Notation Issues, DP 4.61

[TheClothEar]

Hello All

Just joined the forum today.

I'm after some help regarding aspects of notating using digital performer 4.61

1) is there a way to work without bar lines?
Ie without a time signature

2) is there a way to manually select which stave notes are displayed in?
Ie I'm writing for bass clarinet at the moment. The bass clarinet reads from the treble clef, but this particular piece is in the lowest range of the bass clarinet, which DP automatically puts in the bass clef. I can't manually over ride this.

Thanks for any pointers

Thomas

[bralston]

As with most MIDI sequencers, music notation is not really DPs strength. This doesn't really answer your questions, but I would strongly recommend you invest in a music notation program like Sibelius or Finale. They both do what you are wanting DP to do, but it can not. You can write in the notation program, then save the notation files as MIDI files and import them into DP and use that as a basis for making MIDI demos.

I have always looked at DPs notation capability as kind of useful, but severely limited in its features and really more of a hinderance than anything else, especially when one would want to begin by writing notes on a page.

[TheClothEar]

Thanks Brian

Normally I notate by hand, but in this case I was working backwards from some tricky audio I'd previously recorded, and it would have been nice just to line up MIDI noes with the audio wave then convert that to notation.

I feared what I want is beyond DP.
A shame really.

Cheers
Thomas

[bralston]

There is probably still a way to do it in DP. You just have to think about it differently.

In the sequence window, you can use the measure tool to drag each and every beat "line" (quantize to the 8th note for greater accuracy) to line up with the wave files in the performance you are trying to notate. Once you have the measures applied and the beats lined up to follow the performance (which I assume is rubato in nature), then you can go into the pitch tool and look at the pitches associated with the audio. If you drag over and copy the pitches into the clipboard...you can then paste them into a corresponding MIDI track...and since you will be pasting them into the same sequence, the notes should all line up with the modified conductor track you just created by dragging all the measure and beat lines.

If that all makes sense.

Then when you go look at the Dp notation, your notes should all be there and mostly notated correctly in terms of pitch and rhythm. But...the octave displacement will be off in terms of getting it to where a musician can read it and perform it.

So...after all that...you probably would already have it notated correctly by then if you had just opened Sibelius and done it yourself.

[Shooshie]

1) is there a way to work without bar lines?
Ie without a time signature

2) is there a way to manually select which stave notes are displayed in?
Ie I'm writing for bass clarinet at the moment. The bass clarinet reads from the treble clef, but this particular piece is in the lowest range of the bass clarinet, which DP automatically puts in the bass clef. I can't manually over ride this.

Why no barlines? Is it because you are working with an audio file? Did you know you can move the barlines so that the match the audio file? You can "Adjust Beats" so that the entire MIDI sequence perfectly matches the audio, so that when you quantize notes in MIDI, they actually are quantized to the audio track's beat. Look up Adjust Beats in the manual to learn all about that feature. It's under the "Project" Menu, in the "Change Conductor Track" option.

As for the bass clarinet part, have you explored the Quickscribe Mini-Menus? There's much that you can do which is not apparent at first, until you go through the global and part menus in Quickscribe.

Shooshie

[PrimeMover]

Dude... Sibelius (or Finale, if that kinda thing floats your boat)

I'd completely forgotten that DP had a notation element until you mentioned it. It's so horrifically bad, and cumbersomb, that it's bearly worth mentioning. It's a hold-over from the early days that they can't bring themselves to get rid of, because somewhere out there, there's SOMEONE who uses it as a part of their workflow that would be devistated by its removal, but it's a disgrace to music notation, to say the least.

As a composer/arranger, you really should invest in Sibelius or Finale. Sibelius has better organizational tools, but I'll admit to prefering Finale's philosophy on note entry and editing. Finale's a terribly convoluted program, though. Either one can convert to MIDI data to be read by DP, it's a lot easier than re-keying everything in after you've written a long work out by hand.

[TheClothEar]

Thanks again all.

yeah some explanation :
No bar lines as there are no bars. No fixed time signature and a free tempo. It could be notated with bars, but then you'd be counting all the silly small rests and constantly changing time sig', which are about feel rather than adhering to a fixed pattern. It ends up much simpler and more intuitive to read as a constant line (note this isn't rhythm based music)

Yes I've had some experience of sibelius, but don't own it as I tend to do most of my composing away from the computer and generally produce hybrid graphic scores by hand.

I use DP to do all my recording, so it would have been nice to simply work backwards in this instance.

Cheers
Thomas