Yeh, more compgeeky stuff, with a twist.
*sigh*
One piece of software is a major stumbling block to a complete migration of all the twc central computers I use to Linux. Yeh, I know it’s handy to have some Windoze boxes so I can provide support for Windows users, but I can always figure that stuff out if I get a tad rusty. But a replacement for Encore, the only music transcription software that has really met my needs for years is hard to come by on the Linux platform.
Use Wine and Encore under Linux? No joy. And with the hundreds of scores I have saved on floppy and CD (as well as more than a few hard drives on various machines and in storage cases) scored in Encore, I’ll have to keep a machine that reads ’em at least.
But if I could find a music transcription software that works even nearly as well as Encore (or even its baby brother, MusicTime) that ran natively or not in Linux, I’d be at least moderately happy–save the one old Windows box for reading old Encore scores and saving them as midi files to import or something.
No joy there, either. The closest I can find is Rosegarden, which is really sequencing software with a transcription module. And how can I say it gently? The transcription module sucks dead bunnies through a straw compared with Encore.
First, I never liked Finale because it was so extremely resource intensive using it was, “Make score change. Wait. Go build ark. Load animals. Wait out flood. Offload animals. Make pot of coffee and some coffee cake and invite folks over for a klatch. Return to computer. Wait for changes to take effect… ” etc. Of course, that was using Finale on old 286, 386 and 486 computers, but even then, MusicTime and Encore worked just hunky dory, lickety-split, smoothe as silk on that older technology… and “intuitively” for a guy who grew up “hearing” the printed page.
All the reasons I didn’t like Finale on a 286 are there in spades in Rosegarden on a (admitedly “old”) 1.3Ghz computer with 512MB RAM running Xubuntu Linux 6.10. I don’t get it. The interface is obscurantist. Importing a midi file takes about the kind of time Finale did to change a rest on an old 286 (translation: forever. I’ve been waiting 20 minutes for the final presentation of a transcription page from a very short [16 measures] imported midi file!). And what it shows so far is a midi file “translated” into a hodgepodge of notes in tenor clef! *sheesh!* Can’t even split the thing and give me a G and F clef with notes in their appropriate places, as even the cheapo MusicTime can do (lickety split) under Windows.
And the score window is soooo cluttered!
*sigh*
Not good. Not good at all, at all.
I may well have to build a WinXP Pro box JUST to keep a relatively up-to-date Encore install alive.
Oh. Well.
Linux: almost there. Specialty apps like music transcription? Not so much.