Re: [abcusers] Some minor complaints about abc
I just realized that a big part of the problem was that we had downloaded a bunch of tunes in GIF format ... thus the low-res of some of them. But even the spacing in some of the PDF's I've downloaded is a bit tight. Overall, though, I'm amazed at how well abc and its conversion tools work. Don Parrish-Bell wrote: > Buddha Buck wrote: > > > or are you seeing something like: > > > > ||||| > > > > This one is more like what I get > > To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: >http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Some minor complaints about abc
On Wed, 5 Jun 2002, Don Parrish-Bell wrote: > Ok, Atte. I will check that out when I get to it. So it's possible to adjust >existing abc > tunes without major rewrites? Yep :-) > A more "global" way of setting up the note-to-note spacing? Basically the abc file contains no information about formatting. That's very much on purpose, and very much a very good thing... -- love, peace & harmony Atte To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Some minor complaints about abc
Buddha Buck wrote: > or are you seeing something like: > > ||||| > This one is more like what I get To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Some minor complaints about abc
At 11:03 AM 06-05-2002 -0700, Don Parrish-Bell you wrote: >Ok, Atte. I will check that out when I get to it. So it's possible to >adjust existing abc >tunes without major rewrites? A more "global" way of setting up the >note-to-note spacing? abc has absolutely nothing to do with internote spacing in sheet music printed from abc notation. abc has no concept of internote spacing. It's a function of the program that is converting abc to sheet music. At least one program (abcm2ps) has dozens of settings which can be tweaked to change the appearance of the generated shet music, including several that relate to note spacing. BTW, when you complain about internote spacing, and things seem too clumped, do you mean you want to see something like: | x x x x | x x x x | x x x x | x x x x | and you are seeing: | | | | | or are you seeing something like: ||||| or something else? >Don To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Some minor complaints about abc
Ok, Atte. I will check that out when I get to it. So it's possible to adjust existing abc tunes without major rewrites? A more "global" way of setting up the note-to-note spacing? Don Atte Andre Jensen wrote: > On Wed, 5 Jun 2002, Don Parrish-Bell wrote: > > > Again, I think you guys might be misunderstanding what I was complaining about. >The > > length of a whole line can essentially be stretched out by adjusting the scaling >of the > > PDF image before you print it. > > I think you are misunderstanding us :-) PDF's as such has really nothing > to do with the possibilities of abc, neither the language or the program > the PDF came from. The PDF is like a print, only is it not on paper, but > in a file. So you can change just about as much in a PDF-file as on a > piece of music printed on your printer... Nothing. > > I think I remember you saying a couple of posts ago (forgive me if I'm > wrong) that you are yet to try "coding anything in abc" or "trying it out > for yourself" (I forget the exact words, sorry again). If that's (still) > true, you should really grap a program, enter som code, fiddle with the > formatting parameters, and you'll see for yourself. > > I guarantee you that you can have just about as much space between notes > as you could possibly dream of! > > Basically I would say that you have to be *pretty* picky to find anything > to complain about in the output from a good abc-program. > -- > love, peace & harmony > Atte > > To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: >http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Some minor complaints about abc
On Wed, 5 Jun 2002, Don Parrish-Bell wrote: > Again, I think you guys might be misunderstanding what I was complaining about. The > length of a whole line can essentially be stretched out by adjusting the scaling of >the > PDF image before you print it. I think you are misunderstanding us :-) PDF's as such has really nothing to do with the possibilities of abc, neither the language or the program the PDF came from. The PDF is like a print, only is it not on paper, but in a file. So you can change just about as much in a PDF-file as on a piece of music printed on your printer... Nothing. I think I remember you saying a couple of posts ago (forgive me if I'm wrong) that you are yet to try "coding anything in abc" or "trying it out for yourself" (I forget the exact words, sorry again). If that's (still) true, you should really grap a program, enter som code, fiddle with the formatting parameters, and you'll see for yourself. I guarantee you that you can have just about as much space between notes as you could possibly dream of! Basically I would say that you have to be *pretty* picky to find anything to complain about in the output from a good abc-program. -- love, peace & harmony Atte To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Some minor complaints about abc
Again, I think you guys might be misunderstanding what I was complaining about. The length of a whole line can essentially be stretched out by adjusting the scaling of the PDF image before you print it. But the spacing between notes within a measure is what appears cramped to me. This is also a function of what you print it out on. Things look a little better on the HP Laserjet 4p at work then my Epson 640 inkjet printer at home. I think from what someone else had posted yesterday that you can adjust the note-to-note spacing, so maybe this isn't a valid complaint. I few "helpful hints" on how to do that, if it is indeed possible, would be very welcome. BTW this is one of the things that a lot of GUI music notation software has quirks about. Guitar Studio was especially "over user friendly" and would not let you do what you need to do. Others that I have tried are a bit better. I do like having the program adjust the spacing for you, as long as you can go back and tweak it to make it look nicer. abc2Win or abc2ps (not sure which is being used where, sorry) on my work and home computers (both 500MHZ Pentium III, AGP video machines running Win98 with screen resolution set to 800 x 600 pixels) produces rather cramped measures in my opinion. This is obviously a personnal preference thing, so I was inquiring if these tools allow you to setup "preferences" or if you can pre-program the note-to-note spacing withing the abc text. Some some step-by-step instructions on where and how to setup "preferences" would be helpful to me, but I will go read through the abc2ps documentation when I get a chance. Don John Walsh wrote: > >The only part of ABC that I could see that would affect how "cramped" > >together a peice of music would look in staff notation is the length of > >individual lines. Most ABC to Staff converters I know of do not break > >lines of ABC into multiple lines of staff notation. Obviously, the same > >piece of music is going to look more cramped if written as 2 lines of 8 > >measures than 4 lines of 4 measures. > > > > If you check out the documentation to abc2ps, you'll find a number > of ways to control the note spacing--it recommends putting well-chosen > linebreaks in the abc, but that can be overridden, and there are a couple > of parameters that can be adjusted and some command-line options, e.g. > one can specify the number of bars per line. > > One possibility which I have found useful elsewhere, and which > might be worthwhile adding, is to specify the total number of lines for a > tune, leaving the line-breaking decisions to the program. (I have > absolutely no idea how easy/difficult this is.) > > Cheers, > John Walsh > To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: >http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Some minor complaints about abc
>The only part of ABC that I could see that would affect how "cramped" >together a peice of music would look in staff notation is the length of >individual lines. Most ABC to Staff converters I know of do not break >lines of ABC into multiple lines of staff notation. Obviously, the same >piece of music is going to look more cramped if written as 2 lines of 8 >measures than 4 lines of 4 measures. > If you check out the documentation to abc2ps, you'll find a number of ways to control the note spacing--it recommends putting well-chosen linebreaks in the abc, but that can be overridden, and there are a couple of parameters that can be adjusted and some command-line options, e.g. one can specify the number of bars per line. One possibility which I have found useful elsewhere, and which might be worthwhile adding, is to specify the total number of lines for a tune, leaving the line-breaking decisions to the program. (I have absolutely no idea how easy/difficult this is.) Cheers, John Walsh To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Some minor complaints about abc
Muse sounds interesting. "Laurie (ukonline)" wrote: > Don Parrish-Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> had a wish-list. > Here's how Muse shapes up (no, it's not 100%, though if I were a beginner > user I might think it was until I discovered the fine details). > > > 1. Enter guitar TAB, tool creates sheet music and TAB as you go. > Yes > > >2. Ability to add lyrics and guitar chords (text and chart format) and/or > > text notes to the score > Lyrics, yes, > Guitar chords yes but only text format, > Text notes yes > and you can have any or all of these at once. > > >3. Ability to strip out just lyrics or lyrics and guitar chords from an > > existing tune (the tune could have been written in whatever > > format is native to the tool) > You can get just the ly-rics eas-i-ly e-nough to paste them in-to a word > pro-ces-sor but they will still contain hy-phen-a-tion to show how they are > split a-cross the notes if you see what I mean. > > >4. Enter sheet music, tool attempts to create guitar TAB (obviously > >you'll need to do some touch ups here and there to make it actually > > playable) > Yes, and then having fixed the odd note here and there you can tell it to > have another go at the generation, interpolating between your fixed points - > so that when you tell it to play some note on fret 12 it will realise that > your wrist is a long way from the nut and not put the next or previous note > on fret 3. That way you only need to touch up the odd note and the rest > falls into place. > > > 5. MIDI IN/OUT (pretty standard feature, from what I see) > MIDI files either way, yes > Live MIDI out, yes > Live MIDI in - no (because the results are not very good - just too much > post-editing until/unless I get the tempo following right). > > > 6. Actually knows what the heck a repeat is!! A lot of things I've > > tried ignore the repeats. > If you mean detecting repeat in MIDI in, even from a MIDI file, this is > tricky. If you mean output then yes, of course, with variant endings if > need be. > > > 7. Doesn't require taking out a second mortgage on your house to buy it! > Not many banks are interested in £20 (about $30 US) mortgages > > >8. Has some keyboard-shortcut method of selecting note duration instead of > > having to always use the mouse. > Yes > > > 9. Outputs in abc, PDF, etc. format. > Will do abc, MIDI or its own format directly. > Will print on any printer that Windows supports. > With a little trickery using Windows it will do PostScript. > Not PDF directly. > Doesn't do etc. format at all. > Not that! That spoils everything LOL Don To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Some minor complaints about abc
Yes, MusicTime definitely has some weird little quirks, but for $25.00 it wasn't too bad. It doesn't do TAB at all and it won't let you write a lyric & chord sheet. Also it's not OLE-compatible, so you can't take a passage out of it and paste it into Word, for example. My wife has used it quite a lot and has become somewhat of an expert on it. I only toy with it on occassion, but enough to find weird things. The latest was that I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get it to put a repeat bar at the very beginning of a tune. Don "Laurie (ukonline)" wrote: > Buddha wrote"... Other tools, like Muse, are full-fledged score-editing > programs like I assume MusicTime is, but will read and write abc as well." > > Actually, my frustration with MusicTime was the last straw that drove me to > develop Muse! > > Laurie > > To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: >http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Some minor complaints about abc
Don Parrish-Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> had a wish-list. Here's how Muse shapes up (no, it's not 100%, though if I were a beginner user I might think it was until I discovered the fine details). > 1. Enter guitar TAB, tool creates sheet music and TAB as you go. Yes >2. Ability to add lyrics and guitar chords (text and chart format) and/or > text notes to the score Lyrics, yes, Guitar chords yes but only text format, Text notes yes and you can have any or all of these at once. >3. Ability to strip out just lyrics or lyrics and guitar chords from an > existing tune (the tune could have been written in whatever > format is native to the tool) You can get just the ly-rics eas-i-ly e-nough to paste them in-to a word pro-ces-sor but they will still contain hy-phen-a-tion to show how they are split a-cross the notes if you see what I mean. >4. Enter sheet music, tool attempts to create guitar TAB (obviously >you'll need to do some touch ups here and there to make it actually > playable) Yes, and then having fixed the odd note here and there you can tell it to have another go at the generation, interpolating between your fixed points - so that when you tell it to play some note on fret 12 it will realise that your wrist is a long way from the nut and not put the next or previous note on fret 3. That way you only need to touch up the odd note and the rest falls into place. > 5. MIDI IN/OUT (pretty standard feature, from what I see) MIDI files either way, yes Live MIDI out, yes Live MIDI in - no (because the results are not very good - just too much post-editing until/unless I get the tempo following right). > 6. Actually knows what the heck a repeat is!! A lot of things I've > tried ignore the repeats. If you mean detecting repeat in MIDI in, even from a MIDI file, this is tricky. If you mean output then yes, of course, with variant endings if need be. > 7. Doesn't require taking out a second mortgage on your house to buy it! Not many banks are interested in £20 (about $30 US) mortgages >8. Has some keyboard-shortcut method of selecting note duration instead of > having to always use the mouse. Yes > 9. Outputs in abc, PDF, etc. format. Will do abc, MIDI or its own format directly. Will print on any printer that Windows supports. With a little trickery using Windows it will do PostScript. Not PDF directly. Doesn't do etc. format at all. Laurie To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Some minor complaints about abc
Buddha wrote"... Other tools, like Muse, are full-fledged score-editing programs like I assume MusicTime is, but will read and write abc as well." Actually, my frustration with MusicTime was the last straw that drove me to develop Muse! Laurie To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Some minor complaints about abc
Pretty sure Melody Assistant does all of the requested stuff - BUT- I'm a new user too. LOVE these abcs! Dave - Original Message - From: Don Parrish-Bell (lots of stuff clipped.) Does anyonehave a good recommendation for a tool that can do the following (preferably all in onepackage):1. Enter guitar TAB, tool creates sheet music and TAB as you go.2. Ability to add lyrics and guitar chords (text and chart format) and/or text notes tothe score3. Ability to strip out just lyrics or lyrics and guitar chords from an existing tune (thetune could have been written in whatever format is native to the tool)4. Enter sheet music, tool attempts to create guitar TAB (obviously you'll need to do sometouch ups here and there to make it actually playable)5. MIDI IN/OUT (pretty standard feature, from what I see)6. Actually knows what the heck a repeat is!! A lot of things I've tried ignore therepeats.7. Doesn't require taking out a second mortgage on your house to buy it!8. Has some keyboard-shortcut method of selecting note duration instead of having toalways use the mouse.9. Outputs in abc, PDF, etc. format.
Re: [abcusers] Some minor complaints about abc
On Tue, 4 Jun 2002, Don Parrish-Bell wrote: > ---Actually I was referring to the horizontal spacing for each measure. Even in PDF > format, the sheet music seems a bit cramped when you print it out. I suppose what >I'm > really after, then, is a formating tool with "preferences" I can tinker with. Well these are the "preferences" currently supported by abcm2ps: barsperstaff 0 botmargin 1.00cm composerfont Times-Italic 11.0 composerspace 0.20cm continueall no encoding ASCII exprabove no exprbelow no footer freegchordno flatbeams no gchordfontHelvetica 12.0 graceslursyes indent0.00cm infofont Times-Italic 11.0 infoline no infospace 0.00cm landscape no leftmargin1.78cm lineskipfac 1.10 maxshrink 0.65 measureboxno measurefirstmeasurenb -1 musiconly no musicspace0.20cm oneperpageno pageheight27.94cm pagewidth 21.59cm parskipfac0.40 partsfont Times-Roman 15.0 partsspace0.30cm printtempoyes rightmargin 1.78cm scale 0.75 squarebreve no staffsep 1.62cm staffwidth18.03cm straightflags no stretchlast no stretchstaff yes subtitlefont Times-Roman 12.0 subtitlespace 0.10cm sysstaffsep 1.20cm tempofont Times-Bold 15.0 textfont Times-Roman 12.0 textspace 0.50cm titlecaps no titlefont Times-Roman 15.0 titleleft no titlespace0.20cm topmargin 1.00cm topspace 0.80cm vocalaboveno vocalfont Times-Bold 13.0 vocalspace0.81cm withxrefs no wordsfont Times-Roman 12.0 wordsspace0.00cm writehistory no That's enough for me... > --- I believe that abc2ps is what is running "underneath" my browser to put the sheet > music up on the screen. Which site is you referring to? > --- Acrobat allows you to scale a PDF file in the overall sense (height and width), >but > that's about all it can do with it. As far as I know, there isn't anything that >allows > you to edit a PDF file. Nope (I'm starting to get the feeling you maybe visited my site...). If you want to change stuff you chould grab the abc-file. -- love, peace & harmony Atte To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Some minor complaints about abc
Buddha Buck wrote: > At 10:44 AM 06-04-2002 -0700, Don Parrish-Bell you wrote: > >I haven't had the opportunity to try to encode anything yet, but I look > >forward to doing > >so. I'm saving the tons of posts from everyone so I can go back through > >for hints on > >various things when I do get to that point. > > One thing to keep in mind is that ABC is not a program, but rather a > notation for music that is text-based. There are various programs out > there that interpret that notation and can generate printed scores or play > music, and there are several people who use ABC directly when playing music > (rather than first converting it to some other notation and playing from > that). Most of your complaints are with specific programs or combinations > of programs, not with ABC itself. > I understand the distinction -- that abc is a file format. My complaints are with the tools that format abc ... at least for the moment. > > >I have downloaded various things and used abc2Win and whatever behind the > >scenes tool that > >runs on one of the sites to create printable sheet music. The minor > >complaint that I have > >is that the measures seem to be awefully cramped together. > >So I have been re-entering the sheet music into a program called MusicTime > >(I know ... > >blasphamy!). Is this cramping due to how the tune was originally encoded > >in abc format or > >is it just how the formatting tools work under Win98? > > The only part of ABC that I could see that would affect how "cramped" > together a peice of music would look in staff notation is the length of > individual lines. Most ABC to Staff converters I know of do not break > lines of ABC into multiple lines of staff notation. Obviously, the same > piece of music is going to look more cramped if written as 2 lines of 8 > measures than 4 lines of 4 measures. > ---Actually I was referring to the horizontal spacing for each measure. Even in PDF format, the sheet music seems a bit cramped when you print it out. I suppose what I'm really after, then, is a formating tool with "preferences" I can tinker with. > > If that doesn't seem to be the problem (i.e., MusicTime is using the same > number of measures/line as abc2win), then it seems like a deficiency with > the converter. > > > Platform independence is a good > >thing for those using UNIX-based and whatever other things the rest of the > >world might be > >using (what are you guys in Europe using?), but maybe a bit better > >formatting tool could > >be developed for Windows. The note shapes tend to be very "low-res", > >too. If the > >graphics-based ones can printout clean-looking sheet music, seems like a > >formatting tool > >for abc could do the same thing. > > There are formatting tools for abc that can do the same, and some even work > in both Unix and Win environments. One tool I use is abc2ps and its > derivatives, which generates sheet music in PostScript from abc > notation. PostScript is resolution-independent, so you should be able to --- I believe that abc2ps is what is running "underneath" my browser to put the sheet music up on the screen. > > get very crisp, high-res note shapes when printing to a laser printer, or > when viewing onscreen. Other tools, like Muse, are full-fledged > score-editing programs like I assume MusicTime is, but will read and write > abc as well. > --- Acrobat allows you to scale a PDF file in the overall sense (height and width), but that's about all it can do with it. As far as I know, there isn't anything that allows you to edit a PDF file. > > >I read a few of the posts today talking about how quickly things can be > >entered in abc > >text. I can see how that might be true. Yes it takes a ridiculous amount > >of time to have > >to use the mouse to go grab the proper duration note each time and some > >keyboard > >short-cuts would be very handy for the GUI-based tools. Are there > >keyboard short-cuts for > >abc? Will there be if there aren't any now? "weirdPerfect" had all > >those funny CTRL-xx > >and ALT-xx things, but in many ways it was faster than MSWord for those of > >us who learned > >all the little quirky control strings. > > Since abc is a text-based format, any text-editor is suitable for entering > and editing ABC. There is no reason for your fingers to leave the keyboard > if you don't want it to. For instance, I am typing in a text-editor > attached to my email client (Eudora) and I can, easily, simply write a tune > in ABC like so: > > X: 1 > T: C-Scale, once up and down > M: 4/4 > K: C > cdef|gabc'-|c'z2c'|bagf|edc2| > > This isn't a very good tune, I'll admit, but it is ABC, and easily typed at > that. > --- Maybe it's just that the devil's in the details. After I get into encoding in abc, maybe I will see that it does all I need as far as entry convenience goes. Does anyone have a good recommendation for a tool that can do the following (preferably all in one package): 1. Enter guitar TA
Re: [abcusers] Some minor complaints about abc
At 10:44 AM 06-04-2002 -0700, Don Parrish-Bell you wrote: >I haven't had the opportunity to try to encode anything yet, but I look >forward to doing >so. I'm saving the tons of posts from everyone so I can go back through >for hints on >various things when I do get to that point. One thing to keep in mind is that ABC is not a program, but rather a notation for music that is text-based. There are various programs out there that interpret that notation and can generate printed scores or play music, and there are several people who use ABC directly when playing music (rather than first converting it to some other notation and playing from that). Most of your complaints are with specific programs or combinations of programs, not with ABC itself. >I have downloaded various things and used abc2Win and whatever behind the >scenes tool that >runs on one of the sites to create printable sheet music. The minor >complaint that I have >is that the measures seem to be awefully cramped together. >So I have been re-entering the sheet music into a program called MusicTime >(I know ... >blasphamy!). Is this cramping due to how the tune was originally encoded >in abc format or >is it just how the formatting tools work under Win98? The only part of ABC that I could see that would affect how "cramped" together a peice of music would look in staff notation is the length of individual lines. Most ABC to Staff converters I know of do not break lines of ABC into multiple lines of staff notation. Obviously, the same piece of music is going to look more cramped if written as 2 lines of 8 measures than 4 lines of 4 measures. If that doesn't seem to be the problem (i.e., MusicTime is using the same number of measures/line as abc2win), then it seems like a deficiency with the converter. > Platform independence is a good >thing for those using UNIX-based and whatever other things the rest of the >world might be >using (what are you guys in Europe using?), but maybe a bit better >formatting tool could >be developed for Windows. The note shapes tend to be very "low-res", >too. If the >graphics-based ones can printout clean-looking sheet music, seems like a >formatting tool >for abc could do the same thing. There are formatting tools for abc that can do the same, and some even work in both Unix and Win environments. One tool I use is abc2ps and its derivatives, which generates sheet music in PostScript from abc notation. PostScript is resolution-independent, so you should be able to get very crisp, high-res note shapes when printing to a laser printer, or when viewing onscreen. Other tools, like Muse, are full-fledged score-editing programs like I assume MusicTime is, but will read and write abc as well. >I read a few of the posts today talking about how quickly things can be >entered in abc >text. I can see how that might be true. Yes it takes a ridiculous amount >of time to have >to use the mouse to go grab the proper duration note each time and some >keyboard >short-cuts would be very handy for the GUI-based tools. Are there >keyboard short-cuts for >abc? Will there be if there aren't any now? "weirdPerfect" had all >those funny CTRL-xx >and ALT-xx things, but in many ways it was faster than MSWord for those of >us who learned >all the little quirky control strings. Since abc is a text-based format, any text-editor is suitable for entering and editing ABC. There is no reason for your fingers to leave the keyboard if you don't want it to. For instance, I am typing in a text-editor attached to my email client (Eudora) and I can, easily, simply write a tune in ABC like so: X: 1 T: C-Scale, once up and down M: 4/4 K: C cdef|gabc'-|c'z2c'|bagf|edc2| This isn't a very good tune, I'll admit, but it is ABC, and easily typed at that. >I like the little community of abcusers. Seems like you are all really >trying to make it >a decent tool. I'm sorry I can't contribute much to that effort other >than a few >suggestions for the wish list. Keep up the good work! We are creating several tools centered around the format, and several of us (myself included) simply make suggestions for the "wish list" and critique other suggestions for the wishlist without contributing any code. If you like what you see, hang around and have fun! >Don Parrish-Bell > >To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: >http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
