The "Ringing Note" causes the selected note to ring out for twice the duration indicated in the notation. It's intended to allow a natural sustain in the MIDI playback without the clutter caused in both notation and tablature by an extensive use of tied notes.
Entry of such notes is simple. Just place the cursor on the note to be so extended and then select the effect from either the "Special Effects" dialog or from the palette of the same name.
In the example below, both measures are played in exactly the same way. The horizontal black lines extending to the right of each note indicates its effective duration. It can be shown/hidden using the shortkey [ _ ] (underscore).
The "Ringing note" effect should be used sparingly. Here are a few guidelines:
Use it mainly on series of two or more notes each having a minimum duration of an 1/8th note.
With rare exceptions, it should never be applied to 1/4 notes.
It should never be applied to whole or 1/2 notes.
Don't use it where a tie is actually more appropriate.
Don't use it to extend a note past the end of the measure.
The following illustration shows two examples of incorrect usage of the effect:
And this is the theoretically correct notation for the example above:
