Other bagpipe software

[tjm]

Re: Other bagpipe software

I would like to hear suggestions from you guys on the true functionality of these apps, as would apply to my situation.

My suggestion would be to ask about "Assistive Technology" support and ask for an evaluation copy. Also, if the folks at PiobMaster are implementing Assitive Technology for the visually impaired, they may be willing to enlist you as a beta tester on the upcoming release. IMO asking costs nothing and may turn out to be a win-win.

--Tim.

[DallPiobaire]

Re: Other bagpipe software

Hey tjm!

Thing is, I simply can't afford assistive tech. This state will not help defray the cost at all, and we are talking programs that are up around a grand or more.

PiobMaster didn't say they were implementing assistive technology. All they said was that they looked into my situation, and felt that the latest version might help. No further info, no why, what, when, or how!

[kaminski]

Re: Other bagpipe software

I never could write a decent state machine, so the greatest need right now is for a BWW parser.

--Tim.

I use bmw2tex and bww2tex (freely distributed sources) available on the net. I'll bet if you poke around the source code, you might find useful coding for ideas (I think the implementations, though, are in C and use bison or flex for generating the parser).

Good luck with your project.

[LloydB]

Re: Other bagpipe software

Blackeagle, that sounds frustrating especially if you have a lot of PiobMaster files, but unfortunately PiobMaster files are in a very Windows-specific binary format. They could (in theory) be converted for Mac compatibility but that would involve a lot of nasty byte manipulation. I think CelticPipes will support this (and DrumScriobh import) on the Mac eventually though.

For now, if you have access to a Windows machine, you could always install CelticPipes on it, just to convert your files to .cep or .bww, and then copy them on to your Mac for CelticPipes to open.

This sounds like the best reason ever to pick up a new MAC, and
partition it with a Windows OS. Best of both.

I'm just now doing an eval of CelticPipes, and it certainly looks
useful. One question, though... is it possible to change tempo
within a tune in this (or other) application(s)?

I suppose it might be possible to stitch together two scores
set up at different tempos, but *surely* there must be a
simpler way to do this?

tnx

[bob864]

Re: Other bagpipe software

useful. One question, though... is it possible to change tempo
within a tune in this (or other) application(s)?

In Sibelius you just insert a metronome mark wherever you want it. I'm in the process of engraving our band medley, start to finish, including breaks. It's the first time I've done something like that, and it's turned out to be really easy.

[whistler]

Re: Other bagpipe software

I'm just now doing an eval of CelticPipes, and it certainly looks
useful. One question, though... is it possible to change tempo
within a tune in this (or other) application(s)?

LloydB, you'll be able to do this in version 1.2 of CelticPipes (currently in Beta test but due for release in the next week to 10 days).

Time signatures will have their own tempo in CelticPipes so you can just 'drop' on a new time signature and adjust its tempo. You can make the time sig the same as the main one on the tune and even hide it if you like.

[Andrew Lenz]

Re: Other bagpipe software

On a Mac in Barfly (shareware), using abc notation, you just insert something like the following line (i.e., Quarter note = 60 PBM):

Q: 1/4 = 60

and the tempo changes for playback on anything remaining in the tune.

You could just put:

Q: 60

Which sets the default note value to 60 BPM, but you have to remember what the default is for the time signature---the other way is explicit.

Andrew

[DallPiobaire]

Re: Other bagpipe software

Silly question guys, I am so not a software guru! Does either program have some kind of OCR utility to allow scanning and importing of sheet music? It is so much easier for me to read from the monitor, and the only way, to date, I have been saving scanned sheet music is as jpegs. IS this the best way if I am not intending to change the score in any way?

Thanks for the help, Imagine trying to sight read through a fogged up pair of glasses, that is what I am dealing with, and it ain't gonna get better!!

Scott

[acadianpiper]

Re: Other bagpipe software

I'm not aware of any software that will convert sheet music to the code used by music composition and engraving programs. If such software does exist, it is probably so prohibitively expensive that it is not considered a consumer product. Unfortunately, none of the bagpipe music programs has a feature that will read a jpg or a pdf file and convert it to the program's particular format. I have dozens of tunes in pdf and jpg format that I would love to convert, but the only way to do it at present is to enter the tune manually into the program note by note.

OCR software would be useless for this. It will convert any text to a machine-readable format, but the music would be treated as a graphic or series of graphics.

[DallPiobaire]

Re: Other bagpipe software

Darn!!

Well, if saving em as pdf or jpg works for you, then I will work with it! Any reason for pdf versus jpg?

Thanks
Scott

[acadianpiper]

Re: Other bagpipe software

Darn!!

Well, if saving em as pdf or jpg works for you, then I will work with it! Any reason for pdf versus jpg?

Thanks
Scott

PDF files are generally smaller than JPG files and so take up less storage space. I also find PDF files easier to read and to work with, maybe because I am more used to them. The big advantages of converting them to one of the bagpipe music software formats are that 1) you can then easily modify the music and 2) those formats produce files that are significantly smaller than either PDF or JPG. BWW and ABC files, for example, will typically be in the 2K-3K range, whereas the same tune in PDF or JPG format can easily exceed 100K.

[bob864]

Re: Other bagpipe software

Sibelius ships with a lite version of music OCR software. It works. I've used it to import piano + voice scores that I then split apart and transpose for string ensemble.

Myriad-online has an OCR plugin for melody assistant, too, iirc. I've never used it. Assuming it works, it might be handy, because Melody Assistant will write ABC files that you can easily translate to BMW files.

But from the standpoint of just looking at them on the screen, I think .jpg is probably your best bet. The freeware irfanveiw is a very good viewing software for windows.

[tjm]

Re: Other bagpipe software

Audiveris - Open source music OCR software written in Java. Exports to MusicXML.

--Tim.

[Eric M]

Re: Other bagpipe software

Some well-established commercial music OCR programs are:
Musitek SmartScore (previously called MIDISCAN)
Visiv SharpEye

There is also useful information on other music recognition programs at
http://www.music-notation.info/en/compmus/omr.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_OCR
http://visualwikipedia.com/en/Music_OCR

The de facto output standards are MIDI and MusicXML. Most high quality notation software can read one or both of these formats. MusicXML contains more complete information than MIDI. Sibelius and Finale can both read MusicXML files.

These tools are capable of providing pretty good typeset output out of the box. Just remember that OCR is not perfect, so you should expect to do some hand editing to clean up recognition errors. Most commercial typesetting programs also can do audio playback of the score, usually via MIDI.

Eric

[pipermacbear]

Re: Other bagpipe software

Hmmm... I am thinking of running VMWare Fusion with windows 2000 and BMW Gold (on my Mac). Anyone else doing this?

Not sure I have the time to learn all the ins and outs of Lilypond, or that abc thing either...