ramsiri@blake.acs.washington.edu (Enartloc Nhoj) (01/02/90)
A friend just passed me an article from this newsgroup.. The article # from in the header showed #1049, but rn couldn't find it for me. In summary, Allen Weaks gave a good and lengthy description of several scoring programs for the Mac.. His conclusion was that FINALE was likely the best choice, though it was by no means a facile workhorse. I use NOTATOR on my ST.. while it started out as a very robust sequencer, C-LAB has during the past couple of years been furnishing updates which include some very nice scoring features...I was quite shocked to learn that FINALE has problems insertng time signatures once a note has been placed within a measure. With NOTATOR, i can change meters at every measure with a single click.. all notation subsequent to the meter change fits perfectly fine. I can change key signatures mid measure etc.. no problems.. The user interface is fanstastic... no edit is more than a single window deep... 90% can be done on the main page.. with a click or a keystroke.... BTW: 99% of the edits can be done real time and recorded by NOTATOR.... this includes both scoring and midi event edits simultaneoulsy.. as NOTOTOR treats the score and midi event data as ONE data structure. AFter reading through the descriptions of the MAC software and and in particular, FINALE, i soon realized how incredible NOTATOR is in comparison... ... December update for NOTOTOR is a multi-tasking software that allows you to run other music editing programs simultaneously with NOTATOR, and if the other programs are writing to the midi ports of the ATARI.. NOTATOR will record the info on a track while either in play mode or record mode... These are more sequencing tools... i understand...but it's nice to have such a powerful sequencer that is becoming more and more powerful as a scoring package.. there is laser support.. ATARI laser and HP and some others (I think). Many of you Mac users might not know too much about the ATARI laser printer.. but it is FAST!... i did a 14 page 3 part piano and voice score on the laser in 6.5 minutes... i am told a postscript page in FINALE may take as much as an hour. I hope this is incorrect information... yet the person who told me uses FINALE. I wouldn't say NOTATOR's scores are Belwin Mills yet.. but.. the makers of the program are on their way. ATARI 1040ST 1 meg RAM midi ports 640x400 mono monitor and NOTATOR might only run you $1400-$1500 mail order. If it takes as long as people say it does to get a good looking score out of FINALE.. those people whose time is money might look into getting a NOTATOR package... I did 2 scores for the Pacific Northwest ballet... ONe took me less than 5 days to score and print on a 24 pin dot matrix.. 17 piece orchestra... 1hr and 20 minutes of music. -kevin ramsiri@blake.acs.washington.edu