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A friend contacted me yesterday for a recommendation. She had been running Finale notePad, a free version that was discontinued after 2012. Her new Win computer won’t run it and she has learned how useless MuseScore is for her work.
If Encore 6 existed, I would have steered her there in a heartbeat since it would be perfect for her needs. Instead, I recommended Finale 27 — like recommending a tourniquet for a mosquito bite but it will do what she wants with a workflow she already understands, even if it is waaaaay overkill for her needs as a piano teacher and church accompanist. With academic pricing, I expect the cost to be about the same either way.
Encore 5 will no longer run on my wife’s Mac, of course, so she has begun to explore Finale and has started to figure it out, also. Since I am in house tech support, her learning curve impacts my time.
Gotta move along and get the work done, right?
Overture 5 is Don’s other app. I recommend downloading the demo and reading the User manual. It can do what you want with glissando. There is also an available add-on VI library, Amadeus. You should also check out the Tuplet tool.
I have no idea how much of this will be included in Encore 6 but, since this functionality exists already, we know that it should show up in Overture 6 which is expected to be able to open Encore 5 files.
Although I like Encore for many reasons, I refuse to lose work. Fortunately, 5.0.7 for Mac almost never crashes. Problem is that I must shut down and boot from a different drive or run it from my laptop with a 27” external monitor. Often the time so set it up outweighs the savings I see by using Encore. Then there are the terrible slurs.
I like Encore for the quick charts I need to knock out but I can use Overture/Finale/Dorico if I need to and the layout looks better when I’m done—takes longer, however. I am not a fan of Notion and strongly dislike MuseScore & Sibelius.
Encore has never been a practical choice for heavy lifting or publication. For praise band charts, church choir rehearsal, lead sheets etc. Encore is perfect which is why I want version 6. It’s not the only game in town and I refuse to let it get in my way.
It’s a safe assumption that Encore 6 will open anything that could be opened by Encore 5. This should include the last version of MTD files as these can be opened by E5.
As to older files, it unknown how far back E6 will be able to reach. We won’t know till it ships.
Yea… I’m not holding my breath. I want it when it becomes available but am not letting this keep me from getting my work done.
Encore is a tool. If I must, I’ll use another. If I need to open an old file, there are ways. Everything I’ve ever done has been exported to MIDI, MusicXML and pdf. Nothing will be lost when I get a new Mac; it will just be a bit inconvenient to convert these files to something else.
“Times New Roman is typically a default font for many Windows programs…”
Then change it.
Minion Pro is a popular lyric font because of its readability. You can get it free from Adobe by installing Adobe Reader. Although it saves as an Application font, it’s easy to install as a System Font available to all users. The instructions differ for Mac and Windows but it’s pretty easy to do.
Again, you can be save any available font in a template.
“With the graphic panel I actually don’t use the Lyric tool [L] just the Text tool [T], particularly to have more specific control of text placement.”
Your request makes no sense. Using the Lyric tool, one is able to position words and syllables precisely by dragging horizontally with the mouse. The entire line can be repositioned vertically by dragging the arrow on the left—for each line up to 8. You can also replace, resize and restyle the lyrics for the entire document with a few clicks. If the new placement isn’t to your liking, re-drag as you like.
This is not possible with the Text tool without creating a new field for each word, a task that is cumbersome and time consuming to say the least.
There’s a good idea.
For the Mac, the IAC Driver might work. I have no interest in trying it out as I use Finale and Overture when I need this but here’s the Apple Support doc for those willing to give it a try.
https://support.apple.com/guide/audio-midi-setup/transfer-midi-information-between-apps-ams1013/mac
Windows does not have a native pdf engine. There are many commercial and free apps you can use to add this functionality. CUTE PDF is very popular.
Print to PDF is part of the Print menu on any Mac. 3rd party apps from Adobe and others do exist but are not necessary for basic functionality.
Encore 5 is not offered for sale anywhere. I’ve seen some shady sites that claim to offer 5.0.4 for Windows and 5.0.7 for Mac. “Trusted” will not be part of that equation.
“ I know about adjusting measures per page after a delete or add measure.”
I wasn’t talking abut that. Reread my post. Ask questions if you don’t understand. It’s too bad we can’t add graphics or screen shots here.
“I bought Sonic Writer 5 for only $69.00 and it does everything Encore 5.0.4.875 did …”
Oh not everything. I downloaded Score Writer just to see. If you do what I do, there are a few absolute deal killers for me, especially this one:
“Lyric Verses — Overture: 8; Score Writer: 4”
I often need more than 4 verses in my church work. Encore has up to 8. Score Writer would be useless in my Christmas book, also. I’d like to do it in Encore but the slurs are so bad (at least on the Mac) that terrible doesn’t even begin to describe it so I’m doing my book in Overture (don’t need Finale or Dorico for this). BTW, Finale slurs didn’t really look good till 2009 and Encore 5 was released in 2008.
The cross-grade to Ov5 is $129 and it does have all of Encore’s functionality + a lot more – glad I spent the extra $60. I still want Encore 6, however. Overture and Score Writer take me longer to use. There are other functions doable in Encore, not possible in Score Writer but that’s the big one for me.
I couldn’t get the Score Writer Installer to work on my iMac Pro over Ventura (Overture works fine) so I had to fire up my old MacBook Pro. Here’s the feature comparison between Overture and Score Writer:
