paul@mit-caf.MIT.EDU (Paul Meyer) (04/11/89)
I have a friend who is buying a MIDI keyboard and wants to buy a Mac to go with it. He's not sure what software he wants to run, but Finale, performer, and composer are titles that he has mentioned. As usual, money is a big constraint. I think his best bet is a Mac Plus with a 20-40 meg external hard disk, and an imagewriter II. Total about $2000 with university pricing. The question is, will all that music software run comfortably in a 1 meg MacPlus? Will the normal music hardward (midi ports, etc) hook up fine to a mac Plus? Does anyone know the hardware requirements of the music products (especially Finale)? I want to know more than just if the box says it will run in 1 meg. Fullwrite claims to run in one meg, but it isn't usable. Any comments would be appreciated. Mail to me and I'll post a summary, -- | Paul Meyer | Two more months and counting... | | paul@caf.mit.edu | "You killed my true love" | | Microsystems Technology Laboratory | "It's possible. I kill a lot | | MIT | of people." |
jnh@ece-csc.UUCP (Joseph Nathan Hall) (04/11/89)
In article <2151@mit-caf.MIT.EDU> paul@mit-caf.UUCP (Paul Meyer) writes: > > I have a friend who is buying a MIDI keyboard and wants to buy a >Mac to go with it. He's not sure what software he wants to run, but >Finale, performer, and composer are titles that he has mentioned. > As usual, money is a big constraint. I think his best bet is a >Mac Plus with a 20-40 meg external hard disk, and an imagewriter II. Total >about $2000 with university pricing. > The question is, will all that music software run comfortably in >a 1 meg MacPlus? Will the normal music hardward (midi ports, etc) hook >up fine to a mac Plus? Does anyone know the hardware requirements of the >music products (especially Finale)? I have a kind of love-hate relationship with Finale. First of all, it's *EXPENSIVE*. $1000, take it or leave it. (Maybe it's discounted now, I don't know; I couldn't find a significantly lower price.) It does indeed do almost everything you could possibly want a notation program to do. And, yes, the performance transcription tool works well, and works better and better with practice. It has some serious shortcomings, though. The worst of them is that it is dreadfully, dreadfully slow on an SE or Plus when you use it for something of any size (a few staves, 50 or more measures). Operations that I think ought to take no time at all (cutting and pasting measures, duplicating measures and staves, etc) can take *minutes*. Lots of them. Even loading a moderately-sized file can take a couple of minutes, and WOE, WOE, WOE unto you if you don't turn the disk cache on (about 256k is the right size). My experience with Finale on a Mac II is limited, but it is considerably faster. I would categorically advise against any attempt at running Finale on a system with less than 20 Mb of hard disk and 2Mb of RAM. I would recommend a comfortable 4-5Mb RAM, a large display, a 68020 or 68030 w/ FPU (Finale does some FP number-crunching), and a larger hard disk (what can you store in 20 Mb, anyway?). StuffIt is useful for storing the poorly-compressed files. Last, Finale is *quirky*. No, I have found no bugs. But there are some features which are a) useful and even essential ("e.g., executable shapes") and b) documented with utter inadequacy. Some supplemental documentation is available now, but they make you pay $50 for each book ... sheesh! Also, Finale toys with violations of the Human Interface Guidelines. There are hundreds of nested dialogs. I hope you like dialogs ... What do I think of Finale? Well, You can't find anything better, and You'll pay through the nose for it, and Be prepared to put up with some irritating "features." I fully expect Finale to evolve and improve, as time goes on, so this mixed review is by no means the last word. What would I recommend for YOU? Well, Take a look at DMCS (no, really, it's not all that bad), and then take a look at the stuff from Mark of the Unicorn. Forget Finale on a 1Mb Plus w/o hard disk. You'll be wasting your time. (Lots of it.) -- v v sssss|| joseph hall || 201-1D Hampton Lee Court v v s s || jnh@ece-csc.ncsu.edu (Internet) || Cary, NC 27511 v sss || joseph@ece007.ncsu.edu (Try this one first) -----------|| Standard disclaimers and all that . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
normt@ihlpa.ATT.COM (Norman R Tiedemann) (04/13/89)
In article <4007@ece-csc.UUCP>, jnh@ece-csc.UUCP (Joseph Nathan Hall) writes: > In article <2151@mit-caf.MIT.EDU> paul@mit-caf.UUCP (Paul Meyer) writes: > > I have a friend who is buying a MIDI keyboard and wants to buy a > >Mac to go with it. He's not sure what software he wants to run, but > >Finale, performer, and composer are titles that he has mentioned. > > As usual, money is a big constraint. I think his best bet is a > >Mac Plus with a 20-40 meg external hard disk, and an imagewriter II. > > The question is, will all that music software run comfortably in > >a 1 meg MacPlus? Will the normal music hardward (midi ports, etc) hook > >up fine to a mac Plus? Does anyone know the hardware requirements of the > >music products (especially Finale)? > > I have a kind of love-hate relationship with Finale. First of all, it's > *EXPENSIVE*. $1000, take it or leave it. (Maybe it's discounted now, I > don't know; I couldn't find a significantly lower price.) > ... Review of Finale ... > Forget Finale on a 1Mb Plus w/o hard disk. You'll be wasting your time. > Last, Finale is *quirky*. No, I have found no bugs. But there are some > features which are a) useful and even essential ("e.g., executable shapes") > What do I think of Finale? Well, > You can't find anything better, and > You'll pay through the nose for it, and > Be prepared to put up with some irritating "features." > What would I recommend for YOU? Well, > Take a look at DMCS (no, really, it's not all that bad), > joseph hall I have DMCS 2.5 (the most recent version) running on my Vanilla Mac+. It is a little slow on somethings, but not any worse than say MacWrite. I've edited large (6 staves, 20 pages) with little problem. it prints wonderfully on my Imagewriter II. (With a Laser printer and the Adobe font, it is unbeatable.) I just rearange music and print, I do choral and brass quintet arrangements, but I don't create new music or really compose. DMCS does what I want to do really well. DMCS (Deluxe Music Construction Set) is just that, it allows you to produce scores with excellant quality. You can play your music on a MIDI instrument with just a simple adapter (i.e. Apple MIDI Interface ~$60.00), This is really just a serial port plug a small converter box and two MIDI cables. You can use DMCS to enter music with the MIDI, but only in step mode. That means you play a note and tell it to move on. DMCS is not (repeat NOT) a sequencer. It will not capture MIDI input in real time. If you want to do real time capture of music, then you need a sequencer package. Opcode's sequencer software will save the music data in a form readable by DMCS. This is going to be my next purchase. DMCS also has it's quirks, I've never had it crash or lose data, but it's scared me a couple of times. (It loses a pages, then by scrolling back to the beginning and out to that page again, it is there.) Also there are keyboard codes that do everything under the sun, so you really have to keep the manual next to you. After a little practice, I've gotten good at entering pieces of music and can do it rapidly, It then takes a while to put in all the "pretty" things about the music, but it is quite powerfull, once you figure it all out. If your friend wants to play around with composing and saving music, etc, then DMCS by itself is not the right tool. If publishing is his bag, then DMCS is something to look at. Once I get Opcode's Sequencer, I think I'll be set for a while. P.S. DMCS 2.5 (an Electronic Art's production) is no longer Copy Protected!!! Finally EA has figured out what people want. -- Norm Tiedemann AT&T Bell Labs IH 2G-331 att!ihlpa!normt 2000 Naperville Rd. normt@ihlpa.att.com Naperville, IL 60566