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Don, please at least finish MasterTracksPro.
Last I talked to Don, he recommended Overture 5 because it has all of the functionality. I don’t believe it opens MTP files. If he ever releases Overture 6, it will.
Worst customer service ever.…
You aren’t his customer — and never were unless you own a license for Overture (as many of us do).
Don was the original developer of Encore but there were other owners over the decades. It was the last owner that never updated to 64 bit and left the code in such shabbles. Don bought the source code and has been promising to resurrect Encore. Yes, we are disappointed that this hasn’t happened but, until he sells licenses to the new version, the term, “customer service” does not apply.
Mike, is Don sick? Dead? Is there anything you can tell us. Last we heard from him was May 2025
Probably the last time I spoke with him. I left a message in January but have not heard back.
I keep an old Mac mini running Encore 5.0.7. I’m using it over the Screen Sharing.app on my new Mac Studio and it’s quite correct so far.
How do you have this set up?
Sonic Scores Overture incorporates the functionality of Master Tracks Pro. I suggest downloading it for evaluation to see if it can open your old projects.
This board doesn’t let me post links or I would include one–neither have I ever used Master Tracks Pro.
We have no idea what version of Encore 5 you have. Mac? Windows? Exact operating system? Encore Build number (run About… to find that)?
It all makes a difference. We’re able to help but only if we know more.
In my conversations with Don, I learned that the code he purchased was in much worse shape than he imagined making the project a lot more difficult than thought. It’s been awhile since we last talked.
Hi Mike, May I ask you for a copy and Merry Christmas!
Sure! Send me an email with Encore for Mac or something similar in the title.
m i k e (at) h a l l o r a n m u s i c dot c o m
Merry Christmas!
The only software that can put multiple movements/sections on the same page in parts and score is Dorico.
That’s not correct. It is handled similarly in both Finale and MuseScore. It’s even possible in Encore but using a page layout app is faster and easier.
The Mac version is a bit more involved if it has this problem. I’ve written a tutorial and bundled it with a necessary file. Both Andre and I have it if needed.
You can do it with any Publishing Software – ‘print’ each Encore file in a graphic file (I mostly used TIF Files…
All well and good but the free and inexpensive publishing apps cannot edit PDF files—and there are many reasons to want this. Rehearsal numbers come immediately to mind. Much easier to edit font info than pictures if you want to continue.
I use Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Photoshop Elements and Swift Publisher to finalize my scores for distribution but not Encore. Slurs look so amateurish in the Mac version that there’s no point. I’m using Finale 27 through Christmas when I will try to get back into Dorico to find a workflow I can live with.
Looking over previous editions done in Encore… There are things about it I really miss that I can’t be duplicated in Finale.
Mike, don’t confuse the abilities of a certain level of MusicXML with the import or export correctness of the implementation.
Who’s confused? All one has to do is read the release notes of MusicXML to know what the various builds can and cannot do. Unfortunately, this board does not let me include links.
Until Myriad gets off their butts and implements MusicXML 4.0, the myriad of problems (pun intended) encountered by MuseScore users cannot be fixed. You can Google Michael Good’s change log by looking for The MusicXML version history is now published in the MusicXML 4.0 Community Report which will take you to a MakeMusic page with a good link..
One could still argue that “Harmony Assistant + PDFtoMusic (std)” costs 15% less than PDFtoMusic Pro,…
And the need to get familiar with “score editing” in Harmony Assistant should not be overlooked.So what? Neither app is useful to me. Using both is just a way to waste more time. Score editing in Harmony Assistant? Not for the work I do. My score editing is done in Finale.
PDFtoMusic Pro saves me time on occasion which is why it’s worth the $199. Although pretty good with Encore files, it’s useful only about 1/3 the time. It can’t read a lot of music fonts used in newer apps and just makes a mess of those. It’s faster if I delete text and re-enter by hand. This is not the same as pdf files with no font info that it’s never been able to read. I have SmartScore 64 NE Pro for those.
Nowadays, the dominant exporter is no longer Finale, but has become MuseScore.
I assume that, by dominant, you are referring to the numbers of scores being converted and complaints being lodged. If so, this is correct. MuseScore now supports MusicXML 4.0 as does Dorico. The implementation is not as good as Finale’s, still the only one with a complete integration of 4.0 — well, Sibelius uses a 4.0 converter (the free Dolet 8 plug-in) from MakeMusic written before Mr. Good retired so it should be completely compatible.
I use Myriad’s PFDtoMusic Pro for converting Encore files. As far as I can tell, it uses MusicXML 3.0 although the last announcement from Myriad was that they were implementing 2.0 but that was years ago.
This is the problem. Finale users can select the version of MusicXML for export from 1.0–4.0. Can’t be done in MuseScore 4.x. as xml 4.0 is the only choice. Until PFDtoMusic Pro and Harmony Assistant adopt 4.0, that problem will remain. Neither can handle dashed(dotted) slurs and if you see those, give it up and enter by hand to save time. I speak from experience.
Although MakeMusic owns MusicXML, the developer’s toolkit is free. I’ve no idea if MM still has an engineering team to assist 3rd party developers but in any case, Myriad needs to get off their collective butts if this problem is to be solved.
Back to Encore. The Win version of E5 supports xml 1.1 while the Mac version supports 1.3. MusicXML export is kind of ridiculous. Not so with PDF. By having printed all of my Encore files to PDF, they all convert ok in PFDtoMusic Pro. Its Lyrics handling is not great and Text elements always wind up in the wrong place but those can be dragged around.
I still consider Harmony Assistant @ $95 to be a waste of money but PFDtoMusic Pro @ $199 to be a time saver and hope that it gets good someday.
