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Set Swing Ratio dialog box

How to get there

Choose Window > Advanced Tools. Click the Tempo tool $image\Tempo_Tool.gif$ .
Click a measure, then click Set Swing.

What it does

The Tempo tool offers a method for creating a swing playback feel in your music. You’ll rarely need to use this method, however, because you can use the MIDI tool much more directly and easily to produce a true swing feel.

In this dialog box, you can specify the degree of swing you want applied to your music.

Percent. The number you type in this text box indicates the amount of swing you want. Briefly, the higher the number, the later the second eighth note in a swing pair. (A value of 200 produces perfect, triplet-feel swing.) Because of the method the Tempo tool uses to create the swing effect, the overall tempo of your piece also drops. Note that you’ll also hear erratic results when Finale attempts to apply Tempo to a triplet. For these reasons, you’ll probably want to use the MIDI tool (instead of the Tempo tool) to create a true, quick and easy swing effect that preserves the overall tempo of the piece and plays triplets correctly.

Note. The Tempo tool creates swing by actually slowing the tempo while playing the first eighth note of each pair. The number in the Percent box is the reciprocal of the amount by which Finale first slows the tempo. Thus if the value is 200%, the tempo drops to half its speed. If the Percent is 300%, the tempo drops to 1/3 its speed. (The second eighth note is always played at the regular tempo. But because the tempo during the first eighth note was much slower, the effect is that the second eighth note sounds delayed.) The higher the Percent, the more a pair of eighth notes sound like a dotted-eighth-and-sixteenth pair.

Duration. The number in this text box specifies the durational value of the notes to which you’re applying swing, in EDUs (1024 per quarter note). For standard eighth-note swing, for example, this number should be 512. (This text box is provided in case you want to swing your sixteenth notes, for example, or any other value.) Instead of having to calculate the EDU equivalent for the rhythmic value you want to specify, you can click Duration. Finale displays a palette of note durations; click the one you want to select and click OK.
OK • Cancel. Click OK to confirm the swing setting you’ve made and return to the Tempo Adjustment dialog box, where Finale has filled in the text boxes according to your swing specifications. Cancel tells Finale to ignore any changes you made to the swing setting. You return to the Tempo Adjustment dialog box.

Tip. An easier method to add swing can be found in the Playback Controls or the Expression tool.

Tip. The higher the number, the later the second note in a swing pair and the heavier the swing.