Notensatzprogramme Im Vergleich - Part 3

Welcome to the third and final video podcast of the series. In the first two videos I referred to the six music notation programs... that you see displayed here I've presented PriMus and praised his easy-to-use workflow. I criticized the software because of the lack of a few features... that professional scorewriters usually require. The first major release of version 2.0 is awaited for the fall of 2013. So you can get excited for a bunch of new features (maybe some of those that are still missing). music score examples, which are published among the web, are indicating... that your able to handle sophisticated tasks with PriMus and... that the printing and engraving quality can compete with other programs. Colorful notes, modern notation or other special characters, ... all this is possible in PriMus. Severel pieces of music, text paragraphs and graphics can be layed out to create song sheets... or even books in one single document. Slurs are flexible and mouldable. Even complex music engraving can be layed out aesthetically. music staffs can be scaled in different sizes. in the menu you find functions for part extraction of the full score. Among the different software I presented, PriMus is the least known. This is why I'de like to introduce the main concept and behaviour of PriMus... If you click in the setup icon, PriMus launchs within two or three seconds and opens by default your prefered music template that can be chosen and edited as desired. The user interface is divided into... the menu bar... a tool bar for the most commonly used functions und three boxes... that you can dock or hide if not needed. The first box is intended for the control of multiple poliphonic voices... within a staff. The second box classifys the different functions by category (e.g. notes, articulation, dynamics, etc.) The third box can be used for quick formating of the page. You can modify the size of a measure or the staff distances here. In addition there is a piano keyboard where notes are shown while playing... but it can also be used for recording eithor step by step or in realtime. In generell, you can use every midi device that is connected to your PC. With the mixer you are able to control the playback tempo, the volume and the panning. Moreover PriMus has a full screen mode. The note entry and editing can done in a panorama view or the most commonly used page view. Now some instructions: ... for navigating through the document... grab the page with the right mouse button and drag it into the appropriate direction in order to zoom just hold the right mouse button and scroll. the easiest way of entering notes is by left clicking into the staff, for rests click the right mouse button. To activate the layout or formatting mode, where you can drag almost every element on the page to adjust the spacing... press the shift key (and keep it pressed... while dragging with the mouse). To add or delete measures you can use the shortcuts [Ctrl] + [B] or ... [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [B] for instance. An important characteristic of PriMus is that you can switch the modes... by right clicking. the small boxes next to the curser are indicating the mode that is actually activated. Thus you can quickly adjust the spacing or the positioning of special characters... PriMus has excellent slurs. When setting the orange-colored border marks the note... where the slur is attached You can form and modify it. when dragging the note attachement changes automatically. If you cklick on it four anchor points and appropriate auxiliary lines will appear... If you need more than those four anchor points because off more sophisticated slur shapes, ... you can add as much as you want. You can grabb and drag the points and lines until you are happy with the result. When you press the space bar while holding the element clicked, the slur gets flipped to the other side. When moving the note head (doesn't matter if horizontally or vertically)... the slur gets adapted automatically. With further shortcuts you can shrink or stretch its dimension. PriMus has an extended printing dialog, where you'll find not only common calibration functions... but also features for multipage printing, e.g. z-fold or booklet printing for instance. There are two own PriMus formats supported (one binary/one markup language), ... but also full MIDI and MusicXML import and export is supported And here is a preview to the next major release. The current beta version of the software... delivers insight into a brandnew jazz music font. But it hasn't been published yet officially. This overview and assistance should guide you through the main basic steps of the program. Now you sould be able to dive into more advanced features and shortcuts of the software by you own. Often you can just click on an element in the score and progress by the trial-and-error method... So how can PriMus finally be rated in the domain of music notation software? Finale and Sibelius have years of developmental edge. However PriMus is a professional tool and... might be interesting for people looking for a program that bridges the gap between DTP and music notation. files of Guitar Pro, capella and Score Perfekt can be imported into PriMus. So it could be worth it to switch if you use one of those programs. Now its your turn. Download the trial versions and see what workflow you prefer. Hopefully I could guide you a step forward with your choice of using a music notation program. I'de be happy to get some remarks. I'm looking forward to read your feedback.