NEURATRON PHOTOSCORE

To scan and edit existing musical scores, the best option is a dedicated application (and one with a very long name)

Many DAWs include decent notation options allowing you to easily transcribe your MIDI creations into musical score. But what if your original music has been handwritten and you want to create multiple easy-to-read parts? Or perhaps you already have a printed score and want to convert it into MIDI data that you can edit or play? That’s where software developer Neuratron can help. Up for review is PhotoScore and NotateMe Ultimate 2020, the latest version of this long established score scanning package. In fact, as the name implies it actually comprises two applications but these are conveniently combined in one workspace. PhotoScore is for importing and editing existing music scores while NotateMe (see boxout) is designed for hand writing scores from scratch.

PhotoScore uses optical music recognition (OMR) to analyse (read) both the musical and text aspects of musical scores and then allows you to edit them. You can scan directly into the software using a regular scanner or import

PDFs, JPEGs, TIFFs and bitmap files. Once you’ve finished you can simply print the score or save it as MIDI, PDFs, Notation Interchange File Format (NIFF) or MusicXML. PhotoScore can also play back your analysed score using your computer’s own internal MIDI synth and export this playback as AIFF or WAV. This is a handy but basic feature and could certainly benefit from extended functionality.

Practice makes perfect

PhotoScore lists the available scanned and imported scores in the pages panel on the left. The score you’re working on dominates the main workspace and at the top of this window you’ll see a focus section of the original score. There are various optional floating windows including the Bad Timing window, which flags bars where the note values do not add up correctly, and the Full Detail window, which provides a cursor sensitive zoom view of the original score. The main floating window (Keypad) provides the tools for adding and modifying notes, rests, accidentals and many other markings such as ties, accents and bow markings. Further aspects such as key signatures, bar lines, chord boxes, text and so on can be added using the Create menu.

Of course what’s available to modify is dependent on the quality of the import or scan, and how well it is interpreted. Deciphering the often quite subtle aspects of musical score is a complex process. PhotoScore reads PDFs very well. Scans understandably are a bit more tricky and we found it really pays to follow their advice, firstly with regard to the score type (Printed or Handwritten) and with regard to the actual stave size on the paper and scanner DPI setting. That said, further options let you manually adjust the analysed stave positions later on if required.

Overall using PhotoScore is reasonably straightforward and there are plenty of features for the more adventurous. For example, it can handle up to four voices per stave (for editing purposes these are colour coded), and if the score layout is poor, the Rescore option can improve the formatting. It’s also easy to transpose the whole score, which is very handy. Despite the undoubted functionality, by today’s standards the software can feel a little dated but, overall, it certainly does score well. Web neuratron.com