Scale - Tempo dialog box

How to get there

  1. Choose the MIDI tool icon. The MIDI Tool menu appears.
  2. Select a region of measures. If you’re in the MIDI Tool dialog box, 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.
  3. Choose MIDI Tool > Tempo.
  4. Choose MIDI Tool > Scale.

What it does

This dialog box’s function is to let you scale the tempo gradually from one value to another. For example, you can create a smooth accelerando by scaling the tempo from 40 beats per minute to 60 beats per minute.

  • 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 in these text boxes represent the number of beats per minute.
  • In Increments of ___. This text box only appears if you’re editing Continuous Data or Tempo, and it 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 (Continuous Data) or number of beats per minute (Tempo).
  • 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 (from 0 to 127 for Key Velocities, for example) 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 current note velocities, thus preserving individual dynamic fluctuations within the passage while still creating an effective crescendo.
  • OK • Cancel. Click OK to confirm, or Cancel to discard, the MIDI data changes you’ve specified. You return to the MIDI Tool dialog box (or the score).

See also:

MIDI Tool menu