Questions & Answers

Is there a way in Notion 6 to specify a part should only play the 2nd time in a repeated section?

+6 votes
2,004 views
asked Jan 4, 2019 in Notion by randallhamilton (290 points)
In a score I'm writing, there is a section with a first and second ending, but I only want certain instruments to play their parts the second time through (remaining silent the first time through). If there is a way to show is within Notion 6, I have not been able to find it. The only other way to get the required performance would be to just write out the section twice with no repeat bars, filling in rests for those instruments in the first section. Being able to specify "2nd time only" would be extremely helpful.

6 Answers

+1 vote
answered Jan 17, 2019 by ChrisS23 (13,770 points)
You can show this - just make a text box and attach it to the part. Though this of course will not affect the actual playback.

-Chris
+2 votes
answered Jan 20, 2019 by randallhamilton (290 points)
Thanks, Chris. I know you can put a text box on the score, and that works great for a printed score. What you said about the playback is the real problem. It looks like I will need two versions of the Notion file: one for printing (that's more concise and includes "2nd time only" markings) and one for playback (with sections written out over and over and with the appropriate instruments playing at the right times). Thanks for your input.
+4 votes
answered Nov 11, 2019 by neilrogers (750 points)
I agree.  This should be a feature.  When creating a score, you often want to hear how it sounds before giving it to the other musicians.  Not having this feature makes that impossible unless you make 2 versions of the score, which will be a nightmare to manage.
+2 votes
answered Jul 28, 2020 by phillipknoll (210 points)
+100 to this feature as it really does make Notion less useful to be unable to preview a score with one-off repeat parts -- a shame since it otherwise handles repeats, DS/DC al Coda, fairly well.  But what's the help of this if I can't hear it as written?  

The workaround suggested is to "unroll" the score, ignore all performance markings, and resort to copy/pasting -- not great -- that sort of thing just creates extra work and frustration over time.  I'm a developer by trade and we follow the principle of "Don't Repeat Yourself", and hopefully PreSonus believes this too.  So, if you wouldn't do this in your code, why make me do it in my score?

Furthermore, with all the focus on add-on instrument packs and sound quality it seems strange that they would leave out such an obvious playback feature.  I'm much less likely to want to sink any money into this ecosystem if the base software can't handle the playback structure I need.
0 votes
answered Jan 16, 2023 by jasonbosworth (140 points)
I've been trying to do this all day and then found this post.
Has this been updated since the last time? I basically have given up and am going to write the whole thing out with copy and paste.
Any work-arounds?
0 votes
answered Apr 13, 2023 by christinebush (400 points)

I'm probably out of step with others, but this probably won't happen as this is not a very score-like feature.

If you just want to be able to preview what a section sounds like without certain parts playing, select them and temporarily use Notes --> Set As Tacet. Then play and listen. Not a nightmare and no duplicate versions entailed. 

If you need to rely on a scoring tool to generate a sampled performance that reuses some material but not all, then making the effort to score the section twice with the desired instrumentation will assure that it consistently does that without asking the common repeat functionality to be hacked.

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