ramsiri@blake.acs.washington.edu (Enartloc Nhoj) (12/04/89)
For those who are reading this newsgroup and debating between the mac and the atari for a music notation system, consider the following: With NOTATOR and the ***** ATARI LASER ****** i can print a 7 page score in under 7 minutes... and it looks BEAUTIFUL! I am told by a colleague of mine who runs FINALE ... the much raved about notation package for the mac, that it can take as much as a FULL HOUR to print a SINGLE postscript page of music. Unfortunately, i still know people who are buying macs for music.. While ATARI at this time has the upper hand in music sales... they could easily clean up if they put some effort into getting ATARI systems in the high schools and universities.. in studios etc.. Word is out in the electronic music magazines that NOTATOR is the best available for any of the home computers. Fortunately, NOTATOR will NEVER be ported to the MAC... ATARI should jump on this put some serious thought and effort into breaking into the education market. Between music and desktop publishing and all the other great software already available.. people can't help but catch on to the fact that this machine is great. A TT would be a great server for an education system... as well as a fast music processor... fast enough for professional studio work as well. I am shocked to have learned the other day that the developers of NOTATOR who are from GERMANY.. where there are over 350,000 ST's.. have yet to get their hands on a TT. David Small does NOT have a TT yet... In addition to all the other virtuoso developers out there.. these guys will make THE difference for ATARI. POINT: "ATARI.. hurry up .. and get the TT out here!" Unfortunately, timing IS a factor in the industry! As much as i complain about the marketing of ATARI etc.. i still am a number one fan... encouraging people daily to look into the ST line. I want ATARI to succeed. Hopefully, the new ATARI marketing group can put ATARI in its rightful place. -kevin ramsiri@blake.acs.washington.edu
chad@norge.enet.dec.com (Chad Leigh) (12/04/89)
I also use NOTATOR. I have not seen FINALE myself in the flesh. While Notator's print outs look nice (I haven't lasered them yet...), from what I've heard/seen of Finale, it is the much better "music engraving" package. Notator is more of a sequencer that allows pretty nice music notation and score print outs. It is the best in that category. But if your goal is to get the best looking stuff on paper without any realtime music playback and MIDI editing, Finale is the way to go. I base this comment on reviews I've read, my use of Notator, and conversing with people who use Finale and who have described its capabilities, as well as seeing output from Finale. Basically, it is a apples/oranges comparison. Notator is a sequencer and MIDI editor with scoring. Finale is a scoring/engraving package with some MIDI input/MIDI manipulation. Notator is however a great package. Highly recommended!!! Chad DEC has no opinions. ----------------------------------------------------
ramsiri@blake.acs.washington.edu (Enartloc Nhoj) (12/04/89)
In article <1746@hiatus.dec.com> chad@norge.enet.dec.com () writes: >I also use NOTATOR. I have not seen FINALE myself in the flesh. While >Notator's print outs look nice (I haven't >lasered them yet...), from what I've heard/seen of Finale, it is the >much better "music engraving" package. This is likely true.. as NOTATOR does not support a great variety of fonts and symbols... BUT.. the update in December and the one coming in Spring will allow imported fonts.. and user defined symbols.. possibly MIDI mapped dynamic symbols!!!!!! >Notator is more of a sequencer that allows pretty nice music notation >and score print outs. It is the >best in that category. But if your goal is to get the best looking >stuff on paper without any realtime music >playback and MIDI editing, Finale is the way to go. I base this comment >on reviews I've read, my use of Notator, >and conversing with people who use Finale and who have described its >capabilities, as well as seeing >output from Finale. > Agreed.. NOTATOR could improve its "engraving quality" look.. and from what the developers tell me, they are doing just that. (Must say that NOTATOR is good enough for two local symphonies for clean and neat performance scores). But a time factor has to enter into the equation.. otherwise you may as well hire an expert copyist. Moving several windows deep and backing yourself out to do an operation that takes only a single click with NOTATOR slows the process down to a crawl. Then there's the printing... an hour for a Finale PS page is prohibitive when you are considering performance scores for a symphony amounting to as many as 1200 pages! But what you say is true.. NOTATOR started out as an awesome sequencer.. then added notation.. fortunately, the developers know the capability of the 68000 and GEM and are doing an amazing job. Several people in the MAC and IBM world say their software, including FINALE, pales in comparison to NOTATOR. The new multi-tasking features of the update coming in December will provide for even a greater creative environment. >Basically, it is a apples/oranges comparison. Notator is a sequencer >and MIDI editor with scoring. Finale is >a scoring/engraving package with some MIDI input/MIDI manipulation. > >Notator is however a great package. Highly recommended!!! > >Chad -kevin ramsiri@blake.acs.washington.edu
laba-1aj@web-1d.berkeley.edu (John Kawakami) (12/05/89)
In article <4739@blake.acs.washington.edu> ramsiri@blake.acs.washington.edu (Enartloc Nhoj) writes: >With NOTATOR and the ***** ATARI LASER ****** i can >print a 7 page score in under 7 minutes... and it looks BEAUTIFUL! > >I am told by a colleague of mine who runs FINALE ... the much raved >about notation package for the mac, that it can take as much as >a FULL HOUR to print a SINGLE postscript page of music. ^^^^^^^^^^ I realize this is probably not the right forum for this, but here goes: Over and over, I read people who point out how s l o w PS is. Sometimes, they are justified; PS is pretty slow if it has too little RAM, a very complex image, bad code, etc. But usually, people blame postscript when the program generating the postscript is at fault. Now, I don't know anything about Finale, but I don't think something as simple as a page of music should take more than a few minutes to print (yes, that _is_ slower than the SLM; heh heh). I suspect Finale is doing one of two things: producing ugly, horrendous PS; or letting the printer figure out how the page should be set and giving it just enough info to let it grind the page out. I'd bet my mother that it's the former. >Unfortunately, i still know people who are buying macs for music.. >While ATARI at this time has the upper hand in music sales... >they could easily clean up if they put some effort into getting >ATARI systems in the high schools and universities.. in studios etc.. I see lots of STs in music mag photos. They are pretty popular. But there are not that many midi-ized musicians out there. >for ATARI. POINT: "ATARI.. hurry up .. and get the TT out here!" >Unfortunately, timing IS a factor in the industry! Yes, I agree. And if you get the TT out there with an educational discount and Unix, you might very well see a (somewhat) significant number of university students taking out (even more) student loans to have Unix in their rooms. (If the TT were in the $2.5k range, I'd get it, fast!) >-kevin >ramsiri@blake.acs.washington.edu
ladasky@codon2.berkeley.edu (John Ladasky;1021 Solano No. 2;528-8666) (12/05/89)
In article <1989Dec4.213025.14837@agate.berkeley.edu> laba-1aj@web-1d (John Kawakami) writes: [stuff about printing speed of NOTATOR deleted] >I realize this is probably not the right forum for this, but here goes: > Over and over, I read people who point out how s l o w PS is. >Sometimes, they are justified; PS is pretty slow if it has too little RAM, >a very complex image, bad code, etc. But usually, people blame postscript >when the program generating the postscript is at fault. When I got into the scoring business, the only Atari notation package around that generated PostScript files and could read MIDI files was Dr. T.'s COPYIST. I can tell you this much: COPYIST generates about 250k of data per page. The Sonata font (which, I'm sorry to say, is more aesthetically pleasing than any of the Atari laser fonts I've seen) is another 75k. I print my files out from my UNIX account, and they take about 10 minutes per page. One thing that I have noticed is that pages with lots of slurs (which cannot, I would imagine, be implemented by characters of the Sonata font) take up considerably more memory than those without them. > Now, I don't know anything about Finale, but I don't think something >as simple as a page of music should take more than a few minutes to print >(yes, that _is_ slower than the SLM; heh heh). I suspect Finale is doing >one of two things: producing ugly, horrendous PS; or letting the printer >figure out how the page should be set and giving it just enough info to >let it grind the page out. I'd bet my mother that it's the former. > I'm almost certain that my files are being transferred to the printer by something niftier than the 9600-baud serial port that I've seen - and it still takes 10 minutes. I've archived a few of my PostScript files and they tend to compress by a factor of FOUR or FIVE. This suggests that there is a fair amount of verbosity or redundancy in PostScript. Sure, it's great to be able to read the stuff, but someone should consider the fact that a protocol for the transfer of a ters, more compressed version of PostScript would speed things up quite a bit. I'm not sure how inelegant the COPYIST PostScript code is, but my guess is that it's not all that bad. At least, it's about as ugly as the code that the FINALE user seems to be generating. T CROSS POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS POLICE LINE DO NOT CR _______________________________________________________________________________ "Do unto others as you would like - John J. Ladasky ("ii") to do unto them. " Richard Bach (ladasky@enzyme.berkeley.edu)