issue25

EMUSIC-L Digest                                      Volume 58, Issue 25

This issue's topics:
	
	MusicTime Report (re. Notation Software) (7 messages)
	Opinions-music notation software(Mac) (2 messages)
	Sequencer share/free ware for IBM PC
	Shareware Sequencer for Atari ST?(e)/Falcon (plug)

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Date:         Tue, 9 Nov 1993 17:03:00 EST
From:         Dan Schaaf 
Subject:      Notation Software

Has anyone had good or bad experience with MusicTime software, either for
the Mac or PC? I need something that can handle a variety of staff lines per
page and also changing time meters.  Or does no need to go to the more expense
programs?


Dan Schaaf

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 9 Nov 1993 17:17:27 -0600
From:         Ken Fansler 
Subject:      Re: Notation Software

>
> Has anyone had good or bad experience with MusicTime software, either for
> the Mac or PC? I need something that can handle a variety of staff lines per
> page and also changing time meters.  Or does no need to go to the more expense

> programs?
>
>
> Dan Schaaf
>


If I'm not mistaken, MusicTime only allows six total staves. If you've got the
money, Finale 3.0 is the way to go (IMHO)...

Ken Fansler
kwfansle@ilstu.edu

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 10 Nov 1993 09:55:28 -0600
From:         Arne Claassen ISE 
Subject:      Re: Notation Software

> Has anyone had good or bad experience with MusicTime software, either for
> the Mac or PC? I need something that can handle a variety of staff lines per
> page and also changing time meters.  Or does no need to go to the more expense
> programs?

If you want to do true notation, forget Musictime. It has a notation view,
but is fairly limited in that aspect. It's mostly for seeing your music
as notation, instead of creating good looking notation. Otherwise, I like
it a lot. I probably saved some money and gotten EZ Vision, but at that price
it really didn't matter much anymore and it is kind of neat to have the
notational view...

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Arne F. Claassen                            |
|                                                     |
| "It is by my will alone I set my mind in motion"                       |
|                                             finger for PGP public key  |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
.

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 10 Nov 1993 22:07:40 -0800
From:         Mike Friesen 
Subject:      MusicTime Report (re. Notation Software)

Hiya, all!

I've been using MusicTime very heavily for the past few weeks. The job has
involved entering a viola part (alto clef), changing the clef, transposing
for an alto sax, adjusting beaming & accidentals, then adding slurs,
phrasing, tempo, dynamics, and other marks...

A few opinions:
        1. getting the pitches onto the page is relatively easy. It's the
futzing around with all the other stuff that takes most of the time.
        2. MusicTime offers tools sufficient to do a lot of neat things.
Although there are certain shortcomings (REALLY lousy ability to shift
groups of notes except by adding/deleting measures), you can, with time and
effort, produce reasonably good-looking scores.
        3. For the kind of work that I'm doing, the inability to start
measure  numbering at a user-selected point (with selectable over-riding)
is a considerable annoyance.
        4. The program handles text in an absolutely infuriating manner. It
seems that text doesn't stay put -- instead shifting one pixel down and
right no matter where things happen to be placed with the mouse. It may be
that there's a compelling reason for this, but I suspect that it's a bug.
Worse still, the shift is NOT consistent, so you can't automatically assume
that things will be shifted. You can't (apparently) set up an alignment
grid (put the bottom of all non-descending characters on X line. This is a
MAJOR gripe.
        5. Some marks (like fermati) can be placed only in relation to a
note or rest. Others, like the caesura, are visually shifted on the screen
while you're moving them. The visual represenation is NOT accurate,
although the mouse pointer IS.
        6. I want to be able to zoom in on a measure without having to set
the size of all measures to some ridiculous extreme.
        7. MusicTime seems to have difficulty keeping track of how many
pages need to be used. Any mucking about with systems/page or
measures/system might give the program a reason to add some blank pages.
Nothing serious, but another thing you need to check before printing off a
score.
        8. I may be misreading the instructions, but I can't seem to open
more than one score at a time. This is NOT related to amount of memory
allocated to the program -- 2.5 megs is more than double the recommended
size.
        9. BIG PROBLEM -- again, this may be another dreaded user-error, or
it may be the fact that I'm running on a PB100... but I have been unable to
get the program to listen or send to MIDI. Maybe it's not OMS-compatible.
Maybe it needs MIDI Manager. Maybe the drivers just won't run on a
Powerbook. The manual has not proven helpful. The result is that I do my
sequencing in Vision; export the sequence as a standard MIDI file, and then
import the sequence into MusicTime. For the more complex source material
this would probably be the modus operandi of choice anyway, but I resent
having to do it for the simpler pieces.
        10. Page numbering would be nice -- something like "5a. Change of
Scene/ Page 2 of 5 / Measures 32-56"

It may be the nature of the project (a musical production), but I'm finding
that MusicTime's capabilities are being stretched to the maximum. As I need
work only with a single staff, the six-staff/system limitation already
mentioned by somebody is not particularly aggravating. My complaints
notwithstanding, it's still more flexible (IMO) than Cubase Score's note
editing system. And I can't be persuaded (not now, anyway) to futz around
with Performer's user interface.

In spite of my gripes, MusicTime is a worthwhile tool. The price is
reasonable, and the capabilities of the program far outstrip those found
bundled with any sequencers (as far as I've been able to tell). Note entry
from the computer keyboard is quite fast, and the program is fairly
crash-proof. It can become confused at times, but I've been able to do some
very nice work with it. It DOES handle shifting timesigs in a source
sequence, and it allows you to set keysigs after the fact. The transpose
feature is reasonably good, although it would be nice to have a kind of
'transpose style sheet' which would re-evaluate stems after a transposition
and allow you to save a series of global manipulations in a macro.

This has been a rather long post, but it should give you a clearer idea of
MusicTime's strengths and weaknesses. (Due apologies to those net-gods
offended by my meager S/N ratio...)


Michael Friesen              North Peace Secondary School
          Fort St. John,  British Columbia, Canada
         Weeee... are the knights who say... MIDI!!
*********************************************************

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 11 Nov 1993 07:05:26 EST
From:         Paul Pizzi 
Subject:      Notation Software

> I need something that can handle a variety of staff lines per
> page and also changing time meters.  Or does no need to go to
> the more expense programs?


Check out the new "Finale Allegro" by Coda Music Technology.
(Well they changed the name but it's actually Music Prose v.
3.) It's a scaled down version of Finale 3, its main limita-
tion being the number of staves you can use:32 instead of...
gee, I guess 128 or maybe 256, I've really never run out of
staves using Finale, even with the craziest orchestral project.

As long as you don't write large orchestral scores it's the
best you can have for the bucks (I don't know the price but
I believe they'll keep it well under 50% of that of its bigger
brother.)



    ===============================
     S                             S
     S
   PAOLO PIZZI          S
     S   Time Elapsed Art Music    S
     S    Los Angeles - U
.S.A.     S
     S                             S
     S-----------------------------S

     S                             S
     S           email:            S
     S
        pizzip@aol.com       S
     S       pizzi@delphi.com      S
     S   72772.2
34@compuserve.com  S
     S                             S
     ===============================

- Patria est ubicumque est bene (Pacuvius)

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 11 Nov 1993 11:58:47 -0600
From:         Arne Claassen ISE 
Subject:      Re: MusicTime Report (re. Notation Software)

I just recently got Musictime and have so far ignored the notational part
of it, as it keeps annoying me endlessly. I probably should have bought
EZVision.

Unfortunately, you seem correct about not being able to open more than one
song at a time. This has already become a gripe, when i try to move things
between songs. Gripe Gripe...

Otherwise, the program is nice, if it wasn't so damn unhappy with my CPU. But
then again i have learned the hard way that the 68LC040 should never have been
designed. It wreaks more havoc with software than anything else. Right now,
Musictime has a habit of every once in a while going completely mental and
doing some funky things that end up in spectacular unrecoverable system errors.

Here is something, i would like to ask you to try, to see if it my CPU.
Have you recorded several sequences, put them together in an arrangement and
then tried to record something on top of one of the sequences other than the
first in the arrangement?
I.e., seqs A, B and C. Put them in an arrangement such as A-B-C, then try
to record (overdub) something on any track in sequence B.
When i try to do that, all the notes i play (this recording is real-time via
MIDI, not step or painting notes) are put at the very beginning of the track
with an infinidesmally small duration. I called Opcode and they could not
reproduce the error...

Also, Musicshop does not work with OMS. It does work by itself or with MIDI
Manager. On the PB100, you need either MIDI Manager or OMS, to get MIDI to
work properly, as far as i understand...
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Arne F. Claassen                            |
|                                                     |
| "It is by my will alone I set my mind in motion"                       |
|                                             finger for PGP public key  |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
.

------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 12 Nov 1993 20:05:46 GMT
From:         "David I. Tazartes" 
Subject:      Re: Notation Software

Let me try that again.

In article tn50730@aol.com, Paul Pizzi  () writes:
> > I need something that can handle a variety of staff lines per
> > page and also changing time meters.  Or does no need to go to
> > the more expense programs?
>
>
> Check out the new "Finale Allegro" by Coda Music Technology.
> (Well they changed the name but it's actually Music Prose v.
> 3.) It's a scaled down version of Finale 3, its main limita-
> tion being the number of staves you can use:32 instead of...
> gee, I guess 128 or maybe 256, I've really never run out of
> staves using Finale, even with the craziest orchestral project.
>
> As long as you don't write large orchestral scores it's the
> best you can have for the bucks (I don't know the price but
> I believe they'll keep it well under 50% of that of its bigger
> brother.)
>
    Does anyone else happen to know the price of it?
    I've been looking for something like this, mainly to transcribe my favorite
pieces of music (i.e., Beethoven sonatas and symphonies). It needs to have
easily
accessible the following:
    - insertion and deletion of notes
    - quick editing of a note entered wrong whether in pitch or duration
    - dynamic markings, either cresc/decresc or absolute or things like sfp
    - slurs and stacatti and accents
    - tempo changes, meter changes
Also reasonable ease in entering rubato would be helpful. I don't want to have
to change the tempo just for artistic purposes.
    Anybody know of anything (reasonably priced) that does all this, if not
Finale
Allegro?

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 30 Nov 1993 15:39:07 GMT
From:         Peter Kilpe 
Subject:      Opinions-music notation software(Mac)

I'm looking to purchase music notation software for the Macintosh and I
would like very much to have some opinions on the subject. All I need
really is notation and lyrics, the ability to interface with a MIDI
instrument is not necessary. The simpler the better. If possible, please
include company names, phone numbers, FTP sites, or any other information
that might help me track demos/software. Thanks for your time.

     -Peter

Please respond by mail: pkilpe@clark.net

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 30 Nov 1993 17:18:03 -0500
From:         Robert Thompson 
Subject:      Re: Opinions-music notation software(Mac)

You need to read the book MUSIC AND THE MACINTOSH - there is so much on this
subject - a little homework will set you right, if you are up to it...

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 4 Nov 1993 16:20:23 -0500
From:         "by way of xrjdm@twinpeaks.gsfc.nasa.gov Joe McMahon" 
Subject:      Sequencer share/free ware for IBM PC

>From bu@etud.dauphine.fr:
>I've just got a soundblaster and I'm looking for some software to make
>music with.
>All names of ftp servers for such software would be greatfully received.
>--Thanks

------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 19 Nov 1993 14:12:00 GMT+0100
From:         Chris Gray 
Subject:      Shareware Sequencer for Atari ST?(e)/Falcon (plug)

Henry Cosh has just notified me of an update to his _Accompanist_ sequencer
program for Atari, which prompts me to tell everyone what a nice product
this is.  If you've reached the limits of your low-budget commercial
sequencer and can't afford a full-price one, then this could be for you.
There's an event list editor which allows you to do just about anything,
a configuration file in which you can give names to MIDI channels and
program numbers, a nice concept called a pseudo-controller which actually
generates sysex from a template, a punch-in facility, a "listen" mode
which just records all incoming MIDI events (for debugging), oo lots of nice
things.  The input and output are straight .MID files, and everything you
hear goes in the file (you think that's obvious? So did I until I exported
as .MID from another sequencer prog and found I'd lost my tempo changes or
something like that).

What you _don't_ get: staff notation, on-the-fly editing, MultiTOS
compatibility (I wouldn't recommend sequencing under MultiTOS anyway).
It runs on the Falcon modulo a few screen redraws.

Older versions are available for download from All Good Archives; register
and you will get the latest version.  The current version is loads better
than the freely available one, believe me (unless the freely available one
has been upgraded since I registered, of course). email me for more details,
or if you want to contact the author he's at .

Bye

Chris

__________________________________________________________________________
Chris Gray        cgra@se.alcbel.be         Compu$erve: 100065.2102

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End of the EMUSIC-L Digest
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