Swing Playback

To create swing playback (for the entire piece)

This method is for generating swing feel from an otherwise “straight” score. (If you’ve used HyperScribe to record a performance, you can “capture” the swing feel. Make sure Retain Note Durations is checked in More Quantization Settings and Play Recorded Note Durations is checked in Playback/Record Options (see Document menu). When you playback, you’ll hear the music with your original feel, including swing, played back.)

Note that you can also apply a Swing feel using the Jazz Human Playback Style which can be configured in the Playback Controls.

Swing is not available with all Human Playback styles.

1. From the Window menu, choose Playback Controls. Playback Controls appears.
2. Click the expand arrow. The Playback Settings dialog box appears Controls expands, offering additional controls.
3. From the Swing popup menu, choose Standard.   
4. Click on Play.    

To create swing playback (for sections of the piece)

Use the Apply Human Playback plug-in to apply Human Playback’s swing interpretation to a region of your score. To define swing manually with the Selection Tool, do the following:

1. Choose the Selection Tool .
2. Select a region of measures.
3. From the Plug-ins menu, choose Playback, then Apply Human Playback. The Apply Human Playback dialog box appears.
4. From the Apply a Defined Style, choose Jazz (or another style that incorporates swing).
5. Choose Apply Specific Elements and click the Select button. The More Settings dialog box appears.
6. From the Swing popup menu, select the desired swing percentage.
7. Click OK and then Apply. Swing playback has been applied to the selected region. Playback the score to review the results.

To create swing playback (for sections of the piece) Expression Tool method

Note: In order to apply swing playback with an expression, Human Playback must be set to None.

1. Click the Expression Tool  . If you haven’t yet placed the marking in the score, double-click any note or measure. When the Expression Selection dialog box appears, click the desired marking, click Edit, and then skip to the instruction marked by the asterisk (*).
2. Click the measure or note to which the tempo marking was attached. Its handle appears.
3. Option-double-click the handle. The Expression Designer dialog box appears.
4. Click the Playback/Record Options. The playback options appear.
5. From the Type popup menu, choose Swing; then enter a number in the Set to Value box or select a choice from the Swing popup menu. The number you type into the box indicates a percentage of swing. The larger the percentage of swing, the more delay before the second note.
6. Click OK (or press return). Any time Finale encounters the expression you’ve just defined when it plays back your score, the playback will change to reflect the expression’s swing definition.

To create swing playback (for sections of the piece) MIDI Tool method

Note: In order to apply swing playback with the MIDI Tool, Human Playback must be set to None.

1. Click the MIDI Tool  . Select the region where you want the playback to have a swing feel. You can select one measure by clicking, additional measures by shift-clicking, a screenful by drag-enclosing, an entire staff by clicking to the left of it, or the entire piece by choosing Select All from the Edit menu.
2. From the MIDI Tool menu, choose Note Durations.
3. From the MIDI Tool menu, choose Alter Feel. Type 171 into the Backbeats By” text box. If you enter a number larger than 171, your swing effect approaches a dotted-eighth/sixteenth feel, which is useful in slower swing tempos; if you enter a number smaller than 171, the swing effect approaches an even-eighth-note feel, which might be better at faster tempos.
4. Click OK (or press return). When you play back the selected region, you’ll hear genuine swing—Finale is playing the second eighth note of every eighth-note pair slightly late, just as a jazz player would.

Note: These instructions assume that the time signature is 2/4, 3/4, or 4/4; the “backbeats” that Finale delays are, therefore, every other eighth note. If the meter is 2/2, however, the backbeats are every quarter note, so the swing playback you get may seem erratic if you were expecting traditional eighth-note swing. To solve the problem, change the time signature to a quarter-note–based one before using the MIDI Tool.

Note: Do not use both MIDI Tool Swing and Swing from the Playback Controls, as these effects are additive.

User Manual Home