Lyrics in DP7 Quickscribe

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richardein
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Lyrics in DP7 Quickscribe

Post by richardein »

Try this:

Write some music for voice, then try copying the passage somewhere else. The notes move, but the lyrics stay put. You have to enter them again because as far as I can tell there is no way to move lyrics en masse by selecting a system-full, say, cutting them, then copying them. The work around, of course, is to re-enter all the lyrics by hand again, a tedious process if you have a lot of words to wrangle and want to work on different versions and see the words.

In addition, the lyrics don't automatically respace the measures once they're entered, making poly-syllabic words unreadable without a lot of hand-adjustment. The basic problems of auto-respacing were solved years and years ago by both Finale and Sib, so having to do it here to get not necessarily usable but at least readable results seems quite unnecessary.

Furthermore, I can't find any way to notate a melisma properly in the middle of a polysyllabic word. For example, imagine you want a melisma on the second syllable of "Hallelujah." You want to write "Hal-" then "le-" followed by a melisma line for x number of notes, then "lu-" then "jah." Unfortunately, typing a hyphen immediately advances you to the next note where Quickscribe expects you to write a syllable. If you hit space bar to advance to the next note. Quickscribe won't let you. There simply is no way to get that hyphen to be followed by a melisma.

My interest in using lyrics within DP is not to print out finals, because I own Sib and Finale. Instead, all I want to do is see the lyrics when I'm composing, which is far easier in DP. Because of the issues above, lyrics really aren't as usable for me as simply typing the words I'm setting into markers every few measures or so. At least, I can read and copy them without duplicating a lot of boring, repetitive work.
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Shooshie
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Re: Lyrics in DP7 Quickscribe

Post by Shooshie »

Richard,

In my initial report on DP7, I found the same thing. I hoped that it was just my inexperience with both Quickscribe and Lyrics in same, and that just maybe someone else would unlock the secret for us, but overall I found the lyrics to be very limited in utility. Try changing font size (larger, mainly). Then you're in for real trouble.

I think it may be most useful when you're done arranging and want to see it all together. Lyrics as a final step -- and after you know what size font (and which font, for that matter) you want to use -- may be quite handy to have. But it appears to be a royal pain unless MOTU has incorporated a hidden "reflow text" button somewhere. (I don't think so)

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waxman
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Re: Lyrics in DP7 Quickscribe

Post by waxman »

that is bad news... I was hoping this would save me from running Sibelius simultaneously. However I can say after using DP7 for about 20 hours now it is very stable. I had one beach ball during comping which resolved in about 20 secs...

So it may be better just to work in Sibelius and save the double effort. For songwriting it would be nice but it seems they designed it to make charts after the song is done probably not as a writing tool.
Last edited by waxman on Sat Oct 03, 2009 11:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Frodo
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Re: Lyrics in DP7 Quickscribe

Post by Frodo »

I don't have DP7, but check out this PDF and notice that a hyphen appears to separate actual syllables.

Melismas appear to be more like underlines (shift-hyphen).

http://www.motu.com/products/software/d ... fullscreen

However, I'm not sure what to do in situations were a syllable AND a melisma are needed at once...

hal-______ le-______ lu-______ jah

??
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mhschmieder
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Re: Lyrics in DP7 Quickscribe

Post by mhschmieder »

Hmm, do you suppose this is a bug, and oversight, or by design (easier to implement)? Maybe someone from MOTU will chime in.

Not a deal-killer for me, as I'll get DP 7 anyway (after a new computer), but it's good to know this ahead of time so I don't make any assumptions about workflow.
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Frodo
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Re: Lyrics in DP7 Quickscribe

Post by Frodo »

mhschmieder wrote:... or by design (easier to implement)? Maybe someone from MOTU will chime in.

Not a deal-killer for me, ....

Very insightful points.

I doubt it's a bug as long as it works as stated in the manual.

It might more accurately be by design and easier to implement, but I got the impression last summer with the release of DP6 that QS was not a terribly high priority and that notational needs were more the exception than the rule for users by MOTU. I hope I got that part of it wrong.

Shy of someone at MOTU chiming in, I'd like for someone with DP7 to chime in to confirm the hyphen vs shift-hyphen quandary, if that is indeed how it's supposed to work.

I'm glad that QS has been improved in DP7, but we've all lived for a long time with the reality that QS's strong points were just as "note" worthy as those scoring features which are not yet represented. I still say it's a step in the right direction. Let's allow MOTU to keep stepping!! :P
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dpart
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Re: Lyrics in DP7 Quickscribe

Post by dpart »

Bit disappointed in QS in DP7. Its not easy to figure out (if there are indeed workarounds) for these issues. Seems like they added a few new things - eg lyrics, chords, etc, but then didn't go all the way. The example page (moonlight serenade) is hard to emulate with the 2 lines of lyrics. Took me forever clicking here and there.

Then again philosophically, markers have a more meaningful alignment purpose with a DAW where there is a fixed time axis unlike sheet music where lyrics just have to correspond to notes, but the notes themselves are spaced out unevenly. QS is just notation, but they also have Notation Editor which seems like a neglected little thing, btw - it doesn't show lyrics (for obvious scaling difficulties for display).

But if markers were available in a variety of colors and stacked vertically, then one could use these as lyrics, and chord names, and parts.

MOTU should be encouraged spend just a little bit more effort on QS & NE and markers (the makers would probably only 1 day of some nifty programmer's time).
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zed
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Re: Lyrics in DP7 Quickscribe

Post by zed »

dpart wrote:But if markers were available in a variety of colors and stacked vertically, then one could use these as lyrics, and chord names, and parts.
I very much agree. I suggested something like this in the wishlist which I sent to MOTU last year. This would be a great area for them to spend some of their development hours.
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ssfm
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Lyrics in DP7 Quickscribe: Epic Fail

Post by ssfm »

I'm doing some vocal work now, and can sadly confirm the profound problems with lyrics in QuickScribe. I had to snip about 8 bars of music out of a vocal arrangement. The notes after the snip point of course moved 8 bars earlier, but the lyrics stayed in the same bars they were originally placed. The repair process was very long and very tedious.

As another example, I deleted all data in the tracks overview window of a project, then saved it as a template. When I used the template to start a new arrangement, I was stunned to find the old lyrics were still in the Quickscribe window, even though the notes were gone. I had to go through page after page and manually delete all the old lyrics.

Notation in DP has baffled me for a long time. It's been there for decades, but never implemented in a way that makes it really usable for professional use (especially film scores). Articulations and slurs are still missing, and now lyrics aren't properly anchored to notes. If Digidesign ever decides to merge all the features of Sibelius into ProTools, MOTU will probably lose every film composer still left on their platform.
dpart
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Re: Lyrics in DP7 Quickscribe

Post by dpart »

I just bought (ordered) Notion 3. I think a dedicated full-featured package is called for; it has the most features and at an excellent price.
attackstarbolins
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Re: Lyrics in DP7 Quickscribe

Post by attackstarbolins »

I write lyrics for guitar and I understand you. It happens that you write all day, but sometimes you hate yourself for being unable to do more. The matter is online assignment help in operations management in the muse at times, yes. Even the most famous and greatest composers such as Beethoven, Vivaldi and Tchaikovsky were in a crisis situation, most importantly - don't despair!
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