Software at your service

[musicus]

Mac is... well... erm, perfect!

Ah! A fellow disciple!

You know it, and I know it, but you are OT.

[keitha]

John Ainslie wrote<

There's an excellent free chant notation package available from http://gregoire.tele.free.fr

I have made many attempts to use gregoire but as soon as I close it after downloading it it will not fully reopen (even though I have successfully completed the registration process). The experts tell me that it may be because I use Windows Vista. Many of the remunerative things that I do require Windows and I cannot justify the cost of a Mac. I have tried the various systems that others have have very helpfully suggested following my earlier post, with very limited success, so I will run with PaulW's recommendation of Finale (which I have used for years) plus the plug-in.

Thanks to all for the recommendations, made both privately and publicly.

[musicus]

Finale and the plug-in that Paul uses are certainly capable of some very good-looking results.

[mcb]

A hymn springs to mind... Liz Poston... you know the one... Jesus Christ the Apple tree... See?

She wrote the music, but I think the words were by George Washington's father.

[Nick Baty]

And his family was from Selby, Yorkshire, and their coat of arms can be seen in the stained glass of Selby Abbey and was the inspiration for the Stars and Stripes – and, before Mr Bear growls, yes, I know it's totally OT but I love such trivia!

[Gabriel]

Has anyone looked at Igor?

I have tried Igor but I presume it is effectively defunct. I don't think it has been updated since c. 2003. For Macs it does not run in OSX and I think it had difficulties in Classic. Though it is a long time since I used it I can remember there were aspects which were better thought through than Finale.

I also use St Meinrad fonts for setting Gregorian Chant. I do it in Adobe InDesign - I could not imagine even attempting it in Word. Unlike notation software you have to a lot of the work yourself, in particular spacing and the underlay of words relative to neums. I have worked out my own process for doing it which produces OK results.

Gabriel

[Mithras]

I use Muaic Publisher 7 from Breaburn Software. It costs £100 (or an additional £80 ish if you have the scanning version which lets you scan in music from a printed score and then you can edit and transpose it).

[admin]

Mac is... well... erm, perfect!

Then you need to read this book.
And apply patches such as those highlighted here.
And, if you have other Apple products, such as the iPhone, you need to be aware of this.

No machine is perfect; to think otherwise is to be dangerously deluded. Even apples host maggots.

[musicus]

admin is quite right, of course, but I would refer to my last-but-one post. Operating System stuff is off-topic here.

[musicus]

I note (unintentional pun) that we can upload attachments with our posts. I would be very interested to see some short examples of what the output of these music programs looks like. Obviously, we would need to upload them as PDFs or graphic files, rather than Sibelius, Igor, etc.

[Nick Baty]

Posting as a test - last time I tried to attach a picture it wouldn't work. This is a Siblius file saved first as a jpg and then as a tiff:
(And, as you can see, neither will attach!)

[admin]

I cannot, on a very brief look, see why it's not working - it'll be a permissions issue, somewhere.
I'll look at it properly later on and fix it.

[TimSharrock]

I have in the past included an img link to a picture elsewhere on the internet (you may remember an iguana...), and will try that with a little of mcb's music set with my music-setter of many years ago (unless he asks me to remove it ), so you can see what progress has been made since! (This is a picture of a paper document dated 12 September 1987)

[musicus]

I...so you can see what progress has been made since!...

What? In composition? Oh, I see. You mean in notation software! (Sorry - I couldn't resist.)

That image reminds me of when I used to produce instrumental parts from C-Lab Notator on an Atari computer, printing them out on very poor printer paper (the sort with sprocket holes down each side). Nearly 30 years ago now.

[TimSharrock]

That image reminds me of when I used to produce instrumental parts from C-Lab Notator on an Atari computer, printing them out on very poor printer paper (the sort with sprocket holes down each side). Nearly 30 years ago now.

This was originally drawn on a pen-plotter in the university computer lab, then photocopied at least once, and kept in a box for 20+ years... I wonder if I have the source-code anywhere. It would be on a printout, or possibly a paper-tape... memories