Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!bbn!rochester!rutgers!mtunx!whuts!whutt!mls
From: mls@whutt.UUCP (SIEMON)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: MIDI
Message-ID: <3006@whutt.UUCP>
Date: 4 Apr 88 19:15:00 GMT
References: <237@cf-cm.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 33
Summary: ConcertWare on MacII
	 -- it's ok (as far as it goes)

In article <237@cf-cm.UUCP>, ralph@computing-maths.cardiff.ac.uk (Ralph Martin) writes:
> Does anyone out there know if Concertware+MIDI4.0 is macII compatible?
> 
Yes, it runs on a MacII.  It has lots of capabilities, given its price, but be
warned that you run into limits real quick:

Note values range only from a dotted whole-note to a 32nd; you can do triplets
for most (all? I haven't tried) of these values.  BUT no other n-tuple groups
are possible; sigh, there goes Chopin!  There are no standard ornaments (trill,
mordant, etc.) and emulating these by explicitly writing them usually doesn't
work very well.  There goes the Baroque.

You have to enter in a framework of a fixed time-signature (you can't insert
your own bars, except that you can do a double-bar whenever you want) and a
fixed key-signature.  You can CHANGE these at any point, but only in the 1st
voice (and the change then affects all voices).  There goes church music (e.g.
chants Gregorian or otherwise), most early music and most 20th century stuff.

It tries to provide "standard" layout, and pretends to give you controls to
override (for example direction of stems, beams, etc.)  But sometimes, I find
it impossible to get it to do what I tell it -- it is very frustrating to hit
the "stem up" menu item and watch it ignore me; this happens unpredictably.
Text layout can also be frustrating.

Not wanting to be too negative -- as I said, it's good value for its price --
if you are serious about music, this is NOT the program to use.  I also want
to hear about the higher-priced spreads.  I'm in the market and too lazy (and
too new to the Mac at this point) to write my own.

Michael Siemon
contracted to AT&T Bell Laboratories
ihnp4!mhuxu!mls
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