Try-out of Musitek's Music to XML app on the Mac App Store

[BuonTempi]

I needed to copy in some music that I had a PDF-print of, so I thought I would risk buying the Musitek app on the Mac App Store.
The music was a piano-vocal score -- nothing tricky, either musically and notationally.

1. The buttons to transfer the music to Finale didn't work. Nothing happened.
2. It brought up some rather unhelpful dialog about "unifying barlines" and the time and key signature, whose choices weren't immediately obvious.
3. Despite this, it didn't recognise the pick-up measure; missed out countless barlines; and didn't even OCR the title correctly.

Most egregiously, however, it put the right hand of the piano part ABOVE the vocal line. I mean, seriously - if you can't even recognise a grand stave and keep the staves in the original order, then God help you.

This was, as said, from a PDF-print, from which the app made its own TIFFs on the fly. I tried making my own TIFFs, which were marginally better (it correctly identified the title text), but still was in the wrong staff order and utterly useless.

I know people's experience varies wildly with Musitek's apps, but for me, that lack of consistency is another problem.

I was half expecting a tortuous and difficult process to get a refund, but Apple processed it immediately - just a few clicks from a link in the invoice. (Well, I'll get it back in 5-7 working days...)

[miker]

BT,

Just for giggles, send me the PDF at wawoodman at aol dot com.

Let's see how the real SmartScore handles it. Musitek says that the recognition engine is the same, but with the full programs, you can edit the result.

[miker]

Well, it was a real dog's breakfast on the initial scan. Many missing barlines. In fact, I would send this score in to Musitek, and complain. I have never had that many, missed. That being said, it was no problem to select the barline tool (shortcut=I key) and click them in as needed. There were also a number of places where the second voice (or layer) was incorrect IN THE ORIGINAL SCORE. There were quarter notes that either should have been half notes, or followed by rests. Again, easily fixed. One sixteenth note triplet that was not indicated as such in the score. One key tap, one click and drag to fix. A couple of instances where a low note on one staff was picked up as a high note on the other. A couple of superfluous notes, easily deleted. I also left a number of tenutos and accents, that were added. They are much easier to delete in Finale, since you can do them en masse.

In any case, exactly 18 minutes from receipt of your email to Finale score. Not what I would call "not worth it” for a six page, 108 measure, 3 staff score, even if there is a little more work to do.

FWIW, I would normally scan without text or lyrics. I find it easier to add them back in, after I get the score into Finale. I left them as-is in your score, so you could see how they were picked up.

[BuonTempi]

I guess this confirms that for scanning work, it's the PRO app, or nothing.

Thanks for your time, Mike.

[miker]

Not necessarily. All of the other Musitek apps allow editing of the recognized score, but with limitations of how many staves they will recognize. For this particular case, the Songbook edition would have been fine. However, just like Finale vs. NotePad, if you really want to get it done, you have to "go big, or go home!"

[John335]

Hey Guys,
I use SmartScore X2 Pro also, but I also use PhotoScore & NotateMe Ultimate and get better results and vice versa. It just depends and that why I have both.

My 2 pennies.

John

[miker]

John,

Welcome to the forum.

Whatever works for you, is fine! I suspect Finale users tend to go to SmartScore, because that's what, in the Lite version, was packaged with Finale for many years.

[MikeHalloran]

I suspect Finale users tend to go to SmartScore, because that's what, in the Lite version, was packaged with Finale for many years.

I agree. Interesting comparison. I'd rather pay the $200 and get editing features than $99 and have less functionality.

If Music-to-XML offered superior performance, I might have to own both—but apparently, it doesn't.

I'm glad to see the comparison.