adjones@mcnc.UUCP (Amy D. Jones) (01/15/87)
I have recently acquired Deluxe Music Construction Set--I gave it to my husband for Christmas :-). This is the nicest music program we've seen (We have several for the C64 and for the Amiga), but there a few points that I'd like to comment on. (Please forgive me if you don't understand my references to musical notation & terminology--I don't want to turn this into a short-course on music theory though.) + I'm so happy to have beams. Every other program we've had looked silly with all those flagged eighth/sixteenth/etc. notes sitting side-by-side. Beams make the manuscript much more attractive. (Actually, my husband has rejected ouput from all of our other music programs on this point alone.) - I (we) thought the slurs looked ridiculous--so bad that we avoided using them at all. The ties looked fine though--I don't see why the slurs have to be so long that they extend into the other staff. + The player piano feature is nice for learning music notation. As the piece plays (at an adjustable tempo) the notes on the staff are highlighted as they are played and the notes of the piano keyboard are also highlighted as though someone were playing them. I think this is a very nice feature for anyone trying to teach/learn basic music notation. In fact, I used it to explain some things to my brother while I was home for Christmas--he bought an electronic keyboard for his daughter and wanted to help her learn to play it. He found the concepts much easier to learn with these graphics. - There is no elegant way to start your piece with 'pick-up' notes--at least I (we) couldn't figure it out. This is a side effect of the automatic measure insertion feature, I suppose. You can work around this by starting with the wrong time signature and changing to the actual desired time signature in the second measure (i.e., 1/4 -> 4/4), but then your manuscript shows the wrong time signature--unless you hide it so that it shows no time-signature. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this point--this is ridiculous. - While inserting lyrics in a song, I found that I couldn't change to any non-Topaz fonts--even though they are listed in the menu. When I selected a font other than the Topaz-family or the special music fonts, I was informed that those fonts weren't on my startup disk. I found that it was true, so I put those other fonts in the Fonts directory of my startup disk (and yes, I did this correctly)--but the program still insisted that they weren't there. I wrestled with this quirk for hours--starting from 'cold' boot--replacing my libs/diskfont.library (what is that anyway?)--but nothing would work. It's my conclusion that they neglected to implement this feature, intending to save it for some future update. Personally, I think it's pretty sorry to make me waste my time trying to make it work when they could have put a relevant comment on the errata sheet. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong. + One feature of the program that we were excited about is the DMCS guitar fret font. With this you can type guitar chord charts above the staff--a very useful feature for my husband's guitar teaching. Our first attempt at this wasn't very exciting, though. We found it difficult to align the chord blocks the way we wanted. One real problem is the fact that there is absolutely no mention of this or the other special fonts in the manual--it's up to you to figure it out on your own. I do think I (we) should give this another try-- this feature is worth struggling with to learn how to do it properly. - It wouldn't let me type other verses at the bottom of the manuscript. I wanted to put the first verse with the music--under each staff, going along with the melody--and then type the other verses in block form at the end of the manuscript. Unfortunately, the program refused to let me use this format and I had to put the other verses in a separate text file. Then they don't 'match' the rest of the manuscript when I print them out--they're in text mode while the rest is graphics. - We weren't very excited about the quality of the print-out. There is no direct way to adjust the output size and it comes out quite large with very jagged lines on the notes and everything else that is curved. I would much rather have it print out smaller so the jagged lines aren't so noticeable. Perhaps they'll incorporate some anti-aliasing routines (Isn't that what I mean?) in future versions to improve on this. As it is, I'll probably have everything I print out photocopied and reduced before showing it to anyone--too bad. (Aside--Why does my Amiga make my printer look so *#&@ bad!!! I have a decent printer (Star_SG-10), but everything (graphics) I print out looks like *@#& !!! Yes I have the 'appropriate' driver.) --- I HATE copy protection -- even though key disk isn't as bad as other methods that EA has used. I'm sending for the unprotected version though--I thought I had trashed my original once--AARRGH! (It's funny how the bad things come to mind much easier than the good.) In conclusion, I (we) think DMCS is a very useful music utility as-is, but we definitely expect to see an update in the not-too-distant future. I realize that some of my complaints are pretty picky, but it's my money ain't it? I do recommend purchase of this program to anyone interested in music at all. We plan to also purchase the Soundscape music package and check into the powerful applications alluded to in Deluxe News (1:1). -->....................................................................<-- --> // Amiga | adjones@mcnc / UNC@CH Chemistry / PLink: ohs733 <-- --> \X/ Amy | Amy Jones; RR 4, Box 411; Chapel Hill, NC 27514 <-- -->....................................................................<--