What notation editor do you use and why?

[alex stone]

Nils, on a sort of related note, I've been experimenting with Laborejo. As one would expect, it produces an elegant lilypond output.

I'd include it in a discussion about engravers/notation apps.

I am still working on Laborejo, but I have given up on actively getting anyone to use it. Not because I tried and failed but because I don't want to anymore. It's just a small hobby project now, "recreational programming" for my own fun.
Laborejo is still not a Lilypond-frontend though, even though you can use it to quickly export simple arrangements.

For serious notation, printed or pdf for me the only way has been, and still is, to write Lilypond textfiles.

Understood. It's easy to use as it is already.. And in the "suite" of apps you built, Tembro and Fluaho, hosted in Agorejo, are useful for quickly recording ideas.

[j_e_f_f_g]

I use Musescore. Musescore works with JACK. Painlessly for me, but I'm sure jeff could make a mess of it

Apparently, you're much more likely to make a mess of setting up MuseScore 4.0 with JACK than I am.

[alex stone]

I use Musescore. Musescore works with JACK. Painlessly for me, but I'm sure jeff could make a mess of it

Apparently, you're much more likely to make a mess of setting up MuseScore 4.0 with JACK than I am.

Which is somewhat ironic, given jack is not in the current Alpha for Musescore4's new audio engine, and may not be added.

[j_e_f_f_g]

Which is somewhat ironic

Indeed. Irony was the form of humor I was employing here. Although with Merlin, it could just as easily be farce.

[GMaq]

If you have a system with PulseAudio bridges working properly with JACK you could still route MuseScore 4 through an operating JACK setup though.. Maybe PipeWire too? (dunno, don't care to know yet)

But jeez, removing both VST and SFZ support... are they on a throwback Thursday kick or what..? In what universe is SFZ in addition to Soundfont2 not a progressive step forward..? Especially to a big multiplatform Score Editor that wants to run with the big boys

When they start pulling support for features from the Linux builds only then you know the slope is about to get slippery..

[Largos]

What notation editor do you use and why?

I'm thinking of writing some melodies down. But that's very hard in just a simple text file (or word processor for that matter). I lean towards trying Lilypond because you can quickly make a simple text based file to convert to PDF later and it works in LaTeX too.

On the other hand Musescore's GUI looks very clear, polished and non-intimidating.

I'm not a notation person but this looks like a decent way of using lilypond https://www.frescobaldi.org/

[Kott]

But jeez, removing both VST and SFZ support...

VST is disabled in the current alpha AppImage builds.
So you can try to re-build it with vst support. I did that and MS4 tries to load VST3 plugins, but too many crashes.

[j_e_f_f_g]

If they're dropping notable support from the Linux version, they may indeed be contemplating focusing on the Windows and Mac versions only. But what concerns me more is a growing trend of developers delivering their binaries in the form of AppImage, Snap, or Flatpack. I said it before, but people just don't seem to be able to recognize the significance of these trends, so I'll say it again: If music devs don't step up and rally around some "standard base music OS" as a target for their executables, then we're going to end up with only AppImage, Snap, or Flatpack choices. Packagers (including the endusers who do stuff like AUR) aren't going to avert this trend. Only devs can do it (at this point. Before long, it will be too late even for them).

[alex stone]

If you have a system with PulseAudio bridges working properly with JACK you could still route MuseScore 4 through an operating JACK setup though.. Maybe PipeWire too? (dunno, don't care to know yet)


But jeez, removing both VST and SFZ support... are they on a throwback Thursday kick or what..? In what universe is SFZ in addition to Soundfont2 not a progressive step forward..? Especially to a big multiplatform Score Editor that wants to run with the big boys

When they start pulling support for features from the Linux builds only then you know the slope is about to get slippery..

Yep. It seems inevitable Linux will be a lower priority. I hope i'm wrong, but the "we're still going to support Linux" line seems tired and predictable, and a throwaway to deflect having to release a statement. We've heard that before, right?

I asked directly if JACK would be included, in response to the above statement, and have yet to get a reply.

If a user is setting up a serious studio, pulseaudio is unlikely to be part of that. Killing JACK shuts the door to linux, at least partially, and it would be an excuse for the company that owns Musescore to say "There are now so few linux users, we can't afford to give a Linux version our valuable dev time, when we reach far more users in Win and Mac."

[Linuxmusician01]

What notation editor do you use and why?

I'm thinking of writing some melodies down. But that's very hard in just a simple text file (or word processor for that matter). I lean towards trying Lilypond because you can quickly make a simple text based file to convert to PDF later and it works in LaTeX too.

On the other hand Musescore's GUI looks very clear, polished and non-intimidating.

I'm not a notation person but this looks like a decent way of using lilypond https://www.frescobaldi.org/

Yeah. There are 2 frontends to Lilipond. One uses GTK (i.e. Gnome-like): Denemo. And one in Qt (KDE-like): Frescobaldi.

Given the fact that I read in this here topic that Musescore appears to not focus on Linux anymore I think I'm going the Lilypond way. The GUI's look awesome and the tutorial on the official website on how to make the text based .ly files is very, very good!

[merlyn]

... A new orchestral library "Muse Sounds" will be availlable for Linux.

I think that tells us how Musescore 4 would work on Linux. It's like the app JJazzlab, if you've used that. JJazzlab outputs MIDI only, and to use a soundfont with it, and there is a JJazzlab soundfont, an external soundfont player is used, connected through ALSA MIDI using aconnect.

Some people asked for JACK support in JJazzlab, but it isn't required. The external soundfont player can use JACK.

What has happened is that the soundfont player built into Musescore 3 has been taken out. It may be slightly more hassle, but Musescore 4 will still work.

[Linuxmusician01]

[about Musescore] Killing JACK shuts the door to linux, at least partially, [...]

Maybe they want to focus on the follow up of Jack and PulseAudio: Pipewire. But I'm afraid the truth is, like others said here, that Musescore is moving away from Linux and steering towards Windows/Mac. I'm not going to waste time on getting used to Musescore. They may even be contemplating on making it into paid software. It isn't open source, is it? Because then a free Linux fork may be arise, but I highly doubt that.

[merlyn]

... They may even be contemplating on making it into paid software. It isn't open source, is it? Because then a free Linux fork may be arise, but I highly doubt that.

It's free and open source. Could be forked (ask nils to add it to the list ). Paid software? pffft. That's so 20th century. The 21st century business model is to get a user base, then monetise it. Getting the user base is the first step -- you don't have to have a clear idea of how to monetise the user base when starting out.

Musescore (more correctly the bastards from hell known as The Muse Group) are already doing this. In addition to the app there is the Musescore community and website which has tons of uploaded sheet music. I have Musescore on a tablet, and the tablet version is more of a viewer for the Musescore content than a notation editor. It constantly asks me to subscribe to get premium content.

[Largos]

I downloaded the Musescore4 alpha appimage to have a look. When I opened it, it came up with setup dialog asking what what colour theme I want. Then it gave me the option to download their sound library. The button didn't work and I can't find a way to get to this prompt again other than using the factory reset option. There is a "basic" soundfont included though.

They have added this tab bar with three options "Home" "Score" and "Publish". Home you can login with an account, create and navigate scores, activate plugins and navigate to tutorial videos on youtube. Score is the view you see now. Publish is print and export options.

In the Score section, there are now two big buttons top centre to select the mixer and parts menus. Honestly this U.I. looks to have been changed not for user convenience but to highlight their new features "look what we done". They seem to have removed almost all right click menus. There's no layout customisation any more, the only section I could get to undock is the mixer. There is some anti aliasing failure with the menu texts.

I don't know how close this is to finished but there is a lot gone from 3.

[GMaq]

But what concerns me more is a growing trend of developers delivering their binaries in the form of AppImage, Snap, or Flatpack. I said it before, but people just don't seem to be able to recognize the significance of these trends, so I'll say it again: If music devs don't step up and rally around some "standard base music OS" as a target for their executables, then we're going to end up with only AppImage, Snap, or Flatpack choices. Packagers (including the endusers who do stuff like AUR) aren't going to avert this trend. Only devs can do it (at this point. Before long, it will be too late even for them).

You cannot paint these binaries with the same brush, not even close! AppImage... one executable file you can put anywhere on your system... no extra kludgy frontend software required to search for binaries and install them and uninstall them and update them.. I want to keep running Debian oldstable or Manjaro? No problem for the most part the AppImage (with the exception of libc6 versions expiring) will likely run on both if the developer is wise enough to have a mature build system.. Want to use JACK and/or the existing Audio Plugins on your system? No problem! I absolutely LOVE AppImage!! The last AV Linux has several AppImages included which even with a great backing Distro and Packagers was the only way to get some apps in their latest versions working properly.. AppImage was the great hope until Linux folks had to do their usual thing of reinventing a wheel 4 more times and making it infinitely more complicated and proprietary-like... Side note for people who rail against proprietary software Linux folks sure like inventing new ways to do the same thing except 'their' way...

What is this obsession with people not having to go find things for themselves, we act like "make it easy for the dim-witted Windows and Mac User to get the software on their system" meanwhile those platforms are completely all about finding an app, going to the developers website and installing it... those people have been doing that for years already!! Sure they have App stores now but have you ever tried installing VLC Media Player from the Windows App store...? It's patent crippled and doesn't fully work so you trot on over to videolan.org and get a fully working binary. I have a Windows 10 system for Video restoration and upscaling and about 75% of the software is installed from the developers sites not some centralized frontend. Is security an issue? Sure if you're dumb enough to install sketchy programs but in many years of using Windows not once did I get malware from a reputable Application developer's site. People having to seek out Programs and Plugins from reputable developers is not something we need to shield people from, they've done it before.. Developer-provided self-contained end-user executable binaries and Audio Plugins already in their final binary file formats built on mature oldstable or LTS build systems for compatibility just like they've had for decades on Windows and MacOS are the only way for Linux to put up a viable alternative (if putting up a viable alternative is even on the table which I would guess for many is not..). The OS is irreparably divided and splintered... unifying the binary is by FAR the only viable solution.

Now Flatpak and Snaps that install dozens of Files all throughout the system in bizarro places like /var and require frontends or CLI tools to manage them..? Couldn't agree more, absolutely the wrong way to go! Everybody knows Linux writ large will never unify so a tiny subsect like Linux Audio is astronomically impossible to Unify. Human beings will rarely take common sense in their best interest in the place of freedom of choice (you're American right...? surely this is not news to you...lol). The ONLY hope of unifying is/was a simple Distro-agnostic Linux-wide binary format... they had it with AppImage and now that is all f**ked up too.