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).
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