Scale - Continuous Data

Scale Continuous Data

$image\Scale_Continuous_Data.gif$

How to get there

Click the MIDI Tool $image\MIDI_Tool.gif$ . Select a region of measures. Specify the MIDI data type you want to edit by choosing Continuous Data from the MIDI Tool Menu. If you’re in the MIDI Tool window, select the region you want to affect by dragging through the "graph" display area or by selecting the handles of individual notes whose MIDI data you want to edit. Choose Scale from the MIDI Tool Menu.

What it does

This dialog box’s function is to let you scale the values of the continuous data gradually from one value to another.

from ___ to ___. In these text boxes, enter the beginning and ending values of the gradual change you want Finale to effect over the selected region. The numbers you enter in the From and To boxes pertain to the controller you’ve specified (on a scale from -8192 to 8192). For example, you could create a smooth pitch bend by scaling the pitch wheel data for a selected region from 0 (the pitch wheel’s at rest value) to 8192. (Be sure you then scale it back down to 0 later in the piece, or your synthesizer will think that its pitch wheel is "stuck," and all notes your synthesizer plays will be transposed.)
Absolute • Percent of Original. When Finale scales the selected MIDI data from the value in one text box to the value in the other, it needs to know whether these specified values are the actual absolute values or percentages of the existing values. For example, if you click Absolute when creating a crescendo, the crescendo will be perfect; any subtle variations in key velocity among the notes of the selected passage (recorded from your original performance) will be lost. If you clicked Percent of Original, however, you could scale key velocities from, say, 50% to 200% of all notes’ current velocities, thus preserving individual dynamic fluctuations within the passage while still creating an effective crescendo.
in Increments of ___. This text box has no effect unless you’ve selected Absolute (see above). It lets you specify the increments by which you want Finale to scale the specified data type. For example, if you scale the pitch wheel from -8192 to 0 in increments of one, the pitch bend will be extremely smooth. But such a pitch bend will also take Finale a long time to calculate, and the storage of such large amounts of data will increase the amount of disk space consumed by your document. If you create the same pitch bend in increments of five or ten, however, Finale has far fewer calculations to make, but the pitch bend may sound less smooth.
OK • Cancel. Click OK to confirm, or Cancel to discard, the MIDI data changes you’ve specified. You return to the MIDI Tool window (or the score).