I was playing back a short score and I noticed that some eighth notes seemed longer than others. Being an ex Finale user I thought maybe Crescendo was doing "human" playback. but I can't find any documentation that says Crescendo has this capability.
I created a test file, played it back and recorded it. I opened the recording in Audacity and some eighth notes are indeed longer than others. Enough to be very noticeable. I have only observed it to occur after a rest, though not every rest.
I'd upload the file, but I can't see a way to do that. So here's a step by step description of a 2 measure score that can demo the problem.
1: create a new score with a time signature of 6/8 ( I haven't tried other time signatures yet)
2: In the first measure, put in this order: quarter note, eighth note, eighth note, quarter rest. (I used the same pitch for each note).
3) In the second measure, put in 4 eighth notes followed by a quarter rest.
you should have quarter, eighth, eighth, quarter rest, bar line, eighth, eighth, eighth, eighth, quarter rest.
4) Set the tempo to 60bpm ( the tempo setting at the bottom left of the screen).
5) Play it back. You should be able to hear a difference in length at the first note of the second measure. The first eighth note in the second measure is longer than the following notes.
If you have audacity, record the playback and open it with audacity.
You can use the cursor to measure the time of each note by measuring from the start of the note to the start of the next note. There will be some error, but accuracy of +/- 10mS can easily be achieved by zooming in on each note. (if you are new to Audacity here's a tip on how to do this: at the bottom of the screne there is a time display. You'll see the word Selection with a settings gear under it. This display will show you the length of whatever the cursor has selected. CLicking the gear will get you to a menu that let's you control what you see. E.g. start time + length).
Using Audacity I measured the first note of the second measure to be 569 mS, the following note 502mS, the note after that 497mS. +/- 10ms. That's a 14% length difference.
Has anyone noticed anything like this? Is there a setting for human vs strict playback somewhere? Am I missing something about Crescendo playback? I don't see how it could be my computer since I have never had this problem with Finale or any other notation or midi software.
This problem might seem unimportant but I'm trying to create practice tracks for a music group that need to be in perfect rhythm.
Any help much appreciated.
PS I'm using crescendo 11.8 on a mac mini running Tahoe.