 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: stevensfo
Date: 2006-09-14 12:55
Years ago I bought Noteworthy Composer and also have the free Finale Notepad program, but what I really want is a way of scanning sheet music and then editing it. It would only be for occasional - and amateur use. Most programs that allow this seem rather expensive.
I did a search and found Melody Assistant and Harmony Assistant from Myriad software. They seem very reasonable and they also offer a scanning program for about $15.
Has anyone used these, or could you recommend a similar program?
Thanks,
Steve
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Author: robertgh
Date: 2006-09-14 15:29
Steve,
I've used Finale PrintMusic for several months now (about 70$ downloaded). It came with SmartScore Lite, a music scanning utility which is actually more of an image recognition program that decodes the content of a scanned page. I scan a page using Photoshop, then import the Photoshopped image (jpeg or tiff) into Finale using SmartScore. The critical factor though is the precision of the initial scanned image; it must be perfectly "trued" so that scores and systems are absolutely horizontal and bar lines and stems are perpendicular. A deviation of .02 degrees can produce bizarre layer scattering once Finale imputs the page. Even the best import will still require touchup on the Finale score (though I did manage a flawless import of a page from the piano score for the Poulenc 3rd movement at one point -- meter shifts and all).
The bottom line -- as Mark Simon noted on an earlier thread -- is that scanning is still a less-than-precise art. Using midi input devices is going to be a far better option for most users unless your graphic editing skills are far superior to your keyboard playing skills (for me that's the case).
Does anyone have experience with the full versions of these programs? Are there advanced features that mitigate some of the limitations of these mid-level products? Having worked with the early generation versions of Photoshop and OmniPage (a text scanning program), I am always amazed at the current state-of-the-art capabilities that their latest versions incorporate. Music scanning software is impressive but still IMO has a long way to go to be more user-friendly for the average computer user.
Bob H.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2006-09-14 16:13
I use one of those expensive programs that allow to scan sheet music, and to be honest it does a very bad job at it. You have to work A LOT on the sheet music afterwords. I don't use the latest version though so myabe they improved it since.
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2006-09-14 20:01
I'm dissapointed in the ability of my Finally 2005b version to use scanned music. Since upgrading to 2006c, I have not tried to scan.
Another problem is that much of the music I'd like to scan is too large to be scanned with my system (limited to 8-1/2 x 11 pages.
Bob Phillips
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Author: Bennett ★2017
Date: 2006-09-14 20:10
I use SmartScore 5, the latest & greatest, and with clean originals it is pretty good. Dynamic and articulation marks often are lost; rehearsal numbers/letters seldom come through intact. It also has trouble with scores that have lots of leger lines close together, (e.g., a low clarinet note physically above a high piano note. (I've never tried it with verses).
That said, it can save an enormous amount of time. Its deskewing feature allows copy to be placed on the scanner without a lot of fuss. I should add, too, that it is far more accurate than Smart Score Lite, which is packaged with Finale.
I've got Finale 2006 as well; I think its editor is much better than SmartScore's. I scan and recognize in SmartScore and do most editing in SmartScore (which shows in coordinated split screens the original "Xerox" and the editable version). I then export the results as an .xml to Finale for some final editing, if necessary.
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Author: stevensfo
Date: 2006-09-14 20:11
"The bottom line -- as Mark Simon noted on an earlier thread -- is that scanning is still a less-than-precise art."
Yes, you're probably right- for music, though I use standard text recognition scanning without any problems.
You comments about jpeg/tiff imports are quite clear. The various formats for photo storage are a huge problem even for photo editors so I can understand the problem for music recognition programs.
I've spent a lot of time looking at reviews of various programs and most are quite old.
I will buy 'Melody Assistant' and the Scanning software from Myriad. According to the publicity, the scanning software was developed this year.
As far as I can see, Melody Assistant is like the free version of Finale, i.e. the finished product will be functional but rather 'simple' with no control over bar lines or how the final product looks.
Nevertheless, given the low price, I think it's worth trying just for the scanning software.
If it works, I can always upgrade to the full version.
Steve
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Author: robertgh
Date: 2006-09-14 21:23
Steve,
I agree that text scanning with programs such as OmniPage now delivers a nearly error-free result. And from Bennett's post above, it sounds like the premium versions of ScanScore and Finale deliver better performance than my setup (running on a Mac G5, PowerPC processor with OS 10.4). I'll look forward to hearing how you make out with your package. For that matter, I hope we get more feedback from other folks out there with experience with this whole area.
Thanks for your comments,
Bob H.
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Author: lifeforms
Date: 2006-09-14 21:27
I use photoscore professional. It's wonderful! You still will have to edit, and that depends on the sheet music to begin with. Some of the band stuff (i edit octaves etc) can be a simple check - note out of place etc, but also some bad, where you have to wonder if its faster to input from start by hand. You are limited to 300dpi min scans, usually bmp, or tiffs etc. Altho photoscore handles pdf music files very well now. The scanning engine in it is very nicely integrated, so you can hit the scan button with in the program, rather than scanning, saving, opening etc. But it works best with sibelius, which is a very pricey product ontop of the scan asoftware.
Scanning music is an art. OCR scanning on text is actually pretty good. But you pay for what you get with these sort of engines. I'd happily recommend Photoscore professional, except it has a price tag of £199. ($375)
I did originally use a program that was ok, but it was very user unfriendly, and cheap, and had a lot of errors, outputted to midi only (at that time) which meant you needed another program on top. Off hand I don't remember what it is called, but I will see if I can dig up an old instalation I have of it to get the name.
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2006-09-14 23:37
Bob H.,
Thanks for the tip on how you used PrintMusic and the Smartscore Lite. It worked fine. The alignment must be perfect but did you mean 2 degrees (.02 degrees would seem to 2/100 of a degree).
I got almost perfect import into PM using Photoshop with my scanner.
HRL
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Author: robertgh
Date: 2006-09-15 02:25
Hello, Hank,
I've used the 2/100th (0.02) as the nudge factor in my Photoshop scans to tweak the staff lines to near perfect horizontals. I use the rectangular marquee tool to then draw a perfect horizontal across the image to verify it since SmartScore Lite seems very unforgiving of any deviation from this and from perfectly vertical stems and barlines. I've also bumped the contrast once I shift to grayscale since the engraving of score pages varies from publisher to publisher as does paper quality and whiteness. While SmartScore will also scan bitmapped images, I think it is less prone to error in grayscale.
I have no doubt that newer and future versions of these programs will incorporate many of these manual adjustments into one-click features. But given the complexity of music notation and variations in engraving faces, it still amazes me when I hit playback and hear practically no clinkers from an un-tweaked fresh Finale page.
Glad it worked for you,
Bob H.
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2006-09-15 02:34
Bob H.,
Thanks for the clarification. It makes perfect sense. I'll experiment with the greyscale versus B & W.
HRL
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Author: robertgh
Date: 2006-09-15 02:45
[Another problem is that much of the music I'd like to scan is too large to be scanned with my system (limited to 8-1/2 x 11 pages.]
I know what you mean, Bob: I had an old over-sized piano score for the Saint-Saens Sonata. I turned it sideways on the scanner, did a half page at a time, then rotated the images for SmartScore scanning. Once the fragments are imported into Finale, you can cut and paste measures into your main document. This works as long you can fit the printed systems from your over-sized sheet into the scanner's reading area. And, yes—it is time consuming.
Bob H.
Post Edited (2006-09-15 03:30)
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2006-09-15 11:20
Bob H.,
You seem to have worked through many of the problems with scanning Finale software so maybe you can help me with one. The scan went well but when I open the file in PrintMusic several of the notes are red and I can't seem to find the correct tool to repair them.
Also, at the end of the stave on the right, there is a lock with a note in the center and also, a small blue stave at the far rght. I'm sure these are some cryptic indication as to what I am to do but... I've searched the manual (very poor as you know) and the website but no joy.
Thanks in advance.
HRL
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Author: stevensfo
Date: 2006-09-15 12:28
I said:
"I will buy 'Melody Assistant' and the Scanning software from Myriad. According to the publicity, the scanning software was developed this year."
Actually, after spending hours last night wading through reviews, google searches etc, I've changed my mind. The actual notation software seems as good as any other, but the scanning software has pretty poor reviews and even their own discussion forum makes this very clear indeed!
It seems to me that although there are more and more cheap music notation programs around, the actual sheet music scanning/recognition programs are still in their infancy - and this is reflected in their price!
The program that seemed to have the best reviews was 'SharpEye 2' (approx $150) which, like most music scanning software, tries to recognise the scan and exports the information either as Midi, NIFF or .xml format. The latter format seems to be the most popular and I saw that even the cheaper notation programs are now incorporating .xml import as standard.
It was all so much simpler in Mozart's time! ;-)
Steve
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Author: robertgh
Date: 2006-09-15 16:23
Hank,
Finale scores actually can consist of four separate layers of content super-imposed over each other. Most editing operations can only be carried out in one "active" layer at a time. Each layer's notation appears in a different color:black for layer 1, red layer 2, green layer 3, and blue layer 4. You can toggle between layers through the "select layer" commands under the View dropdown menu or the layer choice mini-menu in the lower left corner of your window. Be advised that each layer's measures are indepent of each other in "filling" the content (notes+rests). A scanned page can dump notes over several layers, particulary in the measure contains multiple score chords or arpeggiated passages. The scattered notes will fill measures from the left bar; thus you may need to insert rests in a layer to nudge a note back to its proper beat. Incidently, layer notes don't always reproduce accidentals—you may have the "same" note in two layers but one is missing the sharp/flat. (Made the raw scan of the Poulenc's 1st mv. sound reaallly interesting :-0 ).
The staff systems start off "locked" on the page layout. Select the "page layout" tab on the main tool pallete, check the drop down menu under "page layout" and you will find "fit music" which will unlock the systems, number of measures per system, etc. So far I haven't seen a score icon tagged blue, but then I've only worked with two-staff piano systems. BTW I'm a typical Mac-head who usually plunges in and pokes around at buttons and menus with a "gee, I wonder what THIS does?" approach. I didn't find the manual much help beyond the basics either.
Hope this helps,
Bob H.
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2006-09-15 17:23
Bob H.,
Thanks for the assist. Let me play with this to see what the solution happens to be. I'll report back.
You've been most helpful (for a Mac-head).
HRL
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Author: lifeforms
Date: 2006-09-16 02:22
SharpEye, thats the one that I originally used. I remember the name, but this was way back when it first came out. Has it improved? Not to say that it was awful when I first used it, but the midi export, whole interface was very unfriendly then.
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Author: stevensfo
Date: 2006-09-18 07:11
"SharpEye, thats the one that I originally used."
According to their website (and reviews) their second version is much better and exports in 3 formats so can be used in more notation programs. However, it costs a lot more!
Steve
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2006-09-18 11:45
Sibelius may have improved PhotoScore over the years (I'm using an old version, because I refuse to give up my legal rights by agreeing to some new provisions the company added to the contract required to upgrade or to post music on the website), but I find it much easier and faster to input music by typing it on the computer keyboard in the first place, instead of correcting the many whoopsies in a scanned score. In Sibelius, if the reason for copying the score is to transpose it, it's a simple matter to input the original without transposing, make sure the whole thing is correct, then use the "transpose" features.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2006-09-18 12:48
"In Sibelius, if the reason for copying the score is to transpose it, it's a simple matter to input the original without transposing, make sure the whole thing is correct, then use the "transpose" features."
and VERY important to do after that, is to go over the transposed part and correct all the notes Sibelius didn't transpose like you wanted (enharmonics).
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Author: John O'Janpa
Date: 2006-09-18 13:37
I used to use Smartscore to sacn and recognize the image, and then Finale for editing the image. Then I discovered that Sharpeye does a better job at recognition than Smartscore.
For me the best combination I have managed to cobble together is:
Scan in Smartscore (has good deskewing and margin adjusting capabilities and I have 10+ years experience with it)
Sharpeye to do the recognition step (best I have tried and relatively cheap)
Save as an XML file.
Import the XML file into Finale to do editing.
Cumbersome, and if bought from scratch expensive, but I've added piecemeal
over the years, and am using mostly five year old software.
My keyboard skills are almost nonexistent so this works for me.
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The Clarinet Pages
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