Song Writing Software
By Peter Steiger, forwarded by Terry Smythe
Forwarded Message from the SPEBSQSA Automated Mailing List
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 1995 17:35:28 -0500
From: Peter Steiger <pbs@METRONET.COM>
Subject: Re: music writing software
On Fri, 13 Oct 1995, Anja Johansson wrote:
> Before Finale, I used another program called "Professional Composer",
> which is easier to use, but leaves you less freedom in layout (it is
> difficult to make different rythm patterns in the different parts, for
> example), and the playback features are not so good.
>
> Anyone who wants to discuss this further is welcome to email me
> private (or to the whole list, if you think it will interest more people).
>
What the heck, this is worthy of some wasted bandwidth. I'd like to hear from others on specific likes and dislikes about software they've tried.
I came THIS CLOSE >< to buying "Songwright"; from all the ads it sounded perfect. Fortunately, a friend who already had it let me try it out before I threw money after it. I'm glad I tried it first: I was very disappointed. I'm sure the output quality is fabulous, but apart from the samples that came with the program, I never got to find out. I spent about a half a day trying to enter a simple four-part arrangement, and never got it to play back correctly.
Then I found a demo if "Winsong", and I was hooked. It took me 10 minutes to get it installed and start entering music. I didn't even need to refer to the extensive online help: It's that intuitive.
I don't go in for all that fancy sequencer stuff; I just want to put notes on a staff and play them back or print them out. I like to easily add or change instrument assignments, volume, etc., and Winsong lets me do that and more with a quick click and drag. I can put as many parts as I want on a single staff, or put every part on a separate staff, and copy/transpose sections all over the page. In short, composition is a dream.
When you're finished, you can save your work as a MIDI file or in the proprietary format WinSong uses (it also reads in MIDI songs developed elsewhere, and accepts data entry directly from a MIDI instrument). What else? Oh, it handles triplets (up to quintuplets, actually) nicely, dotted notes, staccato notes, key signature and time signature changes, ties (on the same note only), and dynamics, all of which affect the sound through any FM-synthesizer or MIDI device that Windows recognizes.
That's the upside. Alas, nothing is perfect (especially for $80 in a market typically dominated by software that costs 10 times that much). Printouts can be beautiful: The program also allows placement of lyrics, dynamics, and many other notational devices that do not affect the play but do enhance the printed page. However, you have to go through some painful gymnastics on-screen (moving each staff various distances from the top of the screen and each other) to get the right inter-staff spacing on the printed page. That can be a real chore, and entering lyrics is rather tricky: You can only enter enough words to fill a few beats, and then click to another tool (indicating that "snip" of lyric is complete) or the program will not align lyrics with measures. Font and scaling options are extremely limited. The result is a serviceable, but unwieldy, printout system.
When I first got interested in WinSong, the author was an active participant in Compuserve discussions about MIDI. Nowadays, he's long since disappeared and his grandiose plans for improvements never came to pass. Worse, when I called the manufacturer (Softronics), they said there are no further updates planned for the product.
Still, for $80, it's one of the easiest notation programs I've ever seen. Even for its flaws and lack of support, it's far better than many of the $500 programs I've test-driven. Many times my aggravation with some of WinSong's weaker points have sent me in search of something better, and every time I've come back to WinSong after a disappointing (and fruitless) search.
Still, I'm always interested in hearing about other peoples' favorite utilities.
pbs
bass, "Harmonically Challenged" barbershop quartet
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