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Notating Music With A Mac
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Subject: Notating Music With A Mac From: John in Brisbane Date: 09 Mar 00 - 07:57 AM I'm not a Mac user but there have been discussions in the past about the lack of music notation software. I extracted the small snippet from the Melody Assistant Web site. I can't vouch for the program but on the surface its features look quite reasonable and it does offer some niceties such as reading ABC (i think) and producing Tabs. My only area of suspicion concerns how well it produces MIDIs, but it seems to have a lot of satisfied users and it brings out upgrades very often - free, I think.
http://www.myriad-online.com/
It runs on Macintosh (Mac/OS 7.5 to Mac/OS 9, 68020+ or PPC) and Windows (95,98,2000 or NT4). Melody Assistant is shareware, the registration fee is US $15 (or the equivalent in your local currency unit).
I trust that this may be useful to somebody. Regards, John
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Alice Date: 09 Mar 00 - 09:38 AM Thanks, John. |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: jeffp Date: 09 Mar 00 - 10:25 AM Took a quick look and it looks really nice. I'll have to check it out when I have some time. Thanks a lot, John. I'll send M.Ted a personal note referring him here because we were discussing software for the Mac that would take MIDI input and create ABC or staff notation. jeffp |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Jon Freeman Date: 09 Mar 00 - 10:41 AM I downloaded a PC version of Melody Assistant some time ago and did a little playing around with it. While I prefer (rather more expensive) CakeWalk for MIDI, I felt it was well worth the $15 that they were asking for the registered version and as you rightly say, it does support other formats including ABC. Assuming the Mac version is similar, it has to be worth a look. Jon |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Jon Freeman Date: 09 Mar 00 - 11:08 AM Other comments. I am not sure of how well it produces MIDI files but my version lacks the nice mixing facilties (ability to add effects like chourus, reverb etc) that the "posher" packages like CakeWalk have and I find the user interface a little difficult but in fairness, I rarely use anything other than CakeWalk and expect everything to work the same way.. I mentioned a midi, the Golden Eagle, that I had sequenced in a previous thread. My version of Melody Asstant produces some very weird looking notation when faced with that one. I was lucky in acquiring my favorite MIDI program as part of a gift from my brother (he gave me this computer plus some software) but the likes of Cakewalk do sometimes give older versions away on PC magazines frome time to time and I suspect similar things must happen for Mac users. My feeling is that if such an oppertunity crops up, it is well worth buying a magazine simply for the cover software but in the absence of any such offer, Melody Assistant is worth considering. I downloaded it because of its ABC/MIDI capabilites - overall it was now bad but it didn't quite match my hopes but there again, I was probably (almost certainly)being unrealistic in what I wanted. Jon |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Jon Freeman Date: 09 Mar 00 - 11:12 AM One of my regular typos - above sentence should have read "Overall it is not bad" (not "now bad"). Jon |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: John in Brisbane Date: 09 Mar 00 - 09:00 PM Jeff, I can't be certain about ABC capabilities. I know that you can import an ABC file, but I can't remember seeing anything about exporting ABC's. I'm sure an e-mail to their support area will give you a very prompt respons, plus of course the program is shareware. Regards, John |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: John in Brisbane Date: 24 Mar 00 - 07:40 AM Has anyone with a MAC actually tried this out yet? Regards, John |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: jeffp Date: 24 Mar 00 - 08:25 AM I downloaded it a couple of weeks ago and have played with it a little bit. It looks like it will be very useful for my purposes. The export capabilities are crippled until the shareware fee ($15 US) is paid and the code entered. I plan to pay the fee as I am amazed at what 15 bucks will buy. It will import an incredible variety of files, including MIDI and ABC and export the same variety. I'll report more when I have more time to play with it and discover more of its capabilities. For now, though, it seems to do a lot more than I'll ever need. jeffp |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: John in Brisbane Date: 25 Mar 00 - 08:11 AM Thanks jeffp for the progress report. Not that it probably matters too much, but are you using a Mac? If so you're the first Mudcatter that I'm aware of to actually try to do notation on a Mac. Am I right in suggesting that many Mac owners are so proud of the technology that they never bother producing anything? That should get a bite or three! Joy to the world, John |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Alice Date: 25 Mar 00 - 10:13 AM No, John, he's not the only one or the first. In 1997 I found Mac notation software called Concertware by Jump Music for about $30. It was fine for making sheet music, but there seemed to be some kind of glitch when patching in a midi keyboard, so when I tried to do that it really messed up my system, but that could also have been because I have a Motorola Mac or maybe I just connected the keyboard wrong. I had to reinstall and upgrade my system after that, but I have used Concertware for making gifs of notation and printing out music. It is capable of complex orchestrations, creating midis, multiple instrument sounds, etc. A sample of what I did was entering my son's tunes with the mouse and on-screen keyboard to create these gifs: click here
Previous discussions on the Mudcat include comments from other Mudcat Mac users regarding notation software.
I downloaded the Melody Assitant the day you posted the thread, but I haven't had time to do anything with it yet. Alice |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: jeffp Date: 25 Mar 00 - 10:17 AM Hi John! I've been notating music off and on since I got my first Mac SE many years ago. I started out with Deluxe Music Construction Set. It was nice for its time, but kind of clunky by modern standards. Lately, I've been using Barfly to do ABC notation and abc4mac to generate MIDI files from that. abc4mac also produces a PostScript file which I can bring into Adobe Illustrator and clean up for a really professional-looking final product. (Can you tell I used to be a graphic artist?) Gotta run. jeffp |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Caitrin Date: 25 Mar 00 - 10:21 AM Ok...the grammar girl strikes again. (I know it's ridiculous, but I can't help myself.) You don't notate, you note. People in conversations converse, they don't conversate. ANd commentators don't commentate, they comment. : ) Sorry...I'll quit now. (Don't take this as insulting, please. It's not intended as such.) |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Alice Date: 25 Mar 00 - 10:41 AM Caitrin, you're tempting me to tell the joke about Dan Rather and the potato family. |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Amos Date: 25 Mar 00 - 10:49 AM Grammar Caitrin the WIcked Word Witch swoops overhead, riding an overly long sentence, correcting semantic errors and causing 'catters to scramble in all directions -- she veers off into the rising moon, cackling madly .... "AND your dangling little participle, toooo! Heeeee heeeee.....". Actually, Caitrin I admire your stout defense of good language practices. I hammer on various abuses all day at work. "Notate", while incorrect, is an excellent example of a back formation from "notation". When you make gyrations, you gyrate; similar for inflations, and others. So it's understandable to assume a parallel where none were nohow anyway, am I right? Ok, ok, back on the broom. |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Jon Freeman Date: 25 Mar 00 - 10:56 AM According to Chambers 20th Century English Dictionary: "v.t. notate: to write (music, etc.) in notation". So I will carry on notating and myself to be grammatically correct at the same time. Jon |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Jeri Date: 25 Mar 00 - 11:31 AM One wonders... If one mustn't notate a notation, must one note a notion? |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Jon Freeman Date: 25 Mar 00 - 11:45 AM I feel tempted to suggest that you Notionalis(z)e a notion ;-) Jon |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Alice Date: 25 Mar 00 - 11:59 AM I'm with Jon on this one. Three online dictionaries returned definitions for notate, Webster's, Merriam-Webster', and the Wordsmyth dictionary and thesaurus. notate Part of speech: transitive verb Inflections: notated, notating, notates Definition: to make notes on or transcribe into a particular type of notation. Synonyms: transcribe (1), write (2), record (1), take (vt 1) alice |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Metchosin Date: 25 Mar 00 - 01:27 PM Help Amos or anyone.....Is there any way to run an old Finale 3.0 music notation programme on a newer Mac G3 or am I out of luck? |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Amos Date: 25 Mar 00 - 01:53 PM First, my apologies for not checking to see if the "notate" usage was in the dictionary. I stand keeerected. Metchosin -- it might run or it might not, depending on the hooks in the program. If it doesn't, I don't know of anyway to emulate the 680000 environment it was written for, but you may be able to get an upgrade to FInale that is compatible? If FInale isn't compatible then trying to start it will probably nopt do any serious harm, just crash the program in which case just bail out and remove it. Hope this helps. A |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Metchosin Date: 25 Mar 00 - 03:22 PM Thanks Amos. The G3 won't recognize the Finale start up disk and I doubt if my daughter can find her registration number for it anymore to get an upgrade. Shame, because it was an expensive, but very good music notation programme, at the time and a graduation gift to her about six years ago. She did like it though and found it really useful for the short time she did use it, before our old "little Mac" bit the dust. I think if anyone is really very serious about music composition on a Mac now, the best programme is Sibelius, but that too, is very pricey. |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Amos Date: 25 Mar 00 - 04:04 PM There is some shareware out there, and anything you download today weill be G3 operable. Why not meander over to myriad-online.com and see what Melody Assistant has to offer for $15? |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Amos Date: 25 Mar 00 - 04:14 PM Also, it never hurts to try contact FInale to see if they will be kind about swapping the start up disk for a G3 version if they have one. If you explained they might understand about the registration number and lal...saometimes you get lucky especially with smaller companies... |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: John in Brisbane Date: 26 Mar 00 - 06:36 AM Alice, pleased to hear that you've successfully been using a MAC for notation in the past. You probably guessed that I was trying to stir up a bit of interest, Good luck with Melody Assistant.
If a Mac user could please spend a couple of minutes deciphering for me what the chronology of Macs has been I might be able to pull some software out of the hat (maybe). I have been offered a couple of Macs (Power Nacs about 2 - 3 years old) but I have no real idea what sort of grunt they have except that they cost a small fortune at the time vs (say) a P166 PC. Both were used initially for Qark Express and similar advertising usage and are now gathering dust.
Any help appreciated. Regards, John |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Caitrin Date: 26 Mar 00 - 09:16 AM Wow...I feel more educated now. I didn't realize the usage was different for music. I feel a teensy bit silly, but that's ok. Thanks, Jon! |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Alice Date: 26 Mar 00 - 11:25 AM John, have you looked at the support at www.apple.com for your power Macs? The Mac I am typing on right now is a Power Mac I bought in 1997 (Motorola starmax, an Apple clone) and it is upgraded to system 8.6. Get Norton Utilities for your Mac, tune up the system, and you should have plenty of power to do lots of "stuff". The Apple website has tech help all the way back to older systems. I use this Mac for Photoshop, Illustrator, Streamline, all my internet software and page making, music software of various kinds, various text software, Adaptec for burning CD's, archives of many graphics files, and still have lots of room and power to create artwork. Alice |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: richardw Date: 26 Mar 00 - 11:34 AM John. I use a Power Mac 6500 for most of my work. My wife has a G3. You should be able to do lots with the Power Macs, depending on the RAM --which is easy to add unless you are maxed out A caution on Norton -- Mac advises AGAINST its use. Some folks have had compatibility problems. I use it, but only when all else fails--and have had no problem. richard |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: John in Brisbane Date: 26 Mar 00 - 06:36 PM Thanks Alice and Richard. I've never had the pleasure of using a Mac, but have been offered a long term 'loan'. I haven't had a chance to check the Apple site - will it give me some easy clues as to its evolution so that I can understand some of the jargon, which is new and bewildering to me as a PC user? Regards, John |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Amos Date: 26 Mar 00 - 06:51 PM Roughly, the early Macintoshes were all built on Motorola's 68000 series chips -- 680020 to, I think 680040 if memory serves (leedle joke there). These models includes the original Classic, the SE, and the Mac II series which include the II, the II Cx, and II fx. Right around there they shifted to the Power PC chip family, and I believe (I could be wrong) that the early Performas and the 8100 and later were all power PC based. A variety of PPC machines were produced over the last four years, and then a major step up occurred with the advent of the G3 PPC in 1998 and the G4 PPC in 1999. That's a short version. More details can be found at apple.com, or by doing a web search on Macintosh history -- I would do it for you but I am running late at the moment... |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: John in Brisbane Date: 26 Mar 00 - 07:41 PM Thanks Amos for the potted history - that's just the toe-hold I needed.
I hadn't realised just how much Mac music software there is/was around. Following are some links which give a lot of information. The first link, while not terribly current, has some good stuff in it. There are a number of sites where you can download software
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/users/music/research/sware.html Lots of Mac software
http://ace.acadiau.ca/score/others.htm A mixed bag at an untidy page
http://www.sincrosoft.com/data/sez8.asp?Language=eng Amadeus Opus Lite
I hope that some gems are lurking there somewhere. Regards, John |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Alice Date: 26 Mar 00 - 07:58 PM John, Macs are VERY easy to use, so don't worry about having to learn how. Just turn it on and go for it. |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Metchosin Date: 26 Mar 00 - 08:59 PM Just for fun, I downloaded the demo of Sibelius today. I haven't had much time fiddling with it yet, but it seems to be very easy to use. I think you need one of the tupperware Mac's to use it though. |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Alice Date: 26 Mar 00 - 09:03 PM Tupperware Macs!! Ha ha, that's a good one! I've been seeing everything from humidifiers to CD players coming up in the iMac flavor/colors at the stores. funny, Metchosin. |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: GUEST,Marymac Date: 26 Mar 00 - 09:54 PM Is there anyone who would write to me about what I can do with an older mac, an LC 520, with OS ~7.1, I think? I don't want to write music, but I'd like to know if I can do ICQ, or get Mudcat radio, or Hearme. I hope to get a "Tupperware" mac at some time, and would like to do mp3's, etc, when I get it. If you want, you can message me-I promise I'll get my cookie back! I just lose it every time I clean my aol preferences out, which I have to do pretty often, so my computer won't be slower than sludge! Thanks! Mary McCaffrey |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Metchosin Date: 26 Mar 00 - 10:15 PM Alice, that is what my daughter said they looked like when we first went in the store to look at them. She really upset the salesman. Marymac, to get the Mudcat radio all you have to do download a free Realplayer. I don't think that should cause any problems for you. Same with ICQ, I think the only thing you can't have yet is Hearme. |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Jon Freeman Date: 26 Mar 00 - 10:20 PM Mary, I know nothing about Mac's but have visited the sites for the software you mentioned. Hearme does not support Mac's but intend to do so some time in the future. IQC say: IQC PPC Runs on all Power PC Based Mac OS Machines. ICQ 68k Supports 68030-68040 cpu based machines I am pretty sure you nead Real Player 7 for the Mudcat Radio and the mimimum spec is:
PowerPC 604 processor (200 MHz or faster) Jon |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Metchosin Date: 26 Mar 00 - 10:37 PM Jon, I had an earlier version of Realplayer and I still could get the audio portion of Mudcat Radio, (until the Realplayer started screwing up) just not the video part. It took me awhile to realize there was a video portion. Mary, Sorry if I have given you any wrong info regarding what you can do with your Mac. An OS 7.1 sounded like it could be fairly capable. Maybe Amos can let you know, he has been very helpful to me when I need techno stuff explained about my Mac. |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Charlie Baum Date: 27 Mar 00 - 12:49 PM I just tried out Melody Assistant, and it seems like a good capable program--BUT--there's one thing I miss compared to Deluxe Music Construciton Set--DMCS had keyboard shortcuts which made transcribing music a book very easy--[number key] gave you a note or rest of particular length, so you could change the time value using your left hand on the keyboard and simply move along the staff with your mouse in your right hand changing the pitch. I haven't found any such shortcut, which means everytime you want to change from an eighth note to a quarter note, you have to drag your mouse off the staff and up to the notes palette and select the new note length and drag you mouse back and find the place on the staff you left off and click there. Part of me is hoping that the other program I downloaded from them, the music optical recognition program, works well enough to make this unnecessary, but I haven't tried that program out yet. And John in Brisbane--I've been doing music notation on my Mac since before 1990 (starting with my old Mac Plus). In fact, I met my significant other because of it. She complained that she was having trouble booting her Mac (well, that's the way she put it...). When I came over to help, I showed her that the Mac could do music, and brought up a transcription of melody by Lena Bourne Fish I had transcribed from the Warner collection. It had an unusual rhythm I wanted to get right, so I had my computer beep it out accurately. She's also a lover of traditional music--and had no idea the Mac could play notes at all, much less that it could play Lena Bourne Fish!) We've been together ever since. --Charlie Baum |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Alice Date: 27 Mar 00 - 08:25 PM I just received a new catalog from jwpepper in the mail today. It has this bit of notation software that is for BOTH Mac and Windows. So, if Finale is overkill for you, try this. FINALE-PRINTMUSIC Coda Music Technology $69.95 "Printmusic" is Coda Software's entry level notation progarm. Designed to be easier than ever to use, "Printmusic" is an excellent introduction to the notation world. Provides 16 staves to work with and a number of example files to being working right away. -end quote
Go to their webesite for more info: www.jwpepper.com or from the maker, www.codamusic.com. alice |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: richardw Date: 28 Mar 00 - 08:02 PM Older Macs can often be upgraded with more memory and a newer system and sometimes with hardware upgrades. Check with Mac warehouse or some such large mail order house. Real audio and video, however, has as much to do with your line speed as your modem. So, while Real Audio may say it only requires 14.4 and your modem is 28.8 you may actually be connecting at a slower speed. For instance out here in my rural area I am transmitting at 1400 and receiving at 9600, but usually it is 7200. Now, I am downloading from the Mudcat at between 1 and 2k, sometimes I drop to as low as 3-400--even as low as 96 bytes, but at that point I usually give up and disconnect. I have NEVER been able to connect to real audio. it comes in fits and starts and just raises my anxiety level too high for the old ticker. One day our lines will be improved and I will join the rest of the world. So check line speed if you have a problem. Richard |
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Subject: RE: Notating Music With A Mac From: Amos Date: 28 Mar 00 - 11:24 PM MAryMac -- Your LC with 7.1 is a 68030 or 68040 computer with a clock speed of about 20 MHz and (I think) an 8bit bus.
The things you can do with it are many, but they have to be things that are not bandwidth intensive. You can do spreadsheets, drawing programs, wordprocessing -- ClarisWorks 2.1 is a good comibation of all those things and a database as well.
You can do limited browsing on the Internet with an earlier browser (like an earlier version of Netscape or even Mozilla) .You can even drive a color monitor.
If you want to do MP3s, or try to configure a Mac ICQ client, or do full-scale browsing, get the realtime audio and video downloads you have to have both the communication bandwidth needed to bring the data in fast enough andthe clock speed and bus width to move the data around fast enough to keep up with the download, including enough memory to let the applications doing all the work run without 'bumping their heads' and crashing because they ran oput of memory. |
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