But why go to so much effort? There are plenty of great programs out there that offer input and have engraving qualities. Finale, Sibelius and Graphire Music Press. All can give you excellent output.
As a musician, and someone who publishes their own work, why would I go through the effort to use this program? Using Finale with TgTools gives me just about everything I could want in a music notation program.......
I'd like to be able to play music into it. According to the FAQ:
"Automatic notation, so that means I can play the music, and then it rolls out of the printer?
No. Our system assumes that the input data is available in an exact, abstract form. Printing music is difficult enough as it is, so we do not wish to add another problem. Translating what a human plays to exact form is hard. Even if you get the correct pitch data from a MIDI keyboard (as opposed to a sound recording), one has to get the rhythms correct. For example, how is a computer supposed to distinguish between a staccato quarter note and an eighth note? Moreover, how would you print a piece that you cannot play in such a system?"
This is crap. Why bother? Why not push Sibelius or Finale to be ported to Linux??
Indeed. This whole idea of a huge mound of rock coming at us is frightening. At least we are aware of it, that this threat is out there. I think though, it is going to take a minor impact somewhere for any of us on this planet to truely understand that we need to protect ourselves from extermination.
Yes, but if a good musician sequenced the music (IE: Played it into the computer), it will sound good. I do this all the time. And you hear it all the time. TV Soundtracks, etc, etc.
In theater though, the ability for musicians and stage members to react to each other makes a great musical.
Yeah, I agree. It does make a difference. Performances are different night to night. Maybe someone on stage wants to go faster, or stretch something out. Or maybe the audience reacted to a joke better than before. Can the sythn know to vamp a little longer?
I dunno. I think a lot of this is grubby theater producers wanting to get all the money they can. So, musicians are the first thing to get cut.
I doubt anyone would go pay money to see some guy play a keyboard emulating an Orchestra.
What this is though is economics. Theater producers and musicians never get along. Musicians are an expense that they cut right off the bat. If a theater company can get a good sound from a computer and not have to pay all the money for an orchestra, then they will do it. It's more money for them. I can name a theater company around here that made that move a couple of years ago. Willows Theater. As far as I know NONE of their musicals are acoustic anymore. It's all sequenced. They have a production of a "John Muir" musical which they either do midi or with a recorded tape of the California Symphony. Whatever. Two bit theater doesn't concern me.
I just love how they say it's NON-Profit yet they can charge $30 or so for tickets. So......like where is that money going? And usually they don't pay the actors. Insane.
But a Broadway or a professional production doing this? It is sad. I don't think you can ever get that sound a real orchestra produces. And for the actors, what if they want to stretch out something, or maybe ritard a little more?
As someone who has done more than 40 musicals, and who makes a living doing music, I'm not really concerned about it. In fact, a local theater company has been doing something like this for the last 3 or 4 years. They have a production of "John Muir" that they either perform with a tape track that was recorded by the California Symphony, or a midi track. I saw the play (was dating a girl in the cast). That night they supposedly used the taped California Symphony backgrounds. I couldn't tell. It didn't sound all that good.
I think what it lacked was that acoustic quality a live orchestra has. Some of these high end samplers/midi modules sound awesome. A movie or TV soundtrack using one is very hard sometimes to tell if it's real or fake. But, a live musical with real musicians sound way different than midi/recorded music.
A lot of this is economics. Producers don't like to pay people. Hell, I complained about doing this one musical where they kept announcing at the beginning of the show that they had something like $250K budget (from donations and stuff) for each show. At that time they were playing pit musicians $40 a show. That's maybe $10 an hour. Where did all the rest of the money go?? And this theater company did not pay any of the actors. Community Theater. Go figure. So, if Mackintosh cuts out $10K a week, thats more money for him. Makes sense.
Would I go see such a production? No.
As a musician, I avoid musicals like the plague. Unless I really want to do it for some reason (good play, favor for a friend, cute girls, etc, etc), there is no point in doing one. I'm not going to make money doing it. They are not going to pay me what I'm worth. Hell, I could teach 2 more private lessons and make more money in 1 hour than I would doing 3 hours of a musical.
You ain't going to make a living doing musicals unless you are in the Union and want to commit yourself to months or perhaps years of doing the same music over and over. No thanks. When Phantom of the Opera was here in San Francisco, I know a bunch of people who played in that pit. It paid very well, something like $3K or more for maybe 20 something hours of work. I just would be bored out of my mind after the first two weeks.
Come on. I have a good set of Ear phones (Shure e3cs) that I use, and cans ($400 Sennheisers). I don't hear anything bad with the encoding quality at 160 AAC. Some MP3s I have that were encoded poor I can hear problems with. Especially cymbal and things that ring that are high frequency.
But it's a PORTABLE system. I listen to my iPod in the car (loud Mustang V8), exercising, etc, etc. On the go, or when I'm moving. I took it on a plane trip a couple of weeks ago, and it sounded fine. The shure ear plugs blocked out A LOT of the noise, and I was very happy with the sound quality.
Its a PORTABLE device. I don't need PRISTINE audio, I need something good. AAC gives me something good. Actually, something very good. And the iPod gives me a great way to listen to my tunes. If I really have to listen to something in the highest quality, then I turn to my stereo system and the original CD. And an environment where I can focus JUST ON the music.
Yeah, it doesn't work in my car either (89 Mustang 5.0). I ended up replacing the car stereo with a $99 Awia deck that has Aux inputs on the front. Things work great now!
AAC is VERY decent. 160 AAC does it for me. That and my Shure E3c. I'm set!
The iPod has really changed the way I listen to music. Ripped all my albums to AAC, and then randomly put songs on it. It's amazing to rediscover some of the music I have in my collection....
You DID pay for the licensing on AAC and MP3, and on every AAC and MP3 encoder you have on your system, or else they're illegal. Whether you know you did or not is another issue.
I paid for the encoders huh? So, when I downloaded iTunes, which was free by the way, I paid for the licensing? Um.......yeah. I see it.......NOT.
Also, lossless is great because you can encode to whatever you want, whenever you want. I personally don't want to keep mp3 copies around for my portable and FLAC copies for things that don't suck.
Why not just ENCODE it to whatever format you want? Why keep the files around to RE-ENCODE it? I don't get it. You do have whatever it is on CD right?
Not to mention, FLAC and Vorbis have cross platform, open source encoders and decoders, for free.
Yeah.....so? And this matters why?
As for the "don't see a need to run Linux anymore," great, have fun being a sheep. For those of us who care about price, flexibility, source code availability, portability, or any combination of the above, there are plenty of reasons.
*Yawn* Boring. If you are SOOO concerned about that, then why not MAKE your own portable player? This open-source argument gets old after a while.
yeah, it sounds great to you . and that's what everyone else wants?
Look, there have been a LOT of comparisons about the different formats out there. Why not just encode things to MP3 or AAC at a higher bit rate?
because, some portables are capable of playing through a line-out into good speakers and some players even have near audiophile snr to make a difference.
Could be true I suppose. Have any examples of some "near audiophile" players?
because of freedom. freedom to get an encoders that work on different platforms. because people have already encoded their files this way for their media center. because there's no extra licensing.
I don't have to pay a license to encode my files AAC or MP3. Am I missing something here? And, if you have either a Mac or PC, you can use iTunes. Why would you want to use something else?
True, it doesn't run on Linux. A LOT of things don't run on Linux. But, with Mac OS X, I don't see a need to run Linux anymore......
True, but I shelled out $170 for the E3c headphones. Wow, what a difference. That with a high quality AAC (160 bit rate or above) and I'm set with my iPod.
My God man, why do you need OGG and FLAC support? AAC sounds great to me. Why would you need to take a FLAC audio file on a portable device? Do you have like $500 Shure E5 or something?
AAC works great for me, and I have thousands of MP3 and AAC files.
True, but, how often do you need to do this? I've been in the music business 12 years now, and do scores and stuff for people, as well as for groups I play in. I've never needed to do this.
I do most of my work in a sequencer (Digital Performer), and then dump the Midi file into Finale to make it look nice.
I think what is REALLY needed is some sort of OPEN FORMAT to save music files into. Perhaps this will bridge the gap. So, if I want to give a file to someone with Sibelius, they can open it. Make changes, and send it back.
But, in reality, I don't see that happening. It's a lot easier, if you are serious about it, to have both programs. Most guys I know who make a living printing/scoring music have both.
Slashdot Mirror
Free or not. Typesetting or not. This program has a long ways to go......
As a musician, and someone who publishes their own work, why would I go through the effort to use this program? Using Finale with TgTools gives me just about everything I could want in a music notation program.......
I'd like to be able to play music into it. According to the FAQ:
This is crap. Why bother? Why not push Sibelius or Finale to be ported to Linux??
How low can they go? That is the BIGGEST turn off, SPAM.
Thanks for posting that. Seriously sad that these guys aren't on the ball about their "work"
However, I think it will actually take a hit somewhere on the planet for anyone to take it seriously. Sad, but true.
Indeed. This whole idea of a huge mound of rock coming at us is frightening. At least we are aware of it, that this threat is out there. I think though, it is going to take a minor impact somewhere for any of us on this planet to truely understand that we need to protect ourselves from extermination.
Yanni......ok, now I'm going to have nightmares.....
In theater though, the ability for musicians and stage members to react to each other makes a great musical.
I dunno. I think a lot of this is grubby theater producers wanting to get all the money they can. So, musicians are the first thing to get cut.
What this is though is economics. Theater producers and musicians never get along. Musicians are an expense that they cut right off the bat. If a theater company can get a good sound from a computer and not have to pay all the money for an orchestra, then they will do it. It's more money for them. I can name a theater company around here that made that move a couple of years ago. Willows Theater. As far as I know NONE of their musicals are acoustic anymore. It's all sequenced. They have a production of a "John Muir" musical which they either do midi or with a recorded tape of the California Symphony. Whatever. Two bit theater doesn't concern me.
I just love how they say it's NON-Profit yet they can charge $30 or so for tickets. So......like where is that money going? And usually they don't pay the actors. Insane.
But a Broadway or a professional production doing this? It is sad. I don't think you can ever get that sound a real orchestra produces. And for the actors, what if they want to stretch out something, or maybe ritard a little more?
I'm glad I don't pay theater anymore......
As someone who has done more than 40 musicals, and who makes a living doing music, I'm not really concerned about it. In fact, a local theater company has been doing something like this for the last 3 or 4 years. They have a production of "John Muir" that they either perform with a tape track that was recorded by the California Symphony, or a midi track. I saw the play (was dating a girl in the cast). That night they supposedly used the taped California Symphony backgrounds. I couldn't tell. It didn't sound all that good.
I think what it lacked was that acoustic quality a live orchestra has. Some of these high end samplers/midi modules sound awesome. A movie or TV soundtrack using one is very hard sometimes to tell if it's real or fake. But, a live musical with real musicians sound way different than midi/recorded music.
A lot of this is economics. Producers don't like to pay people. Hell, I complained about doing this one musical where they kept announcing at the beginning of the show that they had something like $250K budget (from donations and stuff) for each show. At that time they were playing pit musicians $40 a show. That's maybe $10 an hour. Where did all the rest of the money go?? And this theater company did not pay any of the actors. Community Theater. Go figure. So, if Mackintosh cuts out $10K a week, thats more money for him. Makes sense.
Would I go see such a production? No.
As a musician, I avoid musicals like the plague. Unless I really want to do it for some reason (good play, favor for a friend, cute girls, etc, etc), there is no point in doing one. I'm not going to make money doing it. They are not going to pay me what I'm worth. Hell, I could teach 2 more private lessons and make more money in 1 hour than I would doing 3 hours of a musical.
You ain't going to make a living doing musicals unless you are in the Union and want to commit yourself to months or perhaps years of doing the same music over and over. No thanks. When Phantom of the Opera was here in San Francisco, I know a bunch of people who played in that pit. It paid very well, something like $3K or more for maybe 20 something hours of work. I just would be bored out of my mind after the first two weeks.
Ok, you ruined it now! :-(
Don't they have anything else to do? I seriously wonder about these "Congress" people sometimes......
But it's a PORTABLE system. I listen to my iPod in the car (loud Mustang V8), exercising, etc, etc. On the go, or when I'm moving. I took it on a plane trip a couple of weeks ago, and it sounded fine. The shure ear plugs blocked out A LOT of the noise, and I was very happy with the sound quality.
Its a PORTABLE device. I don't need PRISTINE audio, I need something good. AAC gives me something good. Actually, something very good. And the iPod gives me a great way to listen to my tunes. If I really have to listen to something in the highest quality, then I turn to my stereo system and the original CD. And an environment where I can focus JUST ON the music.
Yeah. I could never get mine to not be "static" all the time. Even with I put it RIGHT NEXT to the antenna.....
Yeah, it doesn't work in my car either (89 Mustang 5.0). I ended up replacing the car stereo with a $99 Awia deck that has Aux inputs on the front. Things work great now!
The iPod has really changed the way I listen to music. Ripped all my albums to AAC, and then randomly put songs on it. It's amazing to rediscover some of the music I have in my collection....
Yeah, I agree as well.
Come on, seriously, audiophiles don't deal with this. They spend their money on quality speakers such as Martin Logan's and Super Audio CDs.
Ok, ball-less comment poster.
You DID pay for the licensing on AAC and MP3, and on every AAC and MP3 encoder you have on your system, or else they're illegal. Whether you know you did or not is another issue.
I paid for the encoders huh? So, when I downloaded iTunes, which was free by the way, I paid for the licensing? Um.......yeah. I see it.......NOT.
Also, lossless is great because you can encode to whatever you want, whenever you want. I personally don't want to keep mp3 copies around for my portable and FLAC copies for things that don't suck.
Why not just ENCODE it to whatever format you want? Why keep the files around to RE-ENCODE it? I don't get it. You do have whatever it is on CD right?
Not to mention, FLAC and Vorbis have cross platform, open source encoders and decoders, for free.
Yeah.....so? And this matters why?
As for the "don't see a need to run Linux anymore," great, have fun being a sheep. For those of us who care about price, flexibility, source code availability, portability, or any combination of the above, there are plenty of reasons.
*Yawn* Boring. If you are SOOO concerned about that, then why not MAKE your own portable player? This open-source argument gets old after a while.
Look, there have been a LOT of comparisons about the different formats out there. Why not just encode things to MP3 or AAC at a higher bit rate?
because, some portables are capable of playing through a line-out into good speakers and some players even have near audiophile snr to make a difference.
Could be true I suppose. Have any examples of some "near audiophile" players?
because of freedom. freedom to get an encoders that work on different platforms. because people have already encoded their files this way for their media center. because there's no extra licensing.
I don't have to pay a license to encode my files AAC or MP3. Am I missing something here? And, if you have either a Mac or PC, you can use iTunes. Why would you want to use something else?
True, it doesn't run on Linux. A LOT of things don't run on Linux. But, with Mac OS X, I don't see a need to run Linux anymore......
True, but I shelled out $170 for the E3c headphones. Wow, what a difference. That with a high quality AAC (160 bit rate or above) and I'm set with my iPod.
AAC works great for me, and I have thousands of MP3 and AAC files.
I do most of my work in a sequencer (Digital Performer), and then dump the Midi file into Finale to make it look nice.
I think what is REALLY needed is some sort of OPEN FORMAT to save music files into. Perhaps this will bridge the gap. So, if I want to give a file to someone with Sibelius, they can open it. Make changes, and send it back.
But, in reality, I don't see that happening. It's a lot easier, if you are serious about it, to have both programs. Most guys I know who make a living printing/scoring music have both.