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Messages - Mike Shawaluk

1
General Discussion / Re: Final variant
If you want to move the text more to the left, add spaces to the end of each text item. (A trick I have used before)
2
General Discussion / Re: Mid Export
What operating system version are you running? Also, what version of NWC are you using? I tried your set of operations on a sample score under Windows 11 and it behaved as expected. Perhaps there is something "odd" in your score that is triggering this behavior. Would you be willing to share the score for testing purposes?
3
General Discussion / Re: Oblique lines between two staves
I just wanted to mention that Glissando.ms can also be used to notate this sort of line, by applying a large end Y offset and removing the default "gliss." text. Of course, playback should be set at None.
4
General Discussion / Re: MIDI to score
When you say elsewhere, I assume you tried a few different programs, including MuseScore? Maybe other programs you haven't tried know how to handle MIDI files without tempo information?

Can the file be opened in a MIDI editor? If it can, perhaps do that, update/add the tempo info, and resave the file. Then see if it can be imported.

As a separate issue, perhaps the next version of NWC can make a reasonable assumption about tempo if it encounters a MIDI file with no tempo information present.
5
General Discussion / Re: lyrics of verses in a block after the score /
Quote from: Marianne van Harten –
Two questions about lyrics:
...
When a word consist of more than one syllable AND this word is placed over two staves, the first part has a dash. The second part (at the next stave starts with a dash. I want to omit this second dash.
Regular the second dash is no problem, but when using Versenumbers.ms, the second dash is printed before the verse number, which is not beautiful.
You can suppress the second dash if you insert a hard return after the syllable where the staff breaks.  An example follows:
6
General Discussion / Re: Page view
Quote from: Flurmy –
You're right, Mike. the smaller the window (not just the monitor), the more the zoom levels.
Odd that, for 4k monitor maximized, the zoom level is only one.
Odd indeed. On my other monitor (1920x1200) at the maximum zoom, the notes/text are larger than on my 4K monitor. Perhaps there is a memory limitation that is limiting how much I can zoom in, and NWC did not anticipate 4K monitors in its current version.
7
General Discussion / Re: Page view
Quote from: Flurmy –
I'm puzzled.
In "print preview" I have just two views. The first one is "full page", the second is ""screen wide" and, in the upper left, there is the caption "page x, zoom y/2" with y either 1 or 2, no matter which way I change the zoom.
It appears that the number of zoom factors available depends on your monitor. I recently upgraded to a 4K monitor, which I have oriented in portrait (tall) mode. If I do a Print Preview maximized on that monitor, it says "Page #, Zoom 1/1" in the upper left corner, and pressing + or - has no effect. However, if I resize the window to only take up part of the screen, then the zoom keys work. Depending on the size of the window, the second number in the Zoom #/# will change. Very odd.
8
General Discussion / Re: Thinking Through Flow
Quote from: Lawrie Pardy –
The hidden ppp is much easier, AND it is near enough inaudible as to make no practical difference.  At least that's how it's been in my scores.  The other, non ppp, instruments significantly over power it.
You can also change the Dynamic property of the ppp to Change Channel Volume = 0, so it won't sound at all. (Unfortunately, you can't set Custom Note Velocity to 0, since that corresponds to "note off")
9
General Discussion / Re: Ties up and down in a chord
What Lawrie says about the tie direction is correct, but another problem you will face is the stem length on the tied quarter notes, which will need to be shortened so they don't hit the lower tie on the other staff. It would also be nice to be able to bend the ties upward/downward as in your sample, but NWC does not allow this. You could remove the ties and use SlurCubic.ms instead for the ties, but then the notes won't play correctly.
10
Object Plugins / Re: Tremolo.ms (2.1)
Those old standalone user tools were written before NWC was updated to allow built-in user tools. I consider those older tools obsolete, but of course I can't delete them from peoples' computers :)
11
Object Plugins / Re: Tremolo.ms (2.1)
I get the same result. Flurmy, are you having a problem with the Tremolo.ms auto user tool, or is it something else you're experiencing?
13
General Discussion / Re: alternating number of verses
Quote from: Lawrie Pardy –
Hey Lorenzo,
just did a test and changed the "Class" to Standard instead of StaffSig and it seemed to work.

At least I think I'm seeing what you want.
The help text might not be very clear on this feature, but when Class is set to StaffSig, the verse numbers will automatically appear on subsequent staves. If Class is set to Standard, then the verse numbers will appear only once, at the location of the object.  Also, if you want verse numbers on every staff in the start of your song, but then you want to discontinue them at some point (i.e. at the refrain), you can insert a new VerseNumbers.ms object and set its Visibility to Never.

One more thing I forgot to mention in the help text: if you are using Special Text and you want the verse number to contain a space (such as "1, 2."), just put an underscore (_) character in place of the space. The _ will be replaced by a space when the verse number is displayed/printed.
14
General Discussion / Re: Melisma
It's not the "Span" that's causing the problem. If you look at the first note of the "re" syllable of "amore", you will notice that the lyric syllable property is set to "Always". If you change it to "Default", the melisma will appear. The same is true for the other missing melisma.

I don't think that the Melismatic.nw object implements the "Span" behavior; you should leave the Class setting at StaffSig unless you want melismas for just the current system.
15
Object Plugins / Re: MIDIcontroller
Now that the plugin ID "fl" is assigned to you, you should replace the zipped file with the unzipped file on the top message of this thread. That way the "Manage objects" command in NWC will be able to update peoples' systems when you release updates to the object.
17
Object Plugins / Re: Glissando.ms (2.3)
The Glissando.ms object has been updated to version 2.3, with the following changes:
  • Reorganize properties screen to combine X & Y offsets on a single line, to save space
  • Add EndNoteShift parameter, to handle glissandos which span a clef change or other staff transposition
18
General Discussion / Re: verse no, left justifed and lyrics left justified
1. Use the VerseNumbers.ms plugin to get easy verse numbers. There are a number of options for complicated situations, but the default settings should give you verses starting at number 1.  Look at the SAVEQUEN.NWC sample file for an example.
2. If you click the glasses icon (Viewer Mode), it will hide the oval Melismatic.nw (and VerseNumbers.ms) text markers.
3. On the Lyrics setting page, adjust the Offset to change this.
19
Object Plugins / Re: Glissando.ms (2.2)
Playback for the Glissando.ms object occurs during the duration of the starting note of the glissando. Because both of your starting notes are very short duration, this will result in a rapid sweep. The Gliss Delay parameter will delay the start of the glissando, but will speed up the sweep because there is less time remaining for the moving portion.  Also, pitch bend glissandos work best with both the starting and ending notes muted.

I also noticed that your score's staff instrument has a pitch bend range of 7 semitones. The documentation for Glissando.ms recommends a pitch bend range of 24 semitones.
20
Object Plugins / Re: Glissando.ms (2.2)
Hello all,
After thinking about the problem a bit more, I have come up with a potential solution which I am attaching to this post in advance of an official release. The fix is the addition of a new parameter called End Note Shift, which specifies an optional pitch shift for the final note of the glissando. It defaults to 0 for backward compatibility with previous object versions. For @Flurmy's example, a shift of 20 will produce the expected playback. If it is being used across a 8va or 8va bassa, a shift of ±12 would be appropriate.

@Flurmy, if you can test this new version with a few different glissando types, that would help me greatly.  I will post the changed object to the forum once I know it works correctly for the various conditions.
21
Object Plugins / Re: Glissando.ms (2.2)
I think I see what is going wrong, but I'm not sure how to fix it. I will describe what I am observing and perhaps someone out there with better NWC user object skills than me can figure out a solution.

For my description, I will refer to the source code line numbers in the current object version, which is Version 2.2 Flurmy 1/2022.

First, a few observations. If I play Flurmy's score sample, it of course plays incorrectly; there are too few notes, starting from the expected note and then making a sudden jump to the highest note.  If I move the user object immediately after the clef change, it plays differently - now there is a normal-sounding glissando, but it begins as though the first note is an E (treble clef) and again there are too few notes.

In the _play(t) function, which begins at line 214, the following two statements attempt to determine the MIDI pitch of the starting and ending notes:
Code: (lua) [Select · Download]
  local v1 = nwcplay.getNoteNumber(priorNoteidx:notePitchPos(1))
  local v2 = nwcplay.getNoteNumber(nextNoteidx:notePitchPos(1))
Before these statements are executed, the pointers priorNoteidx and nextNoteidx are positioned at the starting and ending notes of the glissando. The nwcplay.getNoteNumber() function attempts to determine the MIDI note number of the specified note. The API instructions for the nwcplay methods say that the values returned will take into account the various staff properties in effect, including clef, transposition, etc.  However, what appears to be happening is that the playback properties being returned are those for the SPP position of the user object, not the notes in question. I have searched high and low through the API instructions, and I can't figure out a way for the nwcplay methods to return values based on a different SPP position (i.e. that of the starting or ending note.) I know there is a way to determine the SPP offset of a particular note: nextNoteidx:sppOffset() (see line 248). However, there doesn't seem to be a way to give that position to nwcplay.getNoteNumber() because there is only a single parameter, the staff position of the note.

Please let me know if any of the above does not make sense, and I will try to explain further if that is the case
22
Object Plugins / Re: Glissando.ms (2.2)
Mine is getting rusty too. It would help if you could provide an example that doesn't do what you expect.

A bit of a disclaimer: the playback code in Glissando.ms was an afterthought that was added to a very old object - I think that this was the first one I ever made. Also, as I've stated before, I did not write the code that does the pitchbend playback, if that's what is not behaving correctly.
23
General Discussion / Re: internal and external slur
Here is a trick that might save you some time on a long score. If you have numerous beamed notes for which you want to add internal slurs, add a Slur.ms object to the first pair, configuring the slur direction and offsets as needed. Then, copy the user object to your clipboard, and then paste the object to the other note pairs. The copied object will remember the settings, that should save you some time.
24
General Discussion / Re: internal and external slur
If you use the built-in slur marker feature for this type of slur, you will notice that the end points of the slur will touch the stems of the notes, because the marker only changes the vertical position of the slur. Using Slur.ms or SlurCubic.ms will give a better appearance since they default to an internal slur and will allow horizontal adjustment of the endpoints.  In practice, when you use either of the Slur objects, you will probably want to also use a marker to suppress the built-in slur from appearing, by using the Visibility: Never feature.
25
General Discussion / Re: What is this?
My own "wild guess" is that it's some form of shorthand for a tied chord, maybe intended on a handwritten score, where the composer didn't want to have to write in all of the notes for tied chords. It seems like an intuitive (albeit nonstandard) way of showing tied chords that would take less time to write and be a little less cluttered on a multi-instrument score.
26
General Discussion / Re: several pictures
It just occurred to me that perhaps the 12 is a reference to another section in the songbook where the guitar chords are shown. I've seen this in some songbooks where they will only show the chord names on the sheet music but then they will show the chord fingerings elsewhere in the book.
27
Avant-garde / Re: Rehearsal marks
I created BarLabel.ms because I wanted to be able to share scores with other people who didn't have the BoxMarks2 font on their system. It's true that you have to have the BarLabel object installed, but I believe it is bundled in with the 2.75a NWC installer.
28
General Discussion / Re: Melisma
The easiest way to do this is to insert another Melismatic.nw object before the breve, but set the object's Visibility to Never. That will effectively disable the object. If you want to resume Melismatic later in the score, simply insert another one that is visible.
29
General Discussion / Re: Up and Down beams on same set of notes
I concur with @hmmueller on this. The main barrier is the inability to control the upper and lower stem lengths independently. At one point I considered a user object that would allow re-beaming of notes whose stem lengths were set to 0; it would have redrawn both the stems and the beams for both sets of notes (upward and downward stems). As you can guess, it would have been a lot of work, and there would have been other problems, such as the slurs on the upper notes, which no longer have the stems to "hold them up", so slur markers would have to be added. In the end I gave up on the project. If you want beams on both sets of notes, your best bet is to put each part on its own layered staff (which of course is what Rick G. would be saying here if he were still with us).
30
General Discussion / Re: How would you play this?
My own theory on the extraneous flat symbol is that it's a kind of "courtesy accidental" because there are other D's on different staves that have different accidentals in that measure. Specifically, the oboe part. I have seen these sorts of accidentals on some scores, even though they are not really needed, but maybe some musicians would see the accidental on an adjacent staff out of the corner of their eye and be tempted to observe it, so putting the flat on the note was intended to keep them from making that mistake.
32
General Discussion / Re: changing the key
While I realize this requirement is in place, and sort of understand the reasoning behind it, I very much hope if/when there is a new version of NWC, that the transpose function can be changed to assume there is a C key signature present if it doesn't find one. I wouldn't think it would be that hard to do this.

Now, if there isn't even a clef present, then all bets are off.
33
General Discussion / Re: About nwctxt
Quote from: lawrroc –
How do you open an nwctxt file in the form that appears in the forum? That is in code form, see attachment. I am only able to open the file with notepad, which is another matter entirely.
Thank you.
Lorenzo
Click "Select" which will highlight the text. Then click "Download" and your browser should prompt you to save the file with an extension of .nwctxt.  Then, double click the file you saved, and it should open in NWC.

If double clicking opens the file in Notepad, then run NWC separately and click the "Open" button and browse to the folder where you saved the .nwctxt file. Then select and open it.
34
General Discussion / Re: reinstalling NWC
Here is a slightly easier way to find the directory on your current computer. Find the icon for Noteworty Composer, right click on it and choose Properties. From that window, click on Open File Location. This will open File Explorer in the install folder. Inside this folder you will find a Setups folder with the installer program(s).  I believe that if you used multiple installer programs to upgrade to your current version, all of them will be found in this folder. You just need to run them in the correct order.
35
General Discussion / Re: not loud enough
It seems to me that they should have offered a configuration setting in the program to control the lyric skipping behavior.
36
General Discussion / Re: not loud enough
There are a number of factors that will affect the final volume of your scores:
  • The instrument you choose for the score will affect the volume. Some instruments are louder than others.
  • You can insert a Fortissimo (fff) in your score so that the notes which follow are at the maximum volume.
  • Be aware that YouTube has its own volume control, which operates in conjunction with your computer's or phone's volume setting.
37
General Discussion / Re: Arrow between two staves
I agree with the other comments that it can be tedious to use the Charmap program to find arrow characters. However, I've discovered that if one uses their favorite search site and types "unicode arrow characters", there are sites out there that have collected/sorted the various Unicode arrow symbols, from which you can copy/paste into NWC.  Two such sites I found are:

http://xahlee.info/comp/unicode_arrows.html

https://unicode-table.com/en/sets/arrow-symbols/#right-arrows

There are others as well.
38
General Discussion / Re: quarter note's rest out side of the staff
As a compromise, I suggest that all of us refrain from whole/half/quarter/breve/semibreve/demihemisemibreve/etc. and instead refer to all note durations by the number of MIDI clocks in that note. There are 24 MIDI clocks per quarter note / crotchet, and you can double / halve that number repeatedly to get the other durations.

I figure if we can't make everyone happy, then we ought to try to make everyone equally miserable.
39
General Discussion / Re: quarter note's rest out side of the staff
Quote from: lawrroc –
Hello, I refer to this topic with two specific questions.
1. the numerical values of slur.ms, slurCubic.ms, alt ctrl + @,  how are they chosen? In other words, 0 (zero) corresponds to the position of the notehead, to the center line of the staff (in which each space is equal to 1?)...
For most objects, including Slur and SlurCubic, the units of measure in the vertical and horizontal directions are different.  In the vertical, the unit is 1 for each note value. For example, if the object is positioned at G, then a value of 1 would represent the position of an A note (the space between the two lines) and a -2 would represent the position of an E note.  In the horizontal, the unit of measure is the width of a small notehead, i.e., the width of a quarter note. Try adjusting the various parameters for a slur and you'll see how this works.
40
General Discussion / Re: New PC
I am using NWC on Windows 11, and for me it behaves the same as it did on Windows 10 on my previous PC.
41
General Discussion / Re: several pictures
I apologize if I am butting in, since you are addressing Lawrie, but since it's a public forum, perhaps I can help while Lawrie is asleep on the other side of the world :)

1. I'm not sure what the "12" is, but there are special fonts that can be used to create something like that. I'll let Lawrie answer that one.
2. You can use the "brace with next" function to create the bracket. With a score containing multiple staves that are not layered, you would put your cursor in the upper staff and choose menu Staff > Brace with next.  The style of the brace is slightly different on the following systems, but I believe it is the same intent.
3. I think the text is "drum fill" not "drum all", which is just a note to the musician to do a "fill" with drums at the beginning of the song. The notes with the "x" noteheads are typically drum beats.
4. For the more complex title, there is a custom object called PageTxtMaestro.nw that can create this, but it takes some experience to use, and I've not used it very much. Perhaps another forum member here can tackle that one.
42
General Discussion / Re: Insertions resize
If there is ever a new version of NWC, perhaps the Scaling (%) box could be added to the Dynamics, Performance Style, Dynamic Variance and Flow Direction properties.
43
General Discussion / Re: unwanted addition
Hello Frank,

I will jump in here to explain the two whole notes you are seeing. You are correct that one note is for the soprano and one is for the alto. When two parts sing the same note and the duration is shorter, the stems are set to opposite directions so the singers can tell there are two layered notes. But since there are no stems on whole notes, they are shown offset.

To show this with layered staves, you would need to set the Extra Note Spacing of one of the whole notes to 1.3.
44
General Discussion / Re: NWC code
I would amend Lawrie's instructions slightly: rather than click the "#" button, use the "Noteworthy 2" button, which is on the far left. It will add the following to your message:
[ code=nwc][ /code].
This will work slightly nicer for users who wish to download your NWC clip.
45
General Discussion / Re: is it slur or tie
When you have layers and the flags don't line up, you can lengthen (or shorten) the stems of the notes on one of the layers, so that the flags are aligned. But in your case, I would ask whether you might instead enter the two parts as chords on a single staff. Then you don't need to use layers, and the flags will automatically be combined.
46
General Discussion / Re: Tie position
In NWC it is possible to hide a native slur, and then add a Slur.ms or SlurCubic.ms, which as you noted, is drawn only (does not affect playback). Unfortunately, it's not possible to hide a tie. The only way to have a sounded tie without the marking would be to add the tied notes to a hidden staff, and then mute the visible untied notes.

Mike
47
General Discussion / Re: Tie position
I was going to recommend a slur object, except that you would need to remove the tie, and thus the score won't play back correctly. But if you just want the correct appearance when printing, then a slur object will do what you need.

I might suggest using a SlurCubic.ms for this case, since you can adjust the shape of the curve to more closely match the appearance of a tie. Although they are similar in appearance, ties and slurs have slightly difference shapes and rules for positioning. I'm attaching a sample I created.

Thanks,
Mike
48
General Discussion / Re: Tie position
Quote from: Richard Woodroffe –
Yes,  go to the properties for the note where the tie starts
(highlight note and then ALT and ENTER)
Then select Tie Direction "Downward"  instead of "Default"

HTH
I don't know if reversing the tie direction will be what he wants. If you do that, the tie will cut through the half note stem. But maybe that is preferable to having it cut through the note head.
49
General Discussion / Re: Screen capture of Player crashes near end.
I've been able to reproduce this issue, both for "Send to built-in viewer" (in 2.8 beta) as well as the standalone viewer (also 2.8). The point at which the display goes into "earthquake mode" varies on the window width.

And now for a bit of personal opinion. I don't like the scrolling note chase mode, and I almost never turn it on. It always has seemed jerky/jittery even when it's not outright glitchy as for this score. I consider the scrolling note chase an "experimental feature", even though it's part of the latest official release. It was introduced somewhat late in the most recent release cycle, and I think it's always been a YMMV type of feature.  Given the current development status of NWC (or lack thereof), I don't expect the note chase to be changed or fixed any time soon.
50
General Discussion / Re: Measures number
The easiest way to do this is to go into Page Setup, go to the Options tab, and change Measure Start to 0. That way, the first full measure will be measure 1.

Another way to do this would be to select the first barline, choose Properties, and check "Exclude from bar count". This will also set the first full measure to be measure 1. However, if you have multiple staves, you will need to do this on every stave.