Notation Composer is a multi-purpose program that can be used by musicians, composers, as well as music students. It offers a wide array of features that will help anyone to compose amazing music. The program efficiently handles both the sounds and the stave notations.
By using Notation Composer, you are enabled to easily import MIDI files that are afterward converted to printable music sheets. Notation Composer proves to be very professional when it comes to editing staves. You can place musical notes, add text, insert staff symbols and various expressions, change the note velocity, etc. Moreover, this application comes with a professional piano roll, which you can use whenever you need to know how specific musical notes will sound like.
After you finish creating or editing a certain music sheet, you can use the integrated player to listen to the result. Additionally, you can even make changes as the song plays.
The graphical user-interface might seem a bit overwhelming at first sight, yet the included Help manual will provide you with all the information that you need.
I enjoyed testing Notation Composer. It stands as a professional tool for musicians and offers all the necessary tools for creating a masterpiece. Though, it should be mentioned that in order to efficiently use the program, you might need some musical theory knowledge.
v2.6 [Jun 14, 2010]
· The main transcription engine has been improved for even better accuracy and musical readability of the transcribed score. Using MIDI files you find on the Internet, or your own MIDI recordings, the quality of the transcribed score is better in version 2.6 than ever before.
Improved Chord Name Transcription and Editing
· Composer has a number of major improvements in the entry and analysis of chord names, to give you more accurate results immediately.
· The simplified Chord Name Analysis dialog makes it easier to get the chord names you want for your song file.
· The chord notes analysis has been improved to make the chord names that Notation Composer gives you more accurate.
· The new Chord Builder dialog lets you see and hear the notes for the chord names you are entering. You can also use your MIDI keyboard to enter chord names by playing them on your keyboard.
· The new Paste Chord Names command allows you to copy just the chord names from a region and then paste them to another selected region for quick chord name entry if you already know the chord names you want in the score.
· You can now change the Enharmonic Spelling of chord names, to give alternate chord names that might be more familiar to you or your band members.
Tap-In Delay Detection for MIDI Devices
· Composer now gives you the ability to calibrate your MIDI playback device(s) on your machine so that you hear the notes exactly when they highlight, even if you are unable to locate the delay time (latency) value in your instrument manual or in an Internet search.
Adjust the Barlines of Metronomeless files with the new Rebar Feature
· The innovative Rebar feature allows you to record freely via your MIDI instrument into Notation Composer without using a metronome, and still get excellent quality sheet music.
· You may have come across a .mid file that has a beautiful performance, but the notation in Composer was a mess, or the Tempo Cursor did not match up with the beats during playback. The new Rebar feature allows you to use your eyes and your ears to easily edit the barlines for measures, or individual beats for measures, to give you readable sheet music from such "metronomeless" .mid files or recordings.
· Quickly and easily tap in the barlines as you listen to the song play.
· Easily "nudge" a barline to just before or after a particular note, and the notated rhythms will be automatically readjusted for you.
· All of the fine playback details of tempo and rhythms are preserved throughout the Rebar process. You can keep the great performance of the file and have great sheet music, too!
Improved notation and performance editing integration
· The default behavior of Notation Composer is now that on opening a file, any adjustments you make to the notation will affect both the notation and the performance of the notes. You can still use the Piano Roll's "Edit only as-notated" or "Edit only as-performed" features to edit one without the other.
Improved behavior when editing large files
· Notation Composer has improved handling of large files to process them more quickly to give you quicker editing response time and quicker file opening.
Improved Easy Notes (Pitch Name) display options
· Aspiring musicians can now select whether to show Easy Notes (pitch name noteheads) staves with or without a key signature, as well as with or without courtesy accidentals.
