa for the Barbie Edition has gone to your head along with all that Californian wine

[ski]

Thanks MS!

 

Indeed, I'm still using 9.1.5. My system is stable and running smoothly. Thus, my philosophy of "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" keeps me on 9.1.5.

 

LOL re wine and the Barbie Edition. I'm happy to report that both are fermenting nicely here on the left coast. 8)