allyn@milton.acs.washington.edu (Allyn Weaks) (12/27/89)
(Note that followups are directed to comp.music...)
There have been a couple of requests for low end Mac music programs on a couple
of different groups, and not too many replies anywhere, so I finally stopped
procrastinating. I have both DMCS 2.5, and Concertware 5.0, and I much prefer
Concertware. It's a little more expensive, probably around $120 discount,
though I haven't looked lately. DMCS is about $85? discount. What I'd really
like is CW with a few of the DMCS features (or maybe versi vicey).
The two primary reasons I prefer Concertware are: it's not measure-based (see
below for a few of the implications) and it reads/writes MIDI files, so I can
enter stuff into CW, and if I really want a decent hardcopy score, I can dump
it into Finale (not really as straightforward as that, but that's entirely
Finale's fault.)
Some of the features and trade offs between the two:
Both have:
32nd notes to dotted whole (why does everyone leave out double wholes? :-(
crescendo/decrecendo in score and for playback
Mac voice editor
let you drag notes to change the pitch
chromatic transpose by n half-steps
'lots' of notes per chord in a single voice (all the same duration)
support Sonata laser font output
a few buglets here and there :-)
DMCS 2.5:
better control over score printing - you can tell it how many measures/line
plays back with articulations (stacatto, legato, slur)
can handle up to 40 staffs for printing (plays back 4 (Mac) or 16 (MIDI))
you can select any rectangular section, any number of contiguous voices, and
and make changes (such as articulation) all at once.
diatonic transpose
somewhat better Mac sounds, maybe (opinions vary)
only two voices/per staff, which makes some keyboard parts impossible to enter
also, you can only chose playback by staff, so you have to play both
voices or none.
does NOT read/write MIDI files (they have some screwy 'interchange' format
that no one else on the Mac except (I think) Opcode uses). No excuse for
this - MIDI format was finalized long, long before 2.5 was released...
for input, can only do step time entry (and not a good system for that - you
have to tell it how long a time chunk for a 32nd note, then do everything
proportionally; takes forever to get those whole notes in...)
mediochre lyrics: to line them up, you have to watch little location
numbers change; have to change font, style syllable by syllable
measure based - you can only do many operations (change clef, key signature,
tempo, etc) at the beginning of a measure. Can't do ritards, fermatta,
accelerandos. Also makes some editing much more difficult - it will let
you put too many or few notes in measure, than you have to painfully fix
things one measure at a time 'merging' and 'splitting' measures by hand.
Concertware 5.0
reads/writes MIDI files, both format 0 and format 1
real time MIDI entry, two voices at a time if you assign a keyboard split
flexible quantizations
nice efficient step-time entry (hit a number key to set the duration, then
keyboard keys for the pitches. Duration stays in effect until changed.)
lets you assign MIDI macros
you can choose different note heads (diamonds/crosses) for percussion, etc.
Comes with it's own laser font so you don't have to buy Sanata laser font
chord sumbols (and can define your own)
symbol library
excellent lyric handling: can import/export the lyrics from/to regular
clipboard text, all of the lyrics line up and you can move the line
with the ruler, can change font, style of an entire lyric line at once
one of only 2 programs on the Mac that isn't measure based (the other is
Professional Composer) so mass editing is much improved. You can also
force ritards, accelerandos, etc. by putting in tempo changes anywhere
(impossible in DMCS). When you insert, it inserts into the entire score,
and rebars automatically. Makes it very nice for things that constantly
change meter - you can enter everything at once, then go back and insert
the time sigs; DMSC (and Finale, and most others) you have to enter a
measure, insert time sig, enter a measure, enter time sig, and Murphy
help you if you don't notice a mistake until you're 'finished'...
will beam a selection to a beat, so you don't have to do it by hand (but
doesn't yet make intelligent decisions about which way to put the flags)
only eight voices, but you can put any or all of them on one staff
mediochre printing - no control over spacing
some not-good printing bugs - part extraction with tacit measures screws
up royally, and it occaisionally gets confused under other circumstances.
I've been able to work around all of them though, and I've never lost
anything, so I'm willing to chalk it up to teething problems in the new
(much extended) version. Great Wave, are you out there?
articulations only effect printing, so playback is even more stilted than DMCS
-----
Allyn Weaks
allyn@milton.acs.washington.edu sweaks@phast.phys.washington.edu
{backbone}!uw-beaver!milton!allyn sweaks@phast.bitnet
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