 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Slowoldman
Date: 2023-11-02 00:36
In searching the BBoard, it looks like it's been a few years since this topic has been reviewed, and of course software can change quickly.
I've been given a score to play which is written for Bb clarinet, but it's clear that several movements would be much easier on A clarinet. Is there anything new out there that has improved the import from PDF files? Is there a better program than 7 years ago to do the actual transposition once the files are imported?
What would you all suggest to accomplish this task? (The easier, the better--I'm not great at computer manipulation!)
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Author: kdk
Date: 2023-11-02 05:00
My goto is Neuratron Photoscore for scanning the music and creating a music XML file and then Finale to do the editing (transposing or more).
There are also Musitec SmartScore for scanning to MusicXML and Sibelius for editing the XML result.
But they're pricey. There's MuseScore, which is, I think, free and will do the transposition and import Music XML, but as far as I know doesn't have scanning capability of its own.
What have you been using and what do you already own?
Karl
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Author: kilo
Date: 2023-11-02 14:08
My clarinet technician, who also plays in a number of local groups, really likes ScanScore. I played around with it a bit but found that after the rough scan was completed, the subsequent editing took as much time as simply entering the music on Finale and transposing it. I've heard good things about it and I'm sure it gets easier the more you use the program but I found it rather daunting.
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Author: lydian
Date: 2023-11-02 19:06
Musescore does have an online PDF scanning tool. But it’s not very good. I usually have to do a lot of cleanup.
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Author: Slowoldman
Date: 2023-11-02 19:58
Karl,
I haven't ventured into this before, so I don't have any programs downloaded yet. The previous forums on this were less-than-encouraging in terms of user-friendliness.
I'm hoping something simpler has become available. Again, the easier and more automatic, the better.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2023-11-02 23:49
Slowoldman wrote:
>The previous forums on this were
> less-than-encouraging in terms of user-friendliness.
> I'm hoping something simpler has become available. Again, the
> easier and more automatic, the better.
I don't think the state of the art is that advanced yet. It's like word-processing software - the simpler it gets, the less you can do with it.
Karl
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Author: Grendel McGrenadill
Date: 2023-11-03 12:33
I played around with the SmartScore demo recently and though it takes a while to understand it, I did get some very good results.
Not sure the whopping 399$ would be worth it for you ...
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Author: kdk
Date: 2023-11-03 18:23
You can also look at Visiv's SharpEye Music Reader (http://www.visiv.co.uk/index.htm. I'm not sure how much it has been maintained since its last upgrade, apparently in 2018. It currently costs $169.
But you need a separate music editor. The combination of SharpEye and MuseScore is probably the least expensive way to do this. I can't attest to the difficulty of using either. I haven't used SharpEye in several years (it was easy to use back then) and I've spent almost no time with MuseScore.
Karl
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2023-11-03 20:17
I do this quite a lot. I use photoscore ultimate to scan the pdf. It works really really well as long as I check the key signature and assign the instrument names while the music is still in photoscore. There is way to change the key signature and instrument name in photoscore, if it has been scanned wrongly, and if I do that, then everything else just works.
After fixing those two things, I then save out as MusicXML and then I import into Dorico which also works brilliantly. I don't find that Sibelius is as good as Dorico. I have tried musescore, but not enough to know if it is as good as Dorico.
Sibelius is good if you want to write scripts to batch process scores, and I do use it for that. It is also a bit better for desktop publishing an existing score as there are more controls on the appearance of the score. I find Dorico better for actually creating the music in the first place.
I understand that Dorico is written by the same people as write Sibelius, but after Sibelius was bought, they went and formed a new company and started from scatch, and wrote Dorico in a different way, correcting all the things that they wished they had done differently in Sibelius. I think it really shows in the quality of Dorico.
The cheaper version of photoscore ultimate is not as good as it doesn't bother to scan slurs and some other marks, and then those all have to be put in by hand, which is time consuming.
Dorico and photoscore ultimate cost a bit, but I think it is worth it if you have the money.
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Author: Bennett ★2017
Date: 2023-11-03 21:24
I use Musitek's Smart Score. The piano edition (2 systems) is US $79 and works just fine if there is just one system to work with. It's quite accurate in scanning and recognizing clean, high contrast music originals (or pdfs). The grungier the original, the worse the scanning accuracy. It includes a quite serviceable editor which can transpose, change clef and has a very nice feature that lets you look at the original and the scanned version at the same time, which makes comparing and correcting much easier. It will also export music xml files. Versions for Windows and Mac are available. A free demo version is here: https://www.musitek.com/demos.html
If you have a pdf score but only wish to transpose the clarinet part, you can use the free http://partifi.org to pull out the clarinet part from the score.
Post Edited (2023-11-04 21:09)
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