mjs@hpfcso.HP.COM (Marc Sabatella) (11/16/90)
I am about to purchase a Stacy for use use with some music projects of mine. After diligently searching through the old notes here, and talking to people at our local users group, there are still a few questions I haven't gotten straight answers for: 1. Spectre GCR and midi. Conventional wisdom is that the ST midi port is not recognized in Mac mode, but there may be ways around this. I am not sure I will need this to work, but it would be nice. 2. Laserjet output from music typesetting software. Several of the available packages (Notator, EZ Score) don't support it, although I have seen EZ Score's dot matrix output and it is pretty darn good. I've heard of a PD package "laserbrain" that acts as a laser printer driver to some extent. Does this actually work, does it support Laserjets (no Postscript) and does it do any "rounding" to make the output look better than on a dot matrix? Pointers to music typesetting packages that *do* support Laserjets would be appreciated, too. I know about Dr. T Professional & DTP, and of course there is always the Spectre / Postsript cartridge option. 3. Can you use an accelerator in the Stacy? 4. What about this rumored third party battery pack? 5. Anything else I should know? Responses by mail will be summarized and posted. -------------- Marc Sabatella (marc@hpmonk.fc.hp.com) Disclaimers: 2 + 2 = 3, for suitably small values of 2 Bill and Dave may not always agree with me
mjs@hpfcso.HP.COM (Marc Sabatella) (11/21/90)
>I am about to purchase a Stacy for use use with some music projects of mine. I got some answers, although a few more phone calls are what got me most of my information. >1. Spectre GCR and midi. No word on this still. >2. Laserjet output from music typesetting software. Dr. T's laser output is not all that much better than EZScore's dot marix. There is a package in the UK called "Take Controls Music Publisher". Encore, a Mac program, has been ported to the ST, and it seems very full featured, although it doesn't have tightly integrated sequencing as does Dr. T and Notator. Still no word on whether Notator supports Laserjet's yet - their tech support guy hasn't called me back. >3. Can you use an accelerator in the Stacy? Yes, Turbo16 from Fast Technologies. >4. What about this rumored third party battery pack? No word here.
ramsiri@blake.u.washington.edu (Enartloc Nhoj) (11/22/90)
In article <7340037@hpfcso.HP.COM> mjs@hpfcso.HP.COM (Marc Sabatella) writes: >>I am about to purchase a Stacy for use use with some music projects of mine. > > >There is a package in the UK called "Take Controls Music Publisher". > What is this package.. ? is there a demo available? >Encore, a Mac program, has been ported to the ST, and it seems very full >featured, although it doesn't have tightly integrated sequencing as does Dr. T >and Notator. Still no word on whether Notator supports Laserjet's yet - their >tech support guy hasn't called me back. > I have left several messages with the people at Passport Designs trying to get information and a demo of ENCORE for the ST... all i get are machines and answering machines and so on... no one calls me back... I have been using NOTATOR for over 2 years. But the one MAJOR flaw with the program has finally forced me to get into something else... if not to change over to a MAC and FINALE. Problem: with NOTATOR, one can NOT (unless someone can correct me on this) display MORE than 2 independent voices on a SINGLE staff. This is absoulutely necessary for scoring classical guitar. NOTATOR provides for 2 independent voices for each staff in a grand staff display. This works wonderfully for 4 part chorales... but when you get into more complex piano scores (over treble and bass clef) or into multi-voice guitar parts on a single treble clef, you are f'ed. FINALE for the mac allows this. I would rather invest in ENCORE than change platforms, if ENCORE will do what i need on the ST.. i'll keep NOTATOR for sequencing and use ENCORE for publishing. Otherwise I'll have to go to the MAC and wrestle with a ridiculous user interface : FINALE's, just because of the one factor. I spoke with Mikhail .. the US rep for C-LAb about this several times. He states that it is very unlikely we'll see an update to NOTATOR for another 8 months or more... and that "my" problem had never been presented to him before.. that if only a few people see the need for the "fix".. it won't be done. BTW: My GCR supposedly will run FINALE.. but, of course, not run the midi functions. Since i have an older 1040 4MB, the new Megatalk board by Gadgets won't due me any good. -kevin
s37837k@saha.hut.fi (Jari Lehto) (12/09/90)
Why don't you try the Cubase? It is a Great MIDI software package from Steinberg, propably the best available for Atari. It uses GDOS and has a driver for Laserjet. Accelerator? There are HyperCache 016 and HyperCache 030, first one fits to Stacy I think (Turbo 16 and Jato fits also), second one uses the 68030 33 Mhz and is very expensive, and I think quite big too! *** Jari Lehto, jartsu@otax.hut.fi, s37837k@saha.hut.fi ***