How do I produce a double flat symbol (EDIT: )?

Question

Maybe my googling skills are failing but I couldn't find anything.

Answer 1

As I indicated in my comment which the OP acknowledged as an accurate rendition, the symbol can be found online, for example, at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/23/Doubleflat.svg/681px-Doubleflat.svg.png.

To recreate this, a simple negative kern between two \flat symbols (in math mode) was sufficient to achieve the effect.

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
B$\flat\kern-1.4pt\flat$
\end{document}

egreg correctly points out that using a point kern will need adjustment if the font size is changed. The problem can be somewhat alleviated by using \mkern-2.4mu as egreg suggests in principle, or using kerning units of ex or em, in preference to pt. Nonetheless, it is likely that rendering in different font sizes will still require some fine tuning of the kern amount, as it can be verified that \tiny B$\flat\mkern-2.4mu\flat$ does not render with the same relative spacing as B$\flat\mkern-2.4mu\flat$.

Adopting the \mkern approach, the example below shows that an \ooalign method shown on the right is slightly superior to the negative kern method shown on the left, at the scriptsize and \tiny sizes.

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\centering
{\tiny neg. kern ooalign}

B$\flat\mkern-2.4mu\flat$
B\ooalign{$\flat$\cr$\mkern4.4mu\flat$}

\small B$\flat\mkern-2.4mu\flat$
B\ooalign{$\flat$\cr$\mkern4.4mu\flat$}

\footnotesize B$\flat\mkern-2.4mu\flat$
B\ooalign{$\flat$\cr$\mkern4.4mu\flat$}

\scriptsize B$\flat\mkern-2.4mu\flat$
B\ooalign{$\flat$\cr$\mkern4.4mu\flat$}

\tiny B$\flat\mkern-2.4mu\flat$
B\ooalign{$\flat$\cr$\mkern4.4mu\flat$}
\end{document}

Answer 2

The musixtex package provides a font (in five sizes and only one variant) which has the symbol (instead of a »3«). Here is one possibility to use it in text:

\documentclass{article}
\DeclareFontFamily{U}{musix}{}%
\DeclareFontShape{U}{musix}{m}{n}{%
  <-12>   musix11
  <12-15> musix13
  <15-18> musix16
  <18-23> musix20
  <23->   musix29
}{}%
% Not strictly necessary but convenient:
\newcommand*\musix{\usefont{U}{musix}{m}{n}\selectfont}
\DeclareTextFontCommand{\textmusix}{\musix}

\newcommand*\doubleflat{\raisebox{.6ex}{\textmusix{3}}}
\newcommand*\doublesharp{\raisebox{.6ex}{\textmusix{5}}}

\begin{document}

B\textmusix{3}B\textmusix{5}B\par
B\doubleflat B\doublesharp B

\large B\doubleflat B\doublesharp B\par
\Large B\doubleflat B\doublesharp B\par
\LARGE B\doubleflat B\doublesharp B\par
\huge B\doubleflat B\doublesharp B

\small B\doubleflat B\doublesharp B\par
\footnotesize B\doubleflat B\doublesharp B\par
\scriptsize B\doubleflat B\doublesharp B\par
\tiny B\doubleflat B\doublesharp B

\end{document}

Answer 3

There is a unicode for this and here are the four fonts I could find to set this:

% arara: lualatex

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}

\begin{document}
A{\fontspec{code2001_0.ttf}\symbol{"1D12B}}B{\fontspec{freeserif.ttf}\symbol{"1D12B}}D{\fontspec{quivira.otf}\symbol{"1D12B}}E{\fontspec{symbola.ttf}\symbol{"1D12B}}
\end{document}

---

Alternatively, you could use the package lilyglyphs for this:

% arara: lualatex

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{lilyglyphs}
\usepackage{fixltx2e} % for textsubscript

\begin{document}
A\flatflat{}B\textsubscript{\flatflat}
\end{document}