Noteworthy Composer, No BS

Subject: RE: Noteworthy Composer, No BS
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 25 May 99 - 07:26 PM

Jon, Melody Assistant both inports ABC and produces TAB. Apart from my comments above I believe that the cost is much less than $50 (maybe $29).

ABCMUS will act as a very convenient interface to allow you to import files to NoteWorthy at a cost of $10, plus the freeware I mentioned above.

I'm not a TAB user, but the shareware palaces such as ZD-Net used to have a reasonable selection.

Regards
John

Subject: RE: Noteworthy Composer, No BS
From: Jon W.
Date: 25 May 99 - 01:02 PM

I have downloaded TablEdit and fooled around a little (very little) with it. The limitations in the free download are very annoying. I think it limits songs to 16 measures (at least to save) and when you print it overwrites the tab with a banner "printed by TablEdit" or some such nonsense. So you can't really use the free version for anything. The registration fee is around $50 US which I think is about twice what it should be. Never the less I still want it - it has the redeeming feature of importing ABC files and converting them to tab - not only guitar but banjo (and I think the latest version now handles the 5th string correctly), mandolin, or whatever stringed instrument you care to set up. Since I am learning fiddle tunes on the banjo, and since Henrik Norbeck has thousands of them posted in ABC, I need that program! At least I keep telling myself that.

Subject: RE: Noteworthy Composer, No BS
From: MMario
Date: 25 May 99 - 11:58 AM

Well, the answer appears to be "Nope, there ain't no easy way"

Joe - I'm sure you've read the NoteWorthy forum - so I won't repeat their suggestions...Except that the users do say that fudging lyrics with underscores seems to be the easiest way in current versions.

MMario

Subject: RE: Noteworthy Composer, No BS
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 May 99 - 11:11 PM

I think your suggestion just evens out the last line, John. What I want is something that doesn't look like this:

Mary had a little lamb Whose
fleece was white as snow And
everywhere that Mary went The
lamb was sure to go. He follow
ed her to school one day Which
was against the rules. And all
the children laughed and played
To see a lamb in school.

They should be able to do better than that.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Noteworthy Composer, No BS
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 24 May 99 - 11:04 PM

MMario and Joe, pretty easy I think. Just select File, Page Setup, Options and then Click the Extend The Last System Box.

I actually believe that printing is one of NWC's real fortes, but would agree that pasting to Word could be easier. I have yet another technique for doing this, but I would need to try it again before documenting it,

Regards
John

Subject: RE: Noteworthy Composer, No BS
From: Matthew B.
Date: 24 May 99 - 10:55 PM

I'm aware of that trick. I need something much more dynamic. And I need control over how tightly or loosely it fits the notes into each line of score.

NWC is truly great for what it is, but not more. At least not yet.

Subject: RE: Noteworthy Composer, No BS
From:
Date: 24 May 99 - 09:15 PM

Joe - I'll check on it..I've usually just adjust font size and margins, but you're right, there should be a way to adjust it.

Subject: RE: Noteworthy Composer, No BS
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 May 99 - 08:48 PM

MMario, I wonder if you have a solution to one problem I've had printing music from Noteworthy composer:
How do you get lines to end where you want them to end? The music kind of word-wraps when it gets to the edge of the paper, rather than ending at the end of a line. I can sometimes get things to come out right by going to page setup and adjusting font size, but it seems there ought to be an easier way.
-Joe offer-

Subject: RE: Noteworthy Composer, No BS
From: MMario
Date: 24 May 99 - 04:48 PM

well - actually, if you go into print preview and hit control-printscreen, you can paste to any windows compatible graphic editor (such as paint - which comes with windows) and then trim and save the picture. Granted, paint gives you a bmp file,which is large; but there are lots of free converters out there.

or, you could set windows to print to a file, use a windows postscript printer driver and by "printing" from NWC produce an EPS file which you could then pull into Word.

MMario

Subject: RE: Noteworthy Composer, No BS
From: Matthew B.
Date: 24 May 99 - 04:10 PM

I have a legal, registered copy of MWC and find it to be adequate, although slightly limiting.

And the printing capabilities are rather primitive. I bought it so that I could include the musical scores of the songs in my book of nearly 400 sea songs, but there's no way to create a picture file that I could insert into Word.

I find NWC simply to be a great tool for either figuring out the score to a song, or for hearing what a score sounds like (for those of us who can't read music in our heads as if we were reading a newspaper)

Subject: RE: Noteworthy Composer, No BS
From: Easy Rider
Date: 24 May 99 - 03:12 PM

I have heard great praises sung for a program called TablEdit. It is also available for free download. Does anybody here use it? How does it compare to Notewirthy?

I know it can produce guitar TAB as well as standard notation, and that is a big advantage. Does it import and print midi files?

Thanx, Easy Rider

Subject: RE: Noteworthy Composer, No BS
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 23 May 99 - 09:32 PM

I tried Melody Assistant last night to import ABC files, but kept on getting 'les erreures'. The user interface is quite daunting, but I am still keen to hear from anyone who has had the patience to persist with it.

Regards John

Subject: RE: Noteworthy Composer, No BS
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 23 May 99 - 07:12 AM

I have no hesutation in singing the praises of NWC but it does not allow the import of ABC files. I believe that Joe and I use a freeware program known as ABCMUS to do this - create MIDI files from ABC (plus many other functions, but not printing).

As an alternative there is a freeware program at the following site http://www.soltec.net/~daglenn/abcmidi.html but its features are very limited.

One of the Mudcat links is to Melody Assistant. It is supposed to support ABC input, but the versions I have downloaded to date have not been stable enough for me to test this. To be fair my PC is not the latest Pentium. Anyone else had any success with Melody Assistant?

Regards
John

Subject: RE: Noteworthy Composer, No BS
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 May 99 - 03:34 AM

I don't think Noteworthy imports anything but MIDI files, Jon. Your registration fee also registers any upgrades that Noteworthy comes up with, and they have had significant changes in the last year or so (there is an end to upgrade coverage, but it hasn't come yet).
Can you imagine Microsoft giving you free upgrades from Office 95 to 97 to 2000?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Noteworthy Composer, No BS
From: Jon W.
Date: 22 May 99 - 12:09 AM

My pre-registered copy of Noteworthy printed a notice on each page that it was produced by a demo version, also put in "Noteworthy Composer" where the author name should be. I registered it two or three years ago, don't know if the shareware versions still do that. Also the 10 file saves can be a pain. Well worth registering, I think. Does anyone know if the newer versions import ABC?

Subject: RE: Noteworthy Composer, No BS
From: Margo
Date: 21 May 99 - 08:20 PM

Hi Mudjack! I have a registered version of Noteworthy composer. I believe that the unregistered version gives you only a limited number of "saves" on any one song. Since I am writing songs and save often, it was important to buy the program. Other than that I don't know.

I just love the program because I can download Midi files, save them to the hard drive, then import them to the Noteworthy Composer which converts them to notation.

Margarita

Subject: RE: Noteworthy Composer, No BS
From: Helen
Date: 21 May 99 - 07:38 PM

Hi Mudjack,

I intend to pay the registration fee, but money has been short for longer than I imagined it would be, so it has been on my "To Do" list for a couple of years since I downloaded the demo. It's still going strong, after all this time. I can save each file 10 times, and if I have to save it again I can copy it to another new file and start again. I can also print the files.

Because it is such a good programme and they have been really generous in including save and print options (which the other demo notation software don't do) I think it's an ethically correct thing to do to give them the registration fee, which is really a small amount considering how useful I have found it to be, in a lot of ways.

Helen

Subject: Noteworthy Composer, No BS
From: Mudjack
Date: 21 May 99 - 07:24 PM

Thank you Mudcat folks for putting me on to a great "share ware" program in Noteworthy Composer.Are there any Mudcatters out there that can tell me what to expect as far as a temporary use? Will the program self destruct after timing out or will I be able to shareware forever? What a great tune finder for a guy that does'nt read music. I can take sheet music and copy it down to the program and BINGO, I have an accurate sample of a song I've never heard or recognized.
If I learn to read music from this program, I guess I'll have to forfiet my "Folk Musician" status.
Mj