Control vertical offset of bass notes in chord symbols
Hi! I noticed some pretty exciting things with the new font defaults for slash chords. In particular that with Chord Symbols -> Appearance -> Style set to STANDARD, bass notes now appear noticeably lower than the chord, which is a huge improvement.
Would it be possible to carry this improvement over when Style is set to Jazz? It really helps to see the bass notes be visibly lower than the chord. Or, at least have some sort of a way to configure the vertical offset for the bass note?
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Chord Style - Jazz.mscz | 5.24 KB |
| Chord Style - Standard.mscz | 5.25 KB |
| Feature request - Vertical Offset Bass Notes.png | 78.02 KB |
Comments
I'm not sure what new defaults you mean, but there haven't been any changes to the default layout of chord symbols in quite some years. Bass notes have always appeared slightly lower in the standard style, To customize this, you would need to create your own custom chord description file based on chords_jazz.xml in the styles folder of the application. I the line that says "renderBase", you will see a string that looks like "m:0:1". Change the 0 to see it move the bass down that number of "points". You can tell MuseScore to use your custom file in Format / Style / Chord Symbols.
In reply to I'm not sure what new… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks - that's easy - but I want to change the SIZE of the bass chord symbol (make the part after the slash a bit smaller) - is this possible ?
Thanks in advance & best regards
Rob
In reply to Thanks - that's easy - but I… by RobKastler
Hmm, I don't think so. You can change size of other elements using the model in chords_jazz.xml, but I don't see a way to make that work for notes. Feel free to post this as a Suggestion in the Issue Tracker. More customizability for the rendering of chord symbols is something I'd like to see happen for MuseScore 4.
In reply to Hmm, I don't think so. You… by Marc Sabatella
I thought I'd revive this old thread rather than start a new discussion, in case something relevant may have happened in MS4 on this specific issue. I can't find any more recent discussion of the possibility of customizing bass note rendering.
Like the OP, I also wish I could reduce the size of the bass notes. In a complex jazz score, these can consume a lot of space and reduce readability. Using the other features of the custom .xml chord symbol rendering, I've been able to do most of the things I need (including making the slash smaller and placing it lower on the page). But presumably the only way to affect bass note rendering would be to add another state to the grammar (like 'modifier' and 'extension') so that the xml could control bass notes. (Unless the xml could somehow cause a persistent state change after encountering a slash, a flag to shrink subsequent glyphs; but presumably the xml processing is stateless and there's no way to leave bread crumbs.)
Thanks if you can confirm that the bass note situation hasn't changed. I didn't find an issue tracker suggestion on the topic, something you suggested could be added. Perhaps it would be appropriate to add one now?
In reply to I thought I'd revive this… by spinality
MuseScore Studio 4.6 will feature a whole bunch of new style settings for chord symbols, including direct controls over bass note scaling and three different options for position - plus an option for stacked extensions. So most of the things people resorted to hacked XML for in the past will no longer be necessary.
In reply to MuseScore Studio 4.6 will… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks, Marc, that’s great to hear. I’ll need to remember to replace my hackery when that drops.