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Mike, obviously there is some pathological need for Don to punish his former Encore subscribers.
Although Don was the creator of Encore, he had no part of it for decades. There are no “his Encore subscribers”. He has purchased the source code and found it to be in hideous shape—the easy port that he expected was not to be.
The only thing that could happen if Encore 6 is released is that we will all be disappointed by the new Encore because it is no longer the “old” one…
I have been told that we can expect this. Current OS (Mac and Win) are not going to let us have the old Encore that now works in 64 bit — and that’s too bad. The interface will resemble Overture except that it will be able to open Encore files and let us use VSTs again (Mac). Will it become my new default for lead sheets, choral and praise band work? I hope so.
I’m still using Encore 5 for quick charts but I cannot publish the results since they look so bad. I’m saving as pdf, then using PDFtoMusic Pro to export as MusicXML that I open in Finale, fix the fonts and can then publish.
My heavy lifting has always been done in Finale but it’s not playing nice with macOS 26 Tahoe and may never. Still trying to get the hang of Dorico that I’ve owned since v.2. And then, MuseScore 5 might actually be good if we ever see it (first promised 2023!). and so it goes…
I’ve just been too busy to worry about any of that. Somehow, I’ve been able to make music and notate it since 1969 by drawing in pencil and stencils for the ditto and mimeograph machines.
encore for macpro 2019 macos 15.4
Until version 6 is available, there’s no way to make Encore work on your Mac.
What is unbelievable, is that Apple has stopped supporting 32bit applications – about 8 years ago, I think.
Well, 15 years ago, Apple did announce that 32bit support was going to be dropped in 2012 (13 years ago) but that did not happen. Many of us were imploring Richard to upgrade to 64 bit at that time. So, when Catalina was released nearly 8 years later in 2019, no one should have been surprised that Encore for Mac would no longer work. Richard and Co. did nothing about it.
The only decent workaround is to own a Mac built between 2012–2018 that runs Mojave*. That is the most stable that Encore 5 can be—in fact, it’s pretty good for many of us. There are issues with High Sierra and earlier macOS that cannot be resolved. When these were spotted, Richard and I went back and forth with him insisting that those problems were Apple’s fauld—and he was right. Not upgrading Encore to 64 bit was all opn Richard, however.
Although the build is supposed to be 5.0.7, the GetInfo screen should read 5.0.6 1303M. If it does not, you can email Andre or myself and we can attach a patch or a download link that will get Mac users fixed up.
*If you do have a Mac built those years, I can show you how to install Mojave onto an APFS Volume and boot into it to run Encore 5.
Mojave is the only macOS that runs 5.0.7 (actually 5.0.6 1303m) well. Encore had problems in Sierra and High Sierra that were fixed in Mojave. If your build does not say Encore 5.0.6 1303m when you run GetInfo, contact Andre or myself for a download link and instructions.
Mike (at) halloranmusic dot com
Until some of us have seen it to test, we won’t know-—but I can guess. Since it will be compatible with the latest macOS, I don’t expect to remain 32 bit compatibility.
That said, Mojave won’t run on any Mac introduced 3rd. Quarter 2019 or later.
Any Mac running Mojave without a hack can run Catalina. This is all made between 2012–2018. I wish I knew more but not yet.
— Absence of dashed tie/slur lines (useful for hymns with multiple stanzas under one set of notes)
And yet hymnals existed for hundreds of years without them. I find that dotted slurs in hymnals clutter pages and make them harder to read, not easier.
— After not touching a given Encore file for a good bit of time (months), Encore suddenly, randomly, does not recognize one of the fonts therein and requests a font to replace. This is quite random. I can find no pattern. Since the font non-recognition happens before anything is displayed, there is no way to know which font to suggest as a replacement. I end up picking some strange font I never use only so as to be able to recognize it easily.
…
What version are you running over what OS? Many of your issues are unusual. Some of the Encore 5 beta and interim releases had some really weird problems. Purging and reinstalling of the latest versions often clears that up.
…Personally, I’ll be happy if Encore5 runs on Catalina or later OS.
Couldn’t happen. Some code cannot recompiled 64 bit and must be rewritten. The old owner and his team had years to fix it and never did.
Much of the Encore 5 code never performed as advertised—or at all. Some of these functions work in Overture but not the way that Encore users are used to. I have been testing some of this for Don. There will be some crossover between Encore 6 and Overture but how much and when, we won’t know until we see it.
Encore 6, like Overture 5 and hundreds of other apps, will support MusicXML 3.0. Encore 5 supports v. 1.1 (Win) or 1.3 (Mac) — no expressions or lyrics.
If you save Encore 5 files as .pdf, you can use PDFtoMusic Pro to read the font information and export as MusicXML 3.0. These files can be opened in Finale with a minimum of tweaking.
MusicXML is a toolkit, not an app. Version 3’s inadequacies come to light immediately when one tries to use PDFtoMusic Pro to read anything with dotted slurs. By the time you’ve sorted out the resulting mess in Finale, you’ll wish that you had just entered the notes by hand.
I’ve had mixed results with MuseScore files downloaded as .xml and opened in Finale. Sometimes, all I have to do is change fonts and adjust spacing; other times, I’m looking at a jumbled disaster.
Mac or Windows, OS version and build of Encore?
You can send Andre or me a message. M i k e (at) h a l l or a n m u s i c dot com
The manual shows how to do this. If you still need help, please let us know if Mac or Windows, the OS version and build of Encore.
I’ll take a guess that, since Encore 6 has yet to make it to beta, no one is wondering why the output is so slow.
Encore 5.0.7 over macOS 10.14.6 Mojave is quick enough. Mojave requires a metal graphics card on a 32 bit Mac (2012 to 2018) to run. Mojave running over emulators on pre-2012 Macs is painfully slow.
Since Finale announced end of life last year, there are only two products that qualify as “Top Notation Software” with all the features and functionality that the large publishing houses require. Those are Sibelius and Dorico with the promise that MuseScore will join the list — MS5 will prove or disprove that.
There are a small number of midlevel products including Overture but they lack the engraving features that the big houses need. Then there’s text based Lilypond for the hobbyists that consider 19th C. engraving to be the pinnacle of notation and have no use for MusicXML and so on…
Encore has never made that list as far as I’m concerned. Unfortunately, the printouts of both 4.5.5 and 5.0.7 look amateurish and I’m being kind. Fine for internal use and rehearsals but never for publication. Slurs are abysmal.
Encore’s strength has always been its simplicity, speed and ease of use which is why it sits on my laptop and I still use it. Nothing else can touch it for that. If it also looked good, would meet 90% of my needs. As is, I always need to convert to Finale for distribution or publication.
Don has told me that the next version will look good enough with tapered slurs and everything. If it also keeps the full ease of use of Encore 5… Ok, I’m not really expecting that but if it retains most of the features I’ve enjoyed, it will be a winner for me.
What I consider “heavy lifting” — large, complex scores and the like — will still require one of the Big Two or Three or I might keep Finale going since it’s the devil I know best but that’s quite alright with me.
…the bar should automatically recognize the anacrusis value without the user specifying it
Hmmm… Interesting and now that you bring it up, even desirable. Seeing that no notation app has this functionality currently, we may have to wait for the promised AI features of MuseScore 5 to show us all how this should be done.
I confess that Encore 5’s ability to specify anacrusis without jumping through a number of hoops is one of my favorite features (ahem, MuseScore, Finale, Sibelius…). I haven’t played with Dorico 6 yet to see if there’s any improvement from Yamaha/Steinberg but none has been announced.
