Apple II Music & Sound Conference September 19, 1990 10PM EDT Subject: MusicWriter 2.0 Guest: Craig Harms Consultant for Pygraphics Forum Leader: Joyce Madden (AFL JoyceM) MC: Greg Dib (ELECTMUSIC) Forum Assistant: Gene Koh (AFA Gene) AFL JoyceM Ah....our wyrm....before we get started with this exciting chat with Pygraphics, I have some announcements, etc. First of all welcome everyone :) I talked again today with Apple re SynthLab, and we are very close to getting this program available for AO and other online services....we are waiting for info from APDA. EdwardRo Sounds terrific! AFL Marty That's great news! AFL JoyceM I would like to remind everyone that we will be giving away TWO (2) FREE hours of connect time to the person who asks the best question :). AFL JoyceM Okay...just to clarify how this is going to work this evening, I have with me (sitting to my left) Craig Harms, Consultant for Pygraphics and Vice President of Product Education with Pygraphics. He is also President of his own company - Creative Consultation Service in Colorado Springs, CO and a dealer of Pygraphics. In order for me to let you all talk with Craig and let him give you info on the upgrade MusicWriter 2.0, I need to log off and re-sign on with our guest :) In the meantime, I will let Gene mention about our contest, etc. Oh yes, Greg Dib (ELECTMUSIC) will be our MC tonight for obvious reasons:) AFA Gene Okay, Joyce'll be back in a few seconds...but with the AMS Guest screen name... Craig is actually a PHYSICAL guest of Joyce's at her home :) Well, in the meantime, I just want to remind y'all to read the new AMS Forum Contest information area from the main Music and Sound Menu. Our forum consultant, Greg Dib, (ELECTMUSIC) will be emceeing this chat. AFA Gene Welcome Craig! :) ELECTMUSIC A little Intro music first.....Pyware's MWriter is the BEST program for printing music on the GS. I have used the Limited Edition for all my notational needs in school. The comments from my student's can attest to the fact that: ... the quality is much better then the way my manuscript appears. Envious Music Educators have always asked me if this program is available in other computer platforms (which it now is). Pyware is to be commended for its initial pioneering efforts with the IIE...and especially with the GS. It gives me great pleasure to announce the pending release of "Pyware Music Writer 2.0". This release signifies a major upgrade for a most important software product. Please Welcome Craig Harms!!!!! EdwardRo Applause! AFP TimB YAH!!!!! AMS Guest Thank you everybody. It is a real pleasure for me to be here. ELECTMUSIC Craig could you fill us in on the latest version of MusicWriter? AMS Guest Sure. The 2.0 version of Music Writer has so many features which I would like to tell you about. As before the program comes in Three levels. Each level has the same features; however, the programs are different in that level I has the .cap. of only a three (3) stave score system. (I'm not accustomed to Joyce's keyboard :). Anyway level II has been upgraded from 6 staves to 8. Level Three has been upgraded from 32 stave score system to 40. Other wonderful features of the program are: Auto numbering of bars (option), Slanted beams, MIDI real and step time. Notes now appear on screen when you enter with real time. Page preview for printing purposes, Page Breaks, Performance in Jazz Style., Just to name a few. I'm open for any questions. GA ELECTMUSIC I guess we are going protocol....Type a ? to ask a question and type a ! to mention a comment EdwardRo Here's my Question: Will it be more of a sequencer, in that you can hear track being played back during recording on other staves? AMS Guest Edward...Yes Music Writer in all levels has cap. of multi-tracking. In other words...You can hear one stave while entering in another with the MIDI. AMS Guest Edward, did I answer your question? GA EdwardRo Yes, that sounds Great! ELECTMUSIC I believe there is a mini sequencer module in this program. AFP TimB Do you currently, or do you plan to at some future time add access to the new sound tool? From what I hear its not that big a deal to do this. (done). AMS Guest If you have not had a chance to see...Pygraphics has a program called Instrument Designer which will import sounds, however, we have not yet worked on importing other sounds from other sources. GA Whistles What printers are supported; maybe HP's "Deskjet +" by any chance? GA AMS Guest At this time laser printers are supported, however only in Bit Map. If anybody has a good Post script program for GS we would like to know. Call us in Grapevine Texas---1-817-481-7536. AFP TimB I think maybe I didn't phrase my question correctly. When I asked about the new sound tool. I meant the midiSYNTH tool (not sound alone but more of improved access to high quality music on the GS. Musicwriter could access these or write sequences to this format, etc. etc. Joyce'll play some for you after this chat. AMS Guest If I understand your question...Music Writer 2.0 will import standard MIDI File, however, Music Writer is a notational program and quality of sounds perhaps is lacking at this time, however, it is something I will take back to Pygraphics. Thank you. GA AFL Dennis Bill Heinaman may be able to help you on the printing stuff, screen name BurgerBill. AMS Guest ...Yes I did here the SynthLab. :) Thanks Dennis.. I'll have Joyce check it out. GA DangardAce Hokay. I got bumped by the system during the intro, so bear with me if I repeat anything. First, will Music Writer have REAL TIME MIDI input? Would you put in Professional Composer's class on the Mac? Also, will there be enhanced support of the ImageWriter.. there is already a well known trick that Claris Corporation uses in their ImageWriter driver that uses the font that is double the size of the one notated in the software and simply scales it down by printing the double size font in condensed mode without having to pay big bucks to Adobe for the Sonata Font. :) GA ELECTMUSIC (Other new features: no MIDI input size limitation or playback size limitation) AFL Dennis (like the new features!) AMS Guest To answer your first question...Yes, Music Writer does alow for both Real and Step time entry. Plus we have added a new feature called MIDI Mouse..How they came up with that term I have no idea. It allows for one to enter manually with the mouse and when one needs to insert a chord. Elect the value and play the chord on the MIDI. Music Writer 2.0 now will show the notes on screen as you play in both real and step time. Also, when entering in step time one can press the first letter of the value Q for quarter note H for Half note on the computer keyboard and play the appropriate pitches on the keyboard. To answer your qestions about image writer tricks. No, I was not aware of those. I would like to hear more. Perhaps you could let me know somethime. Call me...or leave it here on America On Line. GA ELECTMUSIC (New Features: More symbols on tool palette are displayed at ONE time) Michael515 Has the printout quality to both IW 2 and LaserWriters been improved ANY? Specifically, a friend of mine said everything was too blocky looking, jagged...not smooth enough. ELECTMUSIC (New Feature: Staff control tools for moving and controlling staff placement) AFA Gene (If your printer settings are not right (i.e. Printer Setup) you'll get large blocky print... but if set correctly MW outputs the best sheet music the GS can produce) AMS Guest On IW 2 the printout is still "blocky" however, it is faster. Printout on laser will be better, but not as good as Mac version...WE do not have PostScript as yet. As for controlling staff placement...We have really improved that feature, Instead of adding ledger lines to open staff. there is a staff tool which when chosen will allow one to simply drag open the staves to give you more space for lyrics and other symbols. GA ELECTMUSIC (New Feature: Page Preview for Printing) Michael515 ok, thanks. EdwardRo Does recognition of standard MIDI files mean we won't need MIDI Translator anymore? And, will there be any changes to Instrument Designer? AMS Guest Correct...For those who invested in MIDI Translator...your update will cost only $50.00 We have included that function with the verison 2.0. GA ELECTMUSIC (New Features: Added Play Flexibility) AMS Guest Some other great features on 2.0...We have eliminated the 400 note buffer as related to play back. In addition one can (as found in a sequencing program) multi track as stated before, play non adjacent staves, and change volume of play back. GA DangardAce Regarding the MIDI Translator, was the speed of it improved any? ELECTMUSIC (good question!) Alex Coke Is it pretty easy to line up chord changes above the staff (rhythmically correct/) and is this availible for the mac ? (done) DangardAce Also, does the program still use only one font file to draw its symbols from? AMS Guest Yes...We have added Chord symb. as part of the program palette which can be transposed along with the melodic and harmonic lines. Regarding Midi translator speed, the size of the file and number of staves will still dictate speed. To be honest with you...I haven't had a chance to work with a large file yet. Can you elaborate on question concerning font files? ELECTMUSIC (Sounds to me like the GS versions is better then the Mac) DangardAce Well, the original Music Writer only drew its font from one file with all the standard symbols. If you provided a font file that was exactly double the size of your current one (of course it would have to be touched up to take advantage of the extra resolution) then users could take the Claris Imagewriter driver and print much better looking printouts, depending on whether or not you address the Print Manager in the Apple "Standard" fashion. AMS Guest Yes. The Mac version was developed when requested.. All features found in the Mac and IBM version are now in the GS version. We have tried to keep all platforms the same as related to Music Writer and Charting Aid. AFA Gene Question: the original Music writer was written under SlowDOS 16... (1) is the v2.0 shipped with System 5.0 and (2) was it written to support 5.0's faster environment? AMS Guest Yes...Every user will receive a 5.02 Boot disk to take advantage of faster printing functions, drawing function, and disk access. GA EdwardRo How about pricing and upgrades? AMS Guest Creative Consultation Service is a full service and support dealer. I would be more than happy to work with any of you on America Online. New users can purhcase any Music Writer program through C.C.S. 719-687-2210 at a 15% discount now and 15 days following this conference. Those of you who wish upgrades to 2.0 can contact Pygraphics directly. Those currently owning MW without MIDI Translator will pay $100.00 for upgrade. Those owning MIDI Translator will pay $50.00 to Pygraphcis. Also, I want to point out that one can move from level I to level II or level III by paying only difference for upgrade. I also want to point out that I would be more than happy to send any on this line more material or answer questions if you wish to call. Are there any more questions? GA Michael515 Just a thought but maybe you could contact Vitesse. They're developing some sort of scaleable font package. AFA Gene Good point, Mike. ELECTMUSIC Craig, I would like to point out that some hardware considerations are important when running 2.0. Could you mention the importance of a hard drive.. etc. AMS Guest I would like to mention that we are advising that users of 2.0 have (1) either two 3.5 disk drives or hard disk. In addition, one must have at least 1.25 Meg of memory. We also are suggesting for those who are writing large scores to install an accel. card. ELECTMUSIC Craig, could mention where to contact Pyware for additional questions. DangardAce Is Music Writer still using its own proprietary format for song files? So that means MW2.0 has been tested and gets along fine with accelerators. AMS Guest You can either call Pygraphics directly at 817-481-7536 or myself 719-687-2210 AFA Gene Just "how large" does a score have to be where the absence of an accelerator hampers performance? AMS Guest To answer a couple of questions. Yes the program has been tested with accel. cards and works quite well. The other question pertains to size of score...Any instrumental piece which has more than four staves would be enhanced with accel. ELECTMUSIC I would like to offer Craig my sincere thanks for coming online we have some announcement... Gene? AFA Gene Congratulations EDWARDRO and MICHAEL515, you both have won an hour of free connect time for your interesting questions tonite! ()()()()() ELECTMUSIC Summing up: This release signifies a major upgrade for a most important software product. EdwardRo THANKS! Michael515 thanks! ELECTMUSIC Thanks to Pyware for supporting the GS... AFA Gene No problem, Ed/Mike :) it'll show up on yer account statement within 5 business days. Michael515 BTW, will there be a text file available for download that lists all the new features? AFL SandyB Joyce, and all, thanks for one stupendous hour+...of information and // excitement! AMS Guest Thank you gang for giving Pygraphics and myself this opportunity. We to are really excited about this product. Joyce will type in a list of all the new features and an exciting price packs. AMS Guest Thanks....and hope to be back again soon :) EdwardRo Great! AFL JoyceM Thanks all for making this an exciting chat...very informative and great questions. DangardAce Finally, something my boss can advertise nationally in Keyboard. AFL SandyB Joyce, thanks for arranging tonight and putting together a conference package that was tops! AFL JoyceM Thanks Greg for MCing...great job:) You're welcome, Sandy :) A log of this chat will be up in a couple of days for you all that missed this chat :) AMS Guest Night...and thanks again.# ELECTMUSIC This concludes tonights Chat America Online - 1990 Editors comments: Craig Harms Pygraphics Creative Consultation Service P.O. Box 639 P.O. Box 331 Grapevine, TX 76051 Woodland Park, CO 80866 817/481-7536 719/687-2210