Change multiple note durations
This is a feature that is available in all MIDI sequencers, but I cannot find a way to do it in MuseScore. It's a form of quantizing. Yes, it's a bit obtuse in terms of a sheet music feature, but I have my reasons for needing it.
The idea is to select multiple notes, I don't mind them being in a single staff if that's necessary, and setting all the note/rest durations to a single value, like 1/8 note. All the selected notes would be lengthened or truncated to be eighth notes, for example.
Is there a way to do this, or do I have to go note by note (chord by chord) clicking on the 1/8th note button in the toolbar? I have a two-handed way of doing this with the arrow keys and the mouse, but it's still clumsy, time-consuming, and error-prone.
I've even tried importing MIDI files that are all in 1/8th notes, and I can get all the notes to be the correct duration unchecking the Simplify Durations checkbox, but not the rests (that's because MIDI does not have the concept of a rest - it doesn't need it).
Thanks!
Comments
It's a pretty common request to be able to double or halve all durations, so if you double a series of eighths, you get a series of quarters, with each note also moved later in time so the whole sequence takes twice as long. Sounds like what you are asking for is something very different - keeping all time positions the same but only changing durations? How would you expect this to work if the selected duration is too long to fit for some given note without "eating" the next? And what's the real world notation-related use case for this? if it's just something about playback, maybe best is to export to MIDI and and quantize there.
In reply to It's a pretty common request by Marc Sabatella
I'm not requesting a new feature, simply seeing if there's an existing way to make this more convenient. This exact feature is in Pro Tools, for example, and it's called Change Duration/Set All To... see the attached png file for a screen shot.
In MIDI there can be overlapping durations, so it there's no issue there. In sheet music, you're correct, overlapping durations makes no sense for a single pitch. The use case for me is obtuse, but an actual sheet music use case might be a score with permutations of rhythmic patterns all in eighth notes with different accents. Rests would be integrated into those patterns. The score would be entirely in eighth notes. It's plausible.
But if there's no existing way to do it easily today, I'm not going to be making any feature requests. I have a very specific case that other users will not have.
In reply to I'm not requesting a new by sideways
There is no way to do this aside from what you are already doing. Presumably someone could write a plugin for it I suppose.