Staff View: Global Search and Replace of Enharmonic Errors

[Michael McBroom]

I realize this request is for a rather narrow feature with a view that not many folks use, namely the Staff View. But I make heavy use of CW's Staff View, and it is the primary reason why I have stuck with CW for over 20 years. As clunky as it is, it is infinitely better than having no Staff View.

This has long been a pet peeve of mine, CW's errors at enharmonic spelling. Most recently having to replace well over 100 Db's with C#'s.  It would be nice if CW were smart enough to realize that, when no key signature is specified, aka key of C, chords, like D major7 should be spelled with a C# and not a Db. Scale passages such as E D Db B, etc., are also suspect.

So, anyway, my wish to be included in this wishlist is for CW to have a global search and replace of note names, and possibly durations and velocities as well. But most important is the ability to do a global search and replace of note names. It would probably be best to have this feature include a "confirm" button, for those rare instances when CWs enharmonic spelling is correct.

I realize all this will do will make the Staff View look correct, and doesn't change the structure of the music. But it's nice to have this capability for those times when a score needs to be printed, or when sight reading through the piece.

 

 

[Mage_et_lent]

Well, I agree with you as I have been an unfortunate staff view user as well for 20 years too...

But there is a very old way to replace enharmonics :
Well my cakewalk is in french and I don't know the specific english names.

First select the region in which you'd like to replace for example all the Db to C#.
So in the fifth menu there is an item called something like "Find/Replace".
Open it and in the window, first click on the right bottom "None". This deactivate all left options. Then enable "Note".
Then change in the Note line :  "min" and "max" to "Db?". Click OK.
A second window opens. Then change in the Note line : "min" and "max" to "C#?". Click OK. That's done.
Hope you understood me. Good luck !

Edited July 27, 2021 by Mage_et_lent

[mgustavo]

Hi, Mage_et_lent ! I've tried this also but it won't change the note to its enharmonic relative here.
The result is similar to Event Inspector Module pitch field, where most part of the time won't change enharmonic notes.

But I feel it helps when using Select notes by filter to select notes and Event List View to change it manually (at least the selected notes will be easiar to find).

Edited July 27, 2021 by mgustavo

[Mage_et_lent]

Hi, mgustavo.

I've done that for years, never failed. I think this subroutine has been there from the very start of Cakewalk.

I ran it 5 minutes ago with the last update and it works very well. What to write is of course Db? in the first window and then C#? in the second window,
obviously without quotation marks, but with notes selected !
It has always worked for me.
What does'nt work is to save the preset for further use...

Edited July 27, 2021 by Mage_et_lent

[Glenn Stanton]

no preset, but i noticed while editing there is some "sticky" to the second window note selection... this is a very handy workaround!

[mgustavo]

Hi, I'd like to say I did another try with Find/change feature and it worked as expected this time!

However I had to change key signature from D major to C , as I wanted to test enharmonic notes related to D major key (I played D major and D minor scales with CbB keyboard controller, and tried to change A# to Bb (from Dm scale) using Find/change feature, but that didn't work on D major key signature. So I changed key to C major and it did the trick.). 

Also I kept the original D and Dm scales and changed key signature to G major and it did the trick, but the same didn't occur with D and A major keys, where A# didn't change to Bb (it may change to other note, but not to Bb).