Mike Halloran

I tried posting a reply with links but this forum doesn’t like that. Trying again. You’ll have to Google the apps that I mention.

There are many 3rd party apps that do this now. Even when Finale and Sibelius did it, they partnered with other companies; Finale used SmartScore Lite and Sibelius used PhotoScore Lite for scanning. Finale dropped this with 25.

Since Overture has MusicXML 3.0 import, we can expect Encore 6 to have it also.

The good news is that there are now many apps with different functionality at all price levels. The good ones can scan a tiff or pdf file and export as MusicXML 3.0. MUSIC-to-XML.app works on your iOS or Android smartphone.

Because scans are never perfect, the best ones scan and let you edit in the app before you export the xml. I use SmartScore 64 Professional Edition.
One thing nice about MUSITEK is that if you buy their MUSIC-to-XML app and later decide you should have bought SmartScore 64 Pro.app, there is an upgrade path.

Avid’s stand-alone products, PhotoScore and NotateMe, are SmartScore’s competition.

There are a ton of others apps, some ok and a lot of crapware.

There’s talk of MuseScore offering scanning. Well, yes and no. They have a web service that generates a .mcsz file that you open in MuseScore with varying results when the web service processes your files. (Google it) If you’re lucky and the scan is any good, it can be exported via MusicXML 3.0 for import into Encore 6.

The above is an overview only.

The .musicxml extension requires MusicXML v.3.1 or the newly released v.4.0. Since neither versions have seen wide adoption, don’t expect this in the next Encore release. Even Sibelius skipped v.3.1 and just got 4.0 only a few weeks ago when MakeMusic (Finale) released the Dolet 8 Plug-in for Sibelius (won’t work with any other app).

Overture supports MusicXML version 3.0, as does the current versions of MuseScore, Dorico, Sibelius (without the plug-in), Finale (3.0 is in the drop-down menu) and Notion so this is what I expect.

MusicXm is a toolkit, not a feature that one just adds. How well it is implemented and what features it includes depends on the developer. Some, including Overture, do this better than others.

“undo and scrolling issues.. to name but two..”

You got that right. Undo absolutely sucks in the current versions.

“It is good the way it is…”

I don’t believe that anyone agrees with that when it comes to MusicXML.

Encore’s current MusicXML is v. 1.x and does not support lyrics and expressions among its many failings. It’s not that xml 1 could not support these but MusicXML is a toolkit and it is up to the developer to decide what is implemented and how—and the developer for GVOX used very few features. Version 2.0 was out in 2007, a year or so before Encore 5.

Although xml v.4 has been released by MakeMusic with Finale 27 last year, adoption has been slooooow. Sibelius just got v.4 in the form of a Dolet 8 plug-in from MM a few weeks ago and none of the other notation apps out there are even using v.3.1 (a major update) released in 2017 and first implemented in Finale in mid-2018.

I expect Encore 6 to support MusicXML 3.0 which has been around since 2011 or so with wide adoption. Again, because it is a toolkit, do not expect it to be 100% compatible with other notation apps. Overture and Notion and Finale all handle 3.0 well while Dorico and MuseScore have issues but nothing insurmountable.

Here’s what I know (subject to change):

Don Williams is running Passport Designs and Sonic Scores as separate companies. He does have the serial #s and registered email addresses of all versions of Encore etc. but expects the majority of those email addresses to no longer work.

Here’s what I’m guessing:

Pricing for new and upgrade licenses is a marketing decision—this is true for any company. Writing code for a new product such as Encore 6 that takes into account previous version licenses may take much more time and resources than are worth it (remember that 5 was released in 2008 IIRC). Though the name is old, this is a new company with no financial ties to the previous owners of the code.

I would not be surprised if there is no upgrade path from previous licenses. If the price for E6 is low enough, it won’t matter. What did I pay for the E5 Upgrade—$119 perhaps?

>Need to Restore my Encore for it has become unuseable.<

Not nearly enough information. If you are trying to make it work on current Mac or Windows operating systems, then the answer you received from synthzizer is the best one. If older, there are issues that might be addressed.