KVR Audio

trappist · Post by **trappist** » Sun Apr 03, 2005 11:21 pm

Music notation software? Just wondering.

TotcProductions · Post by **TotcProductions** » Sun Apr 03, 2005 11:25 pm

trappist wrote:Music notation software? Just wondering.

Yes......I have a free copy of "Pen and a piece of paper" right here.

sorry. couldn't help myself.

adydub · Post by **adydub** » Sun Apr 03, 2005 11:35 pm

Everybody I know uses Sibelius, but Google came up with this which may be useful to you:

http://www.freebyte.com/music/#free_notation

trappist · Post by **trappist** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 2:16 am

I have a free copy of "Pen and a piece of paper"

Can you post a link so I can download that?

TotcProductions · Post by **TotcProductions** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 2:21 am

trappist wrote:
I have a free copy of "Pen and a piece of paper"
Can you post a link so I can download that?

No need to...it's a direct download over at the local shoprite i think.

Rellik · Post by **Rellik** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 2:30 am

Not really any full-featured free notation software packages that I've been able to find.

TotcProductions · Post by **TotcProductions** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 3:04 am

Save your money for the next few months and buy Finale 2005...or maybe 2006 by the time you have enough to cover the price...who knows.

Finale is great though IMO from what i've seen of it. Personally, i get along very well with the notation and sheet music creation that comes built into my cubase DAW

Barnadine · Post by **Barnadine** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 3:11 am

There are a few, but none of them ideal. I struggled with lilypond for a while, but the midi input was fiddly. Might have improved since then.

kilroy · Post by **kilroy** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 3:44 am

Nothing is as fast or as accurate as a pencil and a supply of score paper.

o'malley · Post by **o'malley** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 4:41 am

TotcProductions wrote:
trappist wrote:Music notation software? Just wondering.
Yes......I have a free copy of "Pen and a piece of paper" right here. sorry. couldn't help myself.

I hear they're coming out with version 2.5 pretty soon.

TotcProductions · Post by **TotcProductions** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 4:48 am

omalley wrote:
TotcProductions wrote:
trappist wrote:Music notation software? Just wondering.
Yes......I have a free copy of "Pen and a piece of paper" right here. sorry. couldn't help myself.
I hear they're coming out with version 2.5 pretty soon.

Yes! I hear that they're instituting a new "Ruler" feature to insure accurate measurement of spaces between staffs.

peace!

brewt · Post by **brewt** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 5:33 am

Melody Assistant ($20-$40) or Harmony Assistant (%70-$90) from our friends at http://www.myriad-online.com

Not altogether free, but the demo version has enough un-crippled so's as to sufficiently tempt you from your hard-earned day's wages.

Mucho-cheaper-o than Finale.

-bjc

tobybear · Post by **tobybear** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 7:35 am

What about Finale Notepad, the free "invitation to the world of music notation software" as the put it?
http://www.finalemusic.com/notepad/

Cheers

Toby

www.tobybear.de

SparkySpark · Post by **SparkySpark** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 8:03 am

tobybear wrote:What about Finale Notepad, the free "invitation to the world of music notation software" as the put it?
http://www.finalemusic.com/notepad/

Cheers

Toby

www.tobybear.de

Tobybear is right; unless things have changed rapidly, Finale Notepad is the only decent freeware app available (unless you want to use a good sequencer's notation editor). However, if you need to do something professional, you will need Finale or Sibelius.

There used to be a third option, Igor Engraver by NoteHeads (http://www.noteheads.com). Sadly the company went under in the IT crash. (I worked as a CIO so it's even sadder for me!

) Some of our investors took over the company but I don't think there is any development anymore.

The saddest part is that we tried a freeware strategy and instead aimed to get revenue out of online sales of sheet music files produced in Igor Engraver. We couldn't imagine that musicians were way too sceptical about freeware in 2000, and as a consequence, it was almost impossible to give it away! (...which was a shame, having spent roughly USD 7 millions (!) on development.)

You can still view some rather funky videos that I made, to get an impression of what Igor Engraver did/does: http://www.noteheads.com/downloads/dl.html and then the instructional movies link.

In retrospect, a few good things did happen:

1. Some of our new features were copied into Finale and Sibelius

2. We got the Finale files format cracked and got a person to do a MusicXML format for interchanging files between these three apps

3. Our competitors copied our Community+online sales system

4. Having the most convincing playback system in the world (it still is, I think), we forced the competitors to include samplers and the like to get better sounding results

5. We forced the release of Finale Notepad (which I guess is most important to you right now).

Good luck with your sheet music!

/SparkySpark

Barnadine · Post by **Barnadine** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 2:05 pm

Interesting little slice of history, Sparky. Thanks.

Lots of free VSTi's, but is there free: