Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!bellcore!faline!thumper!ulysses!att!ihlpa!normt
From: normt@ihlpa.ATT.COM (Norman R Tiedemann)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Music software
Summary: DMCS 2.5 Info
Message-ID: <12505@ihlpa.ATT.COM>
Date: 12 Apr 89 19:41:54 GMT
References: <2151@mit-caf.MIT.EDU> <4007@ece-csc.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
Lines: 69

In article <4007@ece-csc.UUCP>, jnh@ece-csc.UUCP (Joseph Nathan Hall) writes:
> In article <2151@mit-caf.MIT.EDU> paul@mit-caf.UUCP (Paul Meyer) writes:
> >	I have a friend who is buying a MIDI keyboard and wants to buy a
> >Mac to go with it.  He's not sure what software he wants to run, but
> >Finale, performer, and composer are titles that he has mentioned.  
> >	As usual, money is a big constraint.  I think his best bet is a 
> >Mac Plus with a 20-40 meg external hard disk, and an imagewriter II. 
> >	The question is, will all that music software run comfortably in
> >a 1 meg MacPlus?  Will the normal music hardward (midi ports, etc) hook
> >up fine to a mac Plus?  Does anyone know the hardware requirements of the 
> >music products (especially Finale)? 
> 
> I have a kind of love-hate relationship with Finale.  First of all, it's
> *EXPENSIVE*.  $1000, take it or leave it.  (Maybe it's discounted now, I
> don't know; I couldn't find a significantly lower price.)
> ... Review of Finale  ...
> Forget Finale on a 1Mb Plus w/o hard disk.  You'll be wasting your time.
> Last, Finale is *quirky*.  No, I have found no bugs.  But there are some
> features which are a) useful and even essential ("e.g., executable shapes")
> What do I think of Finale?  Well,
> 	You can't find anything better, and
> 	You'll pay through the nose for it, and
> 	Be prepared to put up with some irritating "features."
> What would I recommend for YOU?  Well,
> 	Take a look at DMCS (no, really, it's not all that bad),
> joseph hall

I have DMCS 2.5 (the most recent version) running on my Vanilla Mac+. It is
a little slow on somethings, but not any worse than say MacWrite. I've edited
large (6 staves, 20 pages) with little problem. it prints wonderfully on my
Imagewriter II. (With a Laser printer and the Adobe font, it is unbeatable.)

I just rearange music and print, I do choral and brass quintet arrangements,
but I don't create new music or really compose.
DMCS does what I want to do really well. DMCS (Deluxe Music Construction 
Set) is just that, it allows you to produce scores with excellant 
quality. You can play your music on a MIDI instrument with just a simple adapter
(i.e. Apple MIDI Interface ~$60.00), This is really just a serial port
plug a small converter box and two MIDI cables. You can use DMCS to enter
music with the MIDI, but only in step mode. That means you play a note and
tell it to move on. DMCS is not (repeat NOT) a sequencer. It will not capture
MIDI input in real time.

If you want to do real time capture of music, then you need a sequencer
package. Opcode's sequencer software will save the music data in a form 
readable by DMCS. This is going to be my next purchase.

DMCS also has it's quirks, I've never had it crash or lose data, but it's
scared me a couple of times. (It loses a pages, then by scrolling back to the
beginning and out to that page again, it is there.) Also there are keyboard
codes that do everything under the sun, so you really have to keep the manual
next to you. After a little practice, I've gotten good at entering pieces
of music and can do it rapidly, It then takes a while to put in all the
"pretty" things about the music, but it is quite powerfull, once you figure it
all out.

If your friend wants to play around with composing and saving music, etc, then
DMCS by itself is not the right tool. If publishing is his bag, then DMCS is
something to look at. Once I get Opcode's Sequencer, I think I'll be set for
a while.

P.S. DMCS 2.5 (an Electronic Art's production) is no longer Copy Protected!!!
	Finally EA has figured out what people want.

-- 

	Norm Tiedemann		AT&T Bell Labs IH 2G-331
	att!ihlpa!normt		2000 Naperville Rd.
	normt@ihlpa.att.com	Naperville, IL	60566