Ending songs

[Bubbles]

Alot of the time when I arrange a song that ends in a loop (pretty much every Pokemon song), the timing doesnt work at the end. Either the measure is half a beat too short or a few beats too long. How would I fix this? I only have notepad, so nothing that needs the ful version of Finale

[Bespinben]

Have you tried experimenting with 1st and 2nd endings?

[Bubbles]

Even though the ending doesnt change? Or do you mean create an ending

[spitllama]

So you're saying you'll be going in 4/4 time and the last measure before the loop will have an extra beat or something? I've never seen anyone experience that before. Could you post an example?

[Bubbles]

Never seen it? Almost all of my songs have it -.-

Look at this one
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/96664701/Es%20Cade%20Theme.mus

[spitllama]

K I was counting along with that video and I ended correctly. When the song looped I was on beat 1 again. Maybe a measure somewhere screwed it up? I'll look for it.

[Bubbles]

In the last measure, when I count it it seems to be 2 beats too long

[Bespinben]

I see the problem. You are using the wrong time signature. While you are on the right track with 4/4, there are 3 subdivisions per beat as opposed to two. You're going to have to re-write, from scratch, the entire arrangement in 12/8.

[Shadoninja]

I see the problem. You are using the wrong time signature. While you are on the right track with 4/4, there are 3 subdivisions per beat as opposed to two. You're going to have to re-write, from scratch, the entire arrangement in 12/8.

I'll help with that; It'll only take a few moments.

[spitllama]

Is that really necessary? I was just splitting things like this in 4/4 and it seemed to working fine:

[MaestroUGC]

You could do what I do, and just write endings twice as long as the original piece.

[Bespinben]

You could do what I do, and just write endings twice as long as the original piece.

Rofl 

Is that really necessary? I was just splitting things like this in 4/4 and it seemed to working fine:
*picture*

Err... no, the original is definitely in compound meter. Just count 1-and-a, 2-and-a, etc. inside each beat and you'll see it.

[Bubbles]

Yay... So how do you change time signature in finale notepad? And is there anything else that needs fixing while I'm at it?

[Bespinben]

Yay... So how do you change time signature in finale notepad? And is there anything else that needs fixing while I'm at it?

After the document is created, you cannot change the time signature in Notepad, but that doesn't matter anyway since you're switching to 12/8. With that change of time signature, you'd have to rewrite from scratch in ANY version of Finale, because you have to multiply all your rhythms by a factor of 1.5.

Oh, and I have a tip for you Bubbles, and pretty much all you're arrangements could use it. Your layers overlap alot. Try pressing "L" while a note is highlighted, and see what happens.

[Bubbles]

Oh, ok. So you change the time signature in the beginning? And you said that all the rhythms get multiplied by 1.5.... Does that mean that a quarter note would become a dotted quarter note?