Many notation editors

Do you typeset your scores on Linux? Share your thoughts, tips, and tricks here.

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Which notation editor do you use most?

NtEd
3
15%
Mscore
2
10%
Rosegarden
8
40%
denemo
1
5%
Lilypond
5
25%
Finale (using wine hq)
1
5%
Canorus
0
No votes
ABC
0
No votes
musiXteX
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 20

studio32

Many notation editors

Post by studio32 »

Notation editors are developing fast in the world of linux audio. Which do you use the most?

I don't use them a lot till now, but for quick builds nted is very fast...
But the new rosegarden has a improved notation editor which I have to try...
Mscore looks nice too, a bit comparable too Finale in my opinion....
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Post by thorgal »

none of them, I don't read notes and music sheets ... :oops:
studio32

Post by studio32 »

Good new today... the keyboard function of nted is improved (0.24.1)and will make things faster: http://vsr.informatik.tu-chemnitz.de/st ... nted.xhtml
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Post by raboof »

I voted for Rosegarden, but lately I've been writing Lilypond directly quite a bit. Still looking for the perfect combination of features :)
studio32

Post by studio32 »

thorgal wrote:none of them, I don't read notes and music sheets ... :oops:
You can learn it...

Buy a simple theory book and part one of a piano learning method and practice a quarter till a half an hour per day...

Or get lessons!
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Post by wbsoft »

You forgot MUP www.arkkra.com, which is also very powerful, mature and continuously developed. Distributed in sourcecode but not free software or open source (you need to buy a license).
Martin Tarenskeen
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My vote goes to ...

Post by Martin Tarenskeen »

Interesting Poll. Would be more interesting if LinuxMusicians was known and visited by more Linux Musicians.

Comments:

I use Rosegarden frequently, but not to edit scores.
Using a full featured sequencer as a score editor ? No thanks.

I use Noteedit frequently, but this is NOT listed in the poll. I know development has stopped. But I still use it. It is the only score editor that handles Lilypond and ABC and MusicXML and MIDI and more !

MUP from Arkkra is the score editor I use most. Not listed either!!

I also like ABC for simple tunes with melody/chords/lyrics. Programs to use: abcm2ps and the abcMIDI package. (abc2midi, midi2abc, and more)

I find NtEd promising. Wysiyg + Lilypond export makes a nice combi.

Canorus? Too much promises. But I can't even create a simple score with it (yet). A good score editor must be designed to create and edit high quality scores in an efficient and musician-friendly way. Everything else seems to be overkill IMO.

My favorite score editor? My vote goes to.: Vim :-)
studio32

Re: My vote goes to ...

Post by studio32 »

Martin Tarenskeen wrote: Would be more interesting if LinuxMusicians was known and visited by more Linux Musicians.
Linuxmusicians is quite new... but I think you're right. Just tell it your musician friends and your open source friends! :)
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Re: Many notation editors

Post by nils »

My vote for Denemo. It is a bit redundant to have Denemo and Lilypond in the same voting..

Its Denemo because its a)lilypond . As the two lilypond-voters (until now) certainly would agree its produces just the best output. Since Denemo is mainly a GUI for lilypond its the same output.
And I don't like WYSIWYG, there is no need for it.. further argumentation see the lilypond website.

But I like to think and work directly in notation and have a graphical view. Unlike TeX notation is not letters so the native form of notes are not letter-combination but notes themselves.

The most and standard lilypond features are already included and Denemo develops faster than the other notation apps so its only a matter of time. Additionally you can enter (and save) a lilypond \command at any time and place in your staffs. If you need to make bigger changes you have an integrated texteditor where you can change the lilypond-code directly.

Practically I prefer Denemo because it has an unlimited, scrolling view ("Sequencer" or "Studio" view) from left to right and not a paperlike view, which is a big plus.

Also its completly keyboard-centric so its speedy and robust (but you can use the mouse if you want). Its possible to change every keybinding/mousecommand to your needs and there are several modes to switch between different keybindings and behaviours.

The killerfeature is the guile/scheme scripting interpreter which is build in. You can write your own scripts or even just record a chain of commands without knowing the scheme-language. This makes is more flexibel and feature-rich than the other apps.
Its possible to iterate through your staffs (for example change every note to another to generate notation for your drummer out of a GM-drum staff) or just build often used command-chains and save them as a script and assign an keyboard-shortcut to the whole process.

Other nice features are microphone input, so you can sing notes into Denemo.

The contra-point is that Denemo lacks of an proper midi-interface. You can't record with your midi-instrument and you can't live playback midi to connect it to linuxsampler or any other synth/sampler.
But the day will come where you can use Midi and jacktransport to have a notationapp synced with your other apps. Maybe you are a c-programmer and want to help?

Nils
studio32

Re: Many notation editors

Post by studio32 »

Hey Nils, welcome at our forum :)

Maybe I've to check out the new Denemo... but Denemo isn't the fastest in development, I think that's NtEd IMHO... ;)
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Re: Many notation editors

Post by raboof »

NilsGey wrote:The contra-point is that Denemo lacks of an proper midi-interface. You can't record with your midi-instrument and you can't live playback midi to connect it to linuxsampler or any other synth/sampler.
But the day will come where you can use Midi and jacktransport to have a notationapp synced with your other apps.
That sort of thing would indeed be tremendously helpful, and it seems none of the notation editors (except perhaps Rosegarden) are supporting this kind of integration.
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Re: Many notation editors

Post by aidy »

I write pure lilypond, it's not that hard :)
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Re: Many notation editors

Post by nils »

To the pure lilypond users:

I'm asking myself if you use lilypond in textmode to actually composer your music, directly from your brain to the computer or do you only transfer music from paper.

For me I need the compose option and I don't want to use paper. I don't need to hear the notes but I need to see them so I need a GUI.
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Re: Many notation editors

Post by raboof »

NilsGey wrote:For me I need the compose option and I don't want to use paper. I don't need to hear the notes but I need to see them so I need a GUI.
When I arrange directly in lilypond (I haven't standardized on a specific workflow yet) I keep a PDF viewer open in which I regularly refresh the (re)generated sheet.
studio32

Re: Many notation editors

Post by studio32 »

NilsGey wrote:To the pure lilypond users:

I'm asking myself if you use lilypond in textmode to actually composer your music, directly from your brain to the computer or do you only transfer music from paper.

For me I need the compose option and I don't want to use paper. I don't need to hear the notes but I need to see them so I need a GUI.
Lilykde does have a quick preview and play midi option in the log... it's pretty fast!
I think lilypondtool does have something like that too
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