Vocalist.org archive


From: John Alexander Blyth
Subject: Re: MIDI
To: VOCALIST <vocalist>
Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>

First, MIDI. The cables can be quite expensive, if they are "name-brand",
and you have to pay a store's marked-up price. Still worth it, but you might
be able to get them cheaper over the net or secondhand, if you think it's
worth the effort.
Then Music Notation software. There is as awful lot out there and some of it
is as good as it is expensive. You can get evaluations of many of them on
the web, and there was an faq in a (sorry to be so vague) newsgroup which
tabulated comparisons. I think it's author was Alan Belkin. The one I found
which was most like a word processor for music (and also with relatively
simple midi connection procedures) was Encore, by Passport Designs, which
went bankrupt, but their product line was taken over by GVOX! The one glitch
I have found in this pgm is that I can't seem to copy and paste in the left
hand part of their "piano staff", if that mean sanything to you. I used to
use Finale but it was very clunky, slow and complex, although the results
were unlimited in scope. I understand that Finale has moved closer to the
Encore model and this may have motivated their bid for Passport Designs'
inventory, so it may well be an easier pgm than the earlier versions that I
grappled with. At the same time a relatively intuitive and quite beautiful
pgm, Sibelius, has started to blow the competition away in terms of speed of
screen redraw, ease of use etc. However its copy and paste is also a bit
odd: in this case very peculiar and unwidowslike, in the the commands used
and in the selection process, but if I had the money this would be my pgm of
choice, and its midi basically hooks itself up. I think you can download
demos (free, but time-consuming), or have them send you discs (typically
about $5 for postage etc,). I look for pgms which will allow me to work on
orchestral, vocal and choral scores, and which will have clever shortcuts
that save hours of editing. You can get scaled down vesrions of these pgms.
for less if you are willing to be limited to 16 staves or other limitations.
But there is a lot out there (>100 notation pgms) and some
sequencers have OK, editable notation. I hope this was helpful. john

At 17:31 18/01/00 -0800, you wrote:
>Is anyone one this list familiar with midi equipment? I have a digital
>piano with the appropriate hookups and all, and I was just wondering if
>there was any particular place I should look for cables, etc. Also if
>anyone knows of any good music-notation programs, I would really appreciate
>it. Thank you.
>
>David M.
>
>
>______________________________________________________
>
>
John Blyth
Bass/Baritone (as opposed to Bass-Baritone) etc.
Brandon, Manitoba, Canada