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Tech: Software: Sharpeye

12 Aug 01 - 04:12 AM (#526032)
Subject: Software: Sharpeye
From: George Seto - af221@chebucto.ns.ca

HAven't tried it yet, but in searching around, I have located a program called Sharpeye V1. It takes a scanned image of sheet music, and creates a MIDI file out of it.

Visiv Releases "SharpEye Music Reader": Converts Scanned Sheet Music to MIDI

SCOTLAND, UK--Visiv (http://www.visiv.co.uk) is pleased to announce the release of SharpEye Music Reader, an accurate and low cost music OCR program.

Description

SharpEye Music Reader can convert a scanned image of printed sheet Music (a TIFF or BMP file) into a MIDI file. It incorporates a music editor which displays the converted image in standard music notation, And where you can correct errors before saving as a MIDI file. The music editor is linked to a display of the scanned image to facilitate the checking and correcting. It can deal with multiple staves per system, multiple voices per stave, and recognizes most common musical symbols including lyrics.

Availability and System Requirements

SharpEye Music Reader requires W95/W98/NT4, 16Mb RAM and a scanner. It is shareware with a registration fee of $50 or o30. A fully working evaluation version can be downloaded from . This is a self-extracting file of size 1.1Mb.

12 Aug 01 - 06:25 AM (#526056)
Subject: RE: Software: Sharpeye
From: Roger in Sheffield

I tried this a while back when someone mentioned it in a thread here. It worked fine from good quality print.

12 Aug 01 - 06:31 AM (#526057)
Subject: RE: Software: Sharpeye
From: Roger in Sheffield

an earlier thread here

12 Aug 01 - 09:35 AM (#526082)
Subject: RE: Software: Sharpeye
From: George Seto - af221@chebucto.ns.ca

Aha! Thanks, Roger. Will check it out.

13 Aug 01 - 03:10 AM (#526519)
Subject: RE: Software: Sharpeye
From: pavane

I tried a demo version some years ago of a similar (But expensive) product called MIDISCAN. I was very impressed by the way it worked on 'easy arrangement' pop music, but it had more of a problem with O'Neill's Music of Ireland. It wasn't too hot on grace notes, triplets etc. Let me know if this new one is good.

13 Aug 01 - 11:35 AM (#526729)
Subject: RE: Software: Sharpeye
From: GUEST

Does this software print out the dots when you sing the music in?

13 Aug 01 - 11:53 AM (#526745)
Subject: RE: Software: Sharpeye
From: Steve Parkes

Sharpeye can't. I played about with the demo a while back (see link to the other thread above). I found it needed a fair bit of correcting, and couldn't always handle several staves. It had particular trouble with a piano/voice piece which had two staves (piano) on the first line followed by three (p + voice) on the next. Of course, it just might not like Paddy Roberts ... I tried to get round it by doing two separate scans, but it was a lot of trouble. It's a shame; it was pretty user-friendly on the whole, and I think with a bit of patience and cleaner sheet music I could have doen more. It would be handy to convert sheet music to Noteworthy Composer format and be able to change the key (which I did), or convert to TablEdit format and try converting piano pieces to guitar arrangements (which I didn't).

Steve

18 Mar 03 - 06:57 AM (#912402)
Subject: RE: Software: Sharpeye
From: JudeL

I have just downloaded the test version of this and tried it out. I used a high resolution scan, and was amazed how good it was. I used it to scan in and play back a version of Early One Morning from an old book (paper yellowing a bit) which showed the the melody line with words (which it also scanned) and the two staves of what is presumably the piano acompaniment. Out of the 20 bars (including intro) it highlighted just 3 notes as having an inconsistant time signature which were very easy to correct, and for one line the key signature had not been correctly identified, also easy to correct. It didn't highlight the incorrect key signature but when playing it it was very noticible as sounding wrong. I am not a computer geek, nor can I read music with any ease I was mostly just comparing what was in the original and playing spot the difference, the editing facility made this easy. I may well decide to buy the full official version, as I often find songs that I would like to sing but can't because I cannot sightread well enough to know what it should sound like from the dots.

18 Mar 03 - 11:48 AM (#912638)
Subject: RE: Software: Sharpeye
From: GUEST,MCP

I tried out demo version of both Sharpeye and Midiscan and I also have the version of SharpScore Light that ships with Finale Guitar. I haven't used any of them very much, but my impression has been that Sharpeye was the best of them. I've only used it on classical guitar music and it did need editing after scanning, but it was certainly better than entering the whole piece by hand.

Mick

18 Mar 03 - 12:26 PM (#912672)
Subject: RE: Software: Sharpeye
From: Steve Parkes

I've also tried out the expensive super-duper version demo, and it's extremely good.It made light work of some excruciating Greek bouzouki music; the only fly in th ointment for me is you can only save in a format my other stuff can't read, or midi; midi handles triplets in a strange way which leaves hemi-demi-semiquavers all over the place (even when it's not bouzouki music), and that takes a lot of cleaning up. But that's midi, not SharpEye.

Steve

18 Mar 03 - 01:36 PM (#912747)
Subject: RE: Software: Sharpeye
From: JohnInKansas

Also recently discussed briefly in PC programs to read & play music?, along with some similar/related kinds of programs.

John

18 Mar 03 - 04:22 PM (#912881)
Subject: RE: Software: Sharpeye
From: Joe Offer

They say that Finale and Sibelius are the ultimate music notationn software packages. I haven't tried Sibelius, but my Finale 2002 has MIDIScan built in for scanning sheet music, and also a utility called MicNotate. The MIDIScan worked quite well the two times I used it, although not perfectly. I think there's a bit of a "learning curve." I couldn't figure out how to work MicNotate - I gather it's supposed to let you sing or play a tune into a microphone, and then transcribe the tune into notation.
I just send things to Blessings Barbara, and get the notation back by e-mail. Much easier. [grin]
Thanks, Barbara.
-Joe Offer-

18 Mar 03 - 04:48 PM (#912903)
Subject: RE: Software: Sharpeye
From: JohnInKansas

As noted in previous thread(s) (possibly the one linked above) I got a mic input converter program with an old (make that very old) CakeWalk "Home Studio" program that came with a cheap keyboard. We tried "mic-ing" mando and lap dulcimer, and singing, (separately) into it, and concluded that either it didn't work or our microphone wasn't "strong enough."

Almost anything you're likely to find that accepts microphone input for notation purposes will probably make use of midi as an "intermediate" format, and since midi can record pitch "bends" and tempo "variations," it's likely that most of us will produce pretty "maggoty" scores even on the best of such conversion software.

Sibelius does include a scan-to-notation utility; but I'm not sure what it's "noise-to-notation" capability is, if any. The people who make the scanner software package(s) for Sibelius also make a "Scan-to-MIDI" program that can be downloaded for free trial - but I believe it's about $149 US to be able to save the output.

John

19 Mar 03 - 03:44 AM (#913210)
Subject: RE: Software: Sharpeye
From: Steve Parkes

Sibelius comes with a bog-sandard music OCR scanner, and is very expensive; there's also a high-quality music scanner, and that's very expensive too. Unless you're a pro musiscian or music teacher (or very wealthy) I'd go for SharpEye and something like Noteeworthy. You canget a time-limited demo of Sibelius, and it is very good: worth a look if you can afford it.

Steve

19 Mar 03 - 02:50 PM (#913730)
Subject: RE: Software: Sharpeye
From: Genie

Overture (which may not be made any more under that name) can read scanned sheet music and play it or turn it into editable sheet music or a MIDI.

Here's a link to Coda Music's "Finale: Guitar," which sells for $99.
Finale Guitar

Click where it says "Enter Notes," and you will see that there are several ways to enter the notes, including SCANNING sheet music and playing a SINGLE NOTE instrument.
If your voice doesn't have a lot of distracting overtones, I'd imagine you can plug in a miked voice instead of a piano or guitar.

20 Mar 03 - 05:10 AM (#914285)
Subject: RE: Software: Sharpeye
From: JohnInKansas

Quite a few of the common notation and/or sequencing programs have bundled or add-for-a-few-bucks-plug-in software to convert scanned sheet music into notation in the program. Nearly all notation programs allow you to save-as MIDI, and most sequencer programs allow you to print notation.

Generally, if you have a notation/midi program you like, a quick trip to the maker's site will tell you whether something is available that works with your program. For most "name brand" programs, you'll almost certainly find something, and in most cases, you'll probably be best served by using the Music-OCR program that speaks the "same language" as your basic notation program.

It takes a fair investment in time and effort to learn the finer points of any program - so I'd generally prefer to be able to scan into the program I know, rather than having one program to print from scans, one to print from midi, one to print from my own notation, etc.

From all that I've seen, Sharpeye is a pretty good program; and I'm sure we'll see some additional helpful evaluations. Given time, I may even get around to wringing it out myself; but there are quite a few things ahead of it for now; and the programs I use (and intend to use in the near term) generally have built-in scan recognition capabilities.

I note the reference above to "audio input" for producing notation. Perhaps we have some cross-threading with another current thread at Sing it in, get dots out. There is some overlap in the discussions in this and "the other" thread - although the subjects are somewhat different.

Steve Parks - You may be interested in my comments on Sibelius "over there." Major RANT - for me, but I'm having a problem with them.

John