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Conference napalm::commusic_v1

Title:	* * Computer Music, MIDI, and Related Topics * *
Notice:	Conference has been write-locked. Use new version.
Moderator:	DYPSS1::SCHAFER

Created:	Thu Feb 20 1986
Last Modified:	Mon Aug 29 1994
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	2852
Total number of notes:	33157

2413.0. "Music Printer Plus- Temporal Acuity Products" by DECWIN::FISHER (Locutus: Fact or Fraud?) Mon Aug 13 1990 12:25

Just thought I would give back a bit for all I have been sucking up from this
conference over the past week or so...

I just got a look at a program called Music Publisher II from a company called
Temporal Acuity Products.  I have not done anything very thorough with it,
but here is what I know so far:

It is mainly intended as an editor for scores (as opposed to primarily for
creating MIDI music).  You can create scores with a large number of staffs per
system (there is probably a limit, but I don't know what it is), and you can
transpose automatically.

Its editing capabilities are quite impressive; however this is also a flaw.
It allows you to do darn nearly anything you want; so much so that it is easy
to create a score which makes no sense musically.  For example, there is no
check to make sure that you have the right number of beats per measure.  It
allows you to jam all sorts of notes into far too little horizontal space.  It
helps you do key signatures (you hit a key and it adds the next sharp and moves
to the next location), but it allows you to mess it up quite easily.

In other words, it appears that this product is aimed at someone who is used to
doing scores by hand.  It does close to everything you can do by hand (including
screw up) but it does not really help you much.  It is good that you can play
around with the manuscript to make it look the way you want, but it would be
nice if you got some help too.  For example, if it would do default autospacing
between notes, default measure line insertion, that would be a big help.  Also,
I would expect a sophisticated editor to allow you to do stuff like say
"Add a quarter note an augmented third above this one on this staff", or put a
G triad here, or whatever.

Anyway, it prints scores out via a number of differnt kinds of printers.  I used
tried a Panasonic 1124, and found the quality of the output to be quite good.

It also has a music compiler and sequencer built in.  You can "compile" your
score and have it played on an IBM Music Feature Card or a Roland MPU401-
compatible MIDI interface.  Not having these, I have not tried them.  This is
where the lack of help in input shows up, I suspect.  There is a whole chapter
in the book about the rules you have to follow in writing the manuscript such
that the compiler can understand it.

Finally, it will accept real-time midi input via the same cards.  Again, I have
not tried it.

==============================================================================
I think that the friend who showed me this paid in the mid-hundreds of dollars
for it, although I may be off on this.

I am borrowing the manual while he is on vacation, so if anyone has any
specific questions about it, I can probably look them up in the next week
or so.

Burns

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
2413.1	Correction	DECWIN::FISHER	Locutus: Fact or Fraud?	`Mon Aug 13 1990 12:35`	7
	I screwed up two things in the base note: 1. It is called Music Printer Plus, not Music Publisher II. 2. I did not say that it it runs on an IBM PC. Burns
2413.2	Address & Phone No. ?	AMIGA2::MCGHIE	Thank Heaven for small Murphys !	`Mon Aug 13 1990 21:50`	7
	Hi, I'm currently working with a guy who is interested in this software. Can you supply an address and phone number for the manufacturer or a supplier ? Thanks a lot, Mike
2413.3		DECWIN::FISHER	Locutus: Fact or Fraud?	`Tue Aug 14 1990 10:38`	4
	I should have brought the manual in with me, but I did not. I'll enter the info as soon as I can. Burns
2413.4	re: messing up the score	SALISH::EVANS_BR		`Wed Aug 15 1990 09:49`	13
	FWIW re: the points on being able to mess up the music score appearance... Sounds like you want Finale, to me. Interestingly, I am in the process of writing a letter to Coda asking for more flexibility in Finale to mess up my score!!! :-) Maybe I'd better hold off.... :-) I'd be interested in the cost of this package.... Finale is around $675 which gives you some pretty good support (thank goodness!) Oh yeah - Finale runs on either MAC or PC/clone Bruce Evans
2413.5	fwiw	NORGE::CHAD	Ich glaube Ich t�te Ich h�tte	`Wed Aug 15 1990 10:17`	3
	I've seen Finale advertsed for $575 or so Chad
2413.6	The requested info about MusicPrinter Plus	DECWIN::FISHER	Locutus: Fact or Fraud?	`Wed Aug 15 1990 13:46`	24
	Here is the data requested earlier: MusicPrinter Plus, by Jack Jarrett and Gary Barber Temporal Acuity Products, Inc. Building 1, Suite 200 300 - 120th Avewnue NE Bellevue, Washington 98005 206-462-1007 800-426-2673 (Except WA and Alaska) Price: $595 + shipping. The packing list shows it as MusicPrinter Plus/IBM. That might imply it is available on other machines as well. Note that it is copy protected for those who are sensitive about such things. ===================================================== About the flexibility question: I certainly don't want a completely inflexible product. However, I would like it to default to something helpful (like spacing over some reasonable about automatically between notes) and let me override it. Burns
2413.7		60847::MCGHIE	Thank Heaven for small Murphys !	`Wed Aug 15 1990 22:01`	6
	Thanks for the info, I'll pass it on... regards Mike
2413.8		DECWIN::FISHER	Locutus: Fact or Fraud?	`Thu Aug 16 1990 13:27`	7
	Actually, MPP does give you some help in formatting. You can ask it to reformat after you are done entering, and it will go through and fix up spacing, align notes with words (not quite sure how it knows) etc. It does not understand everything, though. For example, I think you have to format it before you add in the dynamics etc. Burns
2413.9	By composers for composers	BAVIKI::good	Michael Good	`Mon Dec 09 1991 09:57`	40
	John Bavicchi (the composer for whom this machine is named) gave several of us a demo of Music Printer Plus this weekend. A year or two ago, John knew nothing about computers. Now he is an expert user and a quite effective salesperson for Music Printer Plus! John emphasized that this is a tool written by composers for composers, and that it does a remarkably good job of reflecting the way composers work and supporting that work style in the program. So as Burns mentions, it is aimed at composers used to entering scores by hand. But it is far, far faster than doing it by hand, especially when it comes to copying out scores and parts. John estimates that what used to take 100 hours now takes 35 using Music Printer Plus - and the results look like a published score. So he is writing both his new compositions with Music Printer Plus and reentering some of his older compositions into this program. By making this type of program usable by formerly computer-phobic composers, it also opens up much better possibilities for music publishing on demand: being able to buy the obscure pieces that formerly you could only rent. I didn't get to see the MIDI input or output features, but I'm told by others who have used it that they are quite good, especially the MIDI input. It looks like Finale is the main competitor in this software area. Finale has some advantages, but apparently it is a slower program, especially in redisplay. Such slowness is one of the most important usability problems in many other applications so it's no surprise it would be in composition and score entry as well. It looks wonderful and seems like the best incentive yet to get a PC for home. By the way, Jack Jarrett, the lead developer of Music Printer Plus, is the chair of the composition department at the Berklee College of Music, so he's John Bavicchi's boss (John is a composition professor at Berklee).
2413.10	What HDWR is this gem available on?	FRUST::HAMILTON		`Tue Dec 10 1991 07:24`	3
	Is this software available on any other hardware other than the PC? I have a Commodore Amiga and would like to know.