Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!oliveb!felix!kehr
From: kehr@felix.UUCP (Shirley Kehr)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Concertware+,DMCS (reviews requested)
Summary: Better read reviews first (Music)
Message-ID: <77456@felix.UUCP>
Date: 6 Jan 89 15:07:45 GMT
References: <613@mqcomp.oz>
Sender: daemon@felix.UUCP
Reply-To: kehr@felix.UUCP (Shirley Kehr)
Organization: FileNet Corp., Costa Mesa, CA
Lines: 37

In article <613@mqcomp.oz> lhamey@mqccsuna.UUCP (Len Hamey 8978) writes:
<I am considering purchasing Concertware+ or DMCS2.0. I am
<primarily interested in producing quality printed music
<with more than two staves (i.e. parts) and words. The
 
<So... has anyone out there experience with either of
<these products? If so, could you please send me a review
<of the quality of music printing and the range of features
<supported?

I have no experience with music programs (why should I? I was a music
major twice :-) But the October 88 issue of MacUser has this to say about
first generation music programs versus the emerging second generation.

"But all of the early programs -- like Great Wave Software's ConcertWare,
Electronic Arts' Deluxe Music Construction Set, and Mark of the Unicorn's
Professional Composer -- had their limits ('Scroll Over Beethoven,' July
'88). They didn't always allow precise control over the placement of
individual symbols.  And it wasn't easy to export the output to a 
page-layout program (to include the music in a textbook, for example) or
to a graphics program (to touch up the symbols).  To top it off, the font
many of them used -- Adobe's Sonata -- was incompatible with many 
applications.

"A second generation of notation programs is emerging that can do things
such as generate oversized pages with scads of staves or include angled
beams, expression marks, and alternative forms of notation, all of
which are beyond the capabilities of the programs that made up the first
generation."

The article was an eye-opener to me. I had no idea it could be so
complicated to do musical notation on a computer. But when you start
thinking about revisions, you see the problems. If you're really seriously
into music publication, you owe it to yourself to at least investigate
Finale, but it's awfully expensive ($1,000 list).

Shirley Kehr