Comparison of Notation Products

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Comparison of Notation Products

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The following chart compares the purposes and features of the following three products in Notation Software's Notation line: Notation Player, Musician and Composer.

For the most up-to-date comparison of features please visit our page at https://www.notation.com/NotationProductsFeatureComparison.php

For ordering and pricing information for these two products, please visit our web site.

 

Purpose and Features

Notation Player

Notation Musician

Notation Composer

Purpose: Open MIDI files and transcribe them to sheet music that you can view on the screen as the notes play.

 

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Transcribe MIDI file to sheet music with excellent accuracy, including detection of swing rhythms, grace notes, trills and tremolos.

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Correct any errors that might be made in the transcription of the note rhythms.

 

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Automatically analyze and display chord names.

 

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Purpose: Enjoy and study the music notation a song as it plays.

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Highlight the notes and lyrics as they play.

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Slow down the tempo so that you can hear the rhythms more clearly.

 

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Temporarily increase the volume of one track while decreasing the volume of other tracks, so that you can focus your listening on a particular instrument or voice. "Solo" a track while the others are muted.

 

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Purpose: Practice music as you sing along or play your instrument with accompaniment

 

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Transpose the pitch of a vocal part to match your voice range.

 

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Automatically turn pages.

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Set up practice loops, to repeat a section of the song at optionally increasing tempos.

 

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Remotely execute commands from your keyboard, such as Start Playback, End Playback, and Fast Forward.

 

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Purpose: Quickly prepare parts from a MIDI file, for use by yourself or musicians in a performing group.

 

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Prepare an "Easy Notes" part for student musicians, showing note letters (for example "C") in the noteheads.

 

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Prepare a "Sing-Along" vocal part, for easy sight-reading from the screen while the song plays.

 

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Prepare a fake book lead sheet part, with melody and chords.

 

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Prepare piano reduction of a score that has multiple instruments or voices.

 

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Extract individual parts for the players or singers in your music group.

 

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Transpose an instrument's part to its natural key, such as for a Bb clarinet,

 

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Split a single piano/keyboard track into right- and left-hand staves.

 

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Split a MIDI drum track into separate one-line drum instrument staves.

 

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Split a track into melody and accompaniment parts.

 

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Purpose: Annotate the sheet music that has been transcribed from a MIDI file.

 

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Add lyrics.

 

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Change enharmonic spellings of notes, such as C# to Db.

 

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Edit note beams.

 

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Transcribe the following types of ornaments:

B816grace notes
B816trills
B816tremolos

Temporarily display an ornament as written-out notes, or revert it to a written-out performance.

 

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Add accent marks and articulations, dynamic marks, hairpin crescendo marks, slurs, pedal marks, and other special music symbols.

 

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Add staff symbols: brackets and braces, clefs, key signatures, and barline types.

Clefs and Key Signatures

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Add free text anywhere in the score.

 

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Add rehearsal marks.

 

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Add 8va octave marks.

 

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Add repeat barlines and endings, which will be interpreted during playback.

 

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Add special repeat directives, such as "D.C.", for which you can specify the destination measure.

 

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Purpose: Format and print the score and parts.

 

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Print an entire score, or an individual part.

 

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Choose the default font size, face, and style for various categories of music symbols and types of text. The default can be overridden for specific items.

 

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Specify the default horizontal spacing (degree of stretch or compression) and default vertical spacing between staves.

 

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Control the layout of each page:

B816page breaks, system (line) breaks
B816number of measures on any given system,
B816number of systems on any given page
B816vertical spacing between any pair of staves
B816vertical spacing between adjacent systems
B816relative horizontal spacing of individual measures within a system (line).

 

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Add and control the placement of page title, footer and header text.

 

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Optionally hide empty staves.

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Expand or collapse multiple-measure rests.

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Format parts using templates.

 

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Display one-line drum instrument staves using special percussion noteheads.

 

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Purpose: Re-arrange the notes of an existing song, or create music from scratch.

 

 

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Create a new song using a pre-defined template for a variety of solo instruments, duet pairs, small ensembles, and large ensembles. Or, use a custom song template that you have previously prepared.

 

 

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Add notes by whatever method is most convenient for you:

B816with the mouse and computer keyboard.
B816using the Sequential Note Entry method, whereby where you rarely have to select the note duration, even when the sequence of notes has different note duration.
B816using Step-Time recording, one note or chord at a time, from your MIDI keyboard or input device.

 

 

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Change pitches of notes.

 

 

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Add tracks (instrument parts).

 

 

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Add measures.

 

 

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Add ornaments:

B816graces notes
B816trills
B816turns
B816mordents
B816arpeggios
B816tremolos

 

 

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Change the meter and barline positions.

 

 

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Purpose: Record music from your MIDI keyboard or input device.

 

 

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Your performance is transcribed using the same excellent MIDI-to-notation transcription technology that Notation uses to transcribe MIDI files to sheet music.

 

 

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Set up the tempo for recording.

 

 

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Set up the number of pick-up measures.

 

 

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Record (punch in) into a selected region of a track.

 

 

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Add (punch in) a recording of pitch bends or MIDI controllers, on top of notes previously recorded.

 

 

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Record your live playing along with a song file using the NS VST Recorder.

 

 

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Purpose: Edit the performance (MIDI) of the song.

 

 

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Notation Composer offers the features of a typical MIDI sequencer program but in a more musically oriented way. Editing of the music performance is highly integrated with the music notation. Notation Composer offers an intuitive and fun way to refine the details of the performance without requiring that you know MIDI or work with tedious numbers.

 

 

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Edit the exact as-performed rhythms of notes while viewing Piano Roll Notation that is drawn on top of the notes.

 

 

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Edit the loudness of individual notes while viewing "vectors" (lines drawn at an angle from each notehead) that graphically show the loudness of each note.

 

 

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Snap ("quantize") the as-perform attack or release of a note to its notated rhythm.

 

 

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Lock the as-performed rhythm of a note, as that you can independently change its notated rhythm.

 

 

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Edit the underlying performance of ornaments: grace notes, trills, turns, tremolos, and arpeggios.

 

 

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Graphically edit the song tempo.

 

 

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Graphically edit the volume level, left-to-right pan, pedal, and pitch bend activity in a track.

 

 

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Graphically edit any MIDI controller data.

 

 

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Record ALL MIDI cc events when recording a song file from your MIDI instrument.

 

 

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Preserve System Exclusive (SysEx) events.

 

 

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Purpose: High-quality audio performance of your songs

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While all Notation Software products come with the high-quality NS Synth, there are some upgraded features with Notation Composer.

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Change the soundfont that is used for instrument sounds.

 

 

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Use the RealTime Audio feature for VST3 instruments and audio effects.

 

 

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Purpose: Share prepared Parts "live" for performance with your group

 

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Use the BandMates feature to broadcast individual Parts to your group members on their personal devices for live practices and performances.  Keep your "sheet" music all in one place for convenience and no paper.

 

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