Music Software
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On this page we review music software in
an attempt to afford you, dear reader our opinions of the good, the bad and the ugly.
These reviews will of course reflect the views and prejudices
ABC Software - Reviews.- Windows
- UNIX
- Macintosh
- MIDI Software - Reviews.
- Windows
- UNIX
- Macintosh
ABC Software
for MS Windows Environments
- ABC notation is a
wonderfully useful tool for sharing traditional tunes in the age of computers. While
images of standard notation are useful in conveying a 'finished work', they use quite a
bit of network bandwidth. Images are also not suitable for editing the music - to add a
melodic variation, grace notes or chord patterns. While the language is somewhat limited
by classical notation standards it is very well suited to the Western traditional music
for which it was designed. To quote from its originator's (Chris Walshaw C.Walshaw@GREENWICH.AC.UK)
web site:
- abc is a language designed to notate tunes in
an ascii format. It was designed primarily for folk and traditional tunes of Western
European origin (such as English, Irish and Scottish) which can be written on one stave in
standard classical notation. However, it is extendible to many other types of music and
recently Steve Allen has coded Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, Movement 2 in abc! Since its
introduction at the end of 1991 it has become very popular and there now exist several PC
and UNIX based tools which can read abc notation and either process it into staff notation
or play it through the speakers of a computer.
One of the most important aims of abc notation, and perhaps one that distinguishes it from
most, if not all, computer-readable musical languages is that it can be easily read by
humans. In other words, with a little practice, it is possible to play a tune directly
from the abc notation without having to process and print it out. Even if this isn't of
interest, the resulting clarity of the notation makes it fairly easy to notate tunes. In
addition, the ability to write music in abc notation means that it can be easily and
portably stored or transported electronically hence enabling the discussion and
dissemination of music via email.
- Current Reviews:
- ABC2WIN - Editor,
librarian, publishing mogul.
- Availability: Jim Vint's ABC2WIN Home Page
Price: Free Shareware Download, Registered version $ 20.00
(printing enabled)
Reviewer: Tom
deLombarde tomd@blackflute.com
Review Date: 11
April 1999
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- I found ABC2WIN several years ago while
looking for a replacement for an expensive and capable MSDOS music publishing package
called Score. Score was an excellent but difficult to use
application that relied on the PostScript printer control language, and my last PS printer
had died.
-
- In my search I tried to use the 'industry
standard' Windows MIDI sequencer Cakewalk which has printing
features. Cakewalk, while a wonderful MIDI application, falls far short in the printing
department.
-
- Enter ABC2WIN: what a relief! A truly
professional notation package with great control over page layout, appearance and
organization, it also acts as a librarian. One can organize ABC tunes into play lists,
edit the ABC notation, save selected tunes to different files, render tunes in standard
notation (to screen and printer). By rendering to the screen and copying the bitmap to the
Windows paste buffer, images can be manipulated and saved using your favorite paint
application (PhotoShop, Windows Paint, etc.).
-
- In short, this software is a must for anyone
wishing to manage and print traditional music. When I found it, I was looking for a
replacement for a $ 1000.00 (in 1985) application. ABC2WIN does almost everything that
package did (limited more by ABC than program design) in the publishing end plus many
features not even thought of by the Score application.
-
- All of the tunes on this web site started
out in ABC2WIN. The music was entered in ABC notation. From there, a screen rendering was
copied into PhotoShop for the GIF images and the MIDI files were generated by using
ABC2MIDI.
-
- Playback capabilities are minimal - simple
melody line played on the PC speaker. This does at least allow one to 'browse' through
collections. The simple playback is also a good auditory test of one's input - I often
make mistakes during input and a simple 'listen' always points these out.
-
- Although ABC has been extended to allow
multiple staff notation, ABC2WIN only recognizes and uses one staff. This has not proven
to be a limitation to us as we use it for Celtic tunes - melody and chords.
-
- Summary: In
the event that you haven't noticed, I love this software for managing play lists, editing
and arranging tunes and creating tunebooks for the band.
ABC2WIN's weak areas (lack of MIDI capabilities, limited playback) are aptly handled by
other software and conversion utilities are freely available.
Jim's goal for this application have been well met. As a software developer, I understand
very well that building a package that will "Do Everything" is beyond what can
be expected of any non-commercial developer - in this situation, one should concentrate
upon their goals. But ...
(Thinly veiled plea to Windows software authors) One of the nice "under the
hood" features of MS Windows is its ability to share data between different
applications. It would be nice to see authors of Windows software use these facilities
more. In the music realm, someone might develop an Application Programming Interface (API)
to allow bridges between applications like ABC2WIN and Cakewalk or ABCMUS.
The only real irritation to me about this package is so trivial that I hesitate to mention
it. That is ABC2WIN's insistence upon "formatting" the body of tunes. I like to
place {x} number of bars per line - this helps me keep my place in the tune. ABC2WIN
breaks lines at about 72 characters. It would be nice to have been allowed a choice in
this matter.
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- ABCMUS - ABC notation toolkit.
- Availability: Henrik Norbek's web site: ABCMUS Home Page
Price: Free Shareware Download, Registered version approx.
US$ 10.00
Reviewer: Tom
deLombarde tomd@blackflute.com
Review Date: 11
April 1999
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- While ABC2WIN is strong in the display and printing of standard
notation and weak in playback, ABCMUS is nearly opposite. No attempt is made by ABCMUS to
display or print ABC tunes in standard notation. ABCMUS does have very nice playback
capabilities - Henrik's web site asks rhetorically: "The best ABC player software
so far?".
-
- While ABCMUS serves many functions and has
many features, the facet that most interests me is its chord setting functionality (Cyber
Backer). This program reads an ABC tune and infers accompanying chords based upon the
melodic and modal structure of the tune. A 'Strangeness' setting allows one
to experiment with accompaniments beyond the basics.
Other features include:
- MIDI playback - whole tune or selected sections.
- Search for text in file - including a 'loose' search.
- 'Librarian' functions - copy, arrange, select tunes into lists or
songbooks.
- Import/Export - import from three popular formats, export as MIDI.
-
- Summary: At
this writing, I have not fully evaluated this package, but it looks like it will be great
fun and very useful. In the near future I plan to negotiate the monetary exchange and
register my copy, so stay tuned for an update of this review.
The evaluation version displayed a few hiccups that seem to only appear on an i486
platform but not on Pentium based systems. These include a "Divide by Zero"
crash when attempting to set chords and confusion while removing/resetting chords - bits
of the chords were not removed resulting in unclosed quotes. My E-mail requests about
these problems have been unanswered.
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ABC Software for UNIX/LINUX
Environments
ABC Software for Macintosh
Environments
MIDI Software for MS Windows
Environments
MIDI Software for UNIX/LINUX
Environments
MIDI Software for Macintosh
Environments
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