Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!mailrus!math.lsa.umich.edu!sharkey!cfctech!teemc!mibte!gamma!thumper!lamb
From: lamb@thumper.bellcore.com (John W. Lamb)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Music notation software?
Message-ID: <1766@thumper.bellcore.com>
Date: 31 Oct 89 19:58:17 GMT
References: <8910301728.AA27683@gilroy.pa.dec.com>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Morristown NJ
Lines: 31

In article <8910301728.AA27683@gilroy.pa.dec.com>, weissman@decwrl.dec.com writes:
> As near as I can tell, the only notation software available is Dr. T's
> Copyist.  I played with it some at the dealer's, and came away
> horrified.  The user interface seems horridly baroque.  You may be
> able to make beautiful looking scores with it, but it seems like it
> would be far too much work.
> 
> What I really want is a program that will let me enter notes from MIDI
> (either directly or by importing from a sequencer), and that will also
> let me *easily* enter notes using the mouse/keyboard.  It should take
> care of the horizontal placement of notes and symbols by itself, and
> do a reasonable job.  (The last requirement eliminates DMCS.)  I
> should be able to tweak the placement of things somewhat (since the
> computer isn't always going to get it right), but I don't think I need
> the extreme amount of control that Copyist gives.

If you are willing to buy both DMCS and The Copyist, you can enter
the score in DMCS, import it into The Copyist, tweak as needed and
then print with good results.  Since I often arrange things at the
(computer) keyboard, I can use DMCS to play the music until I am
satisfied with it and then use The Copyist to get a nice printout.

Actually, the interface in The Copyist is not all that bad once you 
have memorized the keyboard equivalents for the commands you use most 
often.  I don't have a MIDI compatible instrument, so I can't comment 
on entering notes that way.

No matter how you do it, producing good looking sheet music is a
lot of work.  After using both programs separately and together
many times, it still takes me 1 or 2 hours per page to get
something I'm happy with.