Music Notation Software for Drums: An In Depth Review by EMC
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- Опубліковано 3 сер 2024
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Intro Cadence - “False Hype” by EMC
Background Cadence - “White Boy Smooth” by EMC
Download these beats here - • EMC Background Cadence...
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0:00 - Intro
0:48 - Price
2:04 - Score Set Up
3:21 - Note Input
12:45 - Details Input
15:54 - Playback
19:08 - EMC Marching Madness 2021
Do I look cuter without glasses?
Absolutly
Yessir
of course
You are look cute so yah
Definitely! And it's good that you don't have issues with dry-eye! Allergies got to me big time, so I continue to wear my interdimensional portholes ... (I tried YEARS ago but gave up after a year or so, long before I needed bifocals 🤓)
I concur with your choice :)
However, I've also marked down all the things you struggled with. These should all be addressed. Percussion improvements are a big one for us.
I find it hilarious how your comment is going completely unnoticed.
Keep up the good work! I hope EMC can revisit MuseScore in a few months and show all the improvements.
Seeing you here is the weirdest combining of worlds I've ever seen. Love your stuff man and can't to see what more from you in the future!
By any chance, do you usually watch EMC or do you watch out for anything tagged with notation?
I can’t believe that you’re here! Love your channel and all of your work!
So glad you commented on this video! A whole new channel to explore! Loved your video on creating the new font in Musescore!
Musescore actually has a sticking feature that you can use instead of the lyrics tool. You have to go to the keybinds, search for sticking, and then assign a key bind. Now, the text will be above the dynamics and not phase into the staff
Eric without glasses, the world as we know it is ending.
I really like the Popeyes software
Same
how to easily fix the musescore sticking thing: its really simple..... Just dont add sticking. let the reader suffer and let them figure it out themselves haha. And plus, i think musescore is better becuase all of the keyboard shortcuts. you missed a bunch of shortcuts that wouldve made your time even shorter
He also missed a ton of Finale's keyboard shortcuts.
Musescore also has dedicated Sticking text. No shortcut by default, but you can add one in the preferences.
In note input mode, holding shift adds new notes on top (doublestop/chord) instead of going to the next note. Also, Shift+T for staff text, and for articulation/accents: *>* = Shift+V, *^* = Shift+O, *-* = Shift+N
We still need a full i dont know what the heck i'm Doing Cadence
Sibelius with Virtual Drumline. Very clean, easy to write and the sounds are spectacular. Sibelius really give you full control over playback
@EMCproductions for the sticking/dynamics in Musescore, when you select all of the stickings, there's a checkmark in the right panel "Automatic Placement" which was on in your video. If you uncheck the box just for the stickings, you'll be able to move all of the stickings without affecting anything else in the score
14:15 I mentioned this in a different video, but if you go to the top of musescore and hit the “add” button, “text”, and look for “stickings” it should just add whatever hand you want to do, which it moves closest to the note where the dynamic is under the sticking, so you don’t have to do extra stuff and have the stickings outta wack.
My teacher made me write in Noteflight when I was in the 8th grade. Now I’m in college still writing on Noteflight XD
I've switched over to Dorico recently - I used Finale from 2008, and even though it's been a huge learning curve for me, I'm now happier using Dorico than I ever was using Finale.
Great vid mate. Thanks for the info and love the piece you wrote!
We’re playing festive overture in our high school’s symphonic band😂
I LOVE Festive Overture!
@@deniscarranza4143 it’s super fun! the snare part is pretty well-written
4:28 This is an issue with the full version as well if there are a lot of other parts. The way you can change that is to apply the targeted VST in a separate bank and increase the volume of it in VST Banks and Effects window. This will work well for VDL Lite and you can also do this for the full version if you want a particular part to stand out.
You're awesome I laughed a lot and learned a lot....
1:59 that picture on the left kinda sus 😳
What do you mean, I don’t see anythi-
Wait………... I- oh, ummmmmmm………
*it was time for Thomas to leave, he had seen everything*
*AMOGUS*
To add a double stop on musescore, you go to the note and press shift+the note shortcut. For the double stop you wanted, press shift+A. As for sticking: Add->Text->Sticking
Your style of humor is weird and hilarious. Wasn’t expecting this when I looked up drum notation software. +1
You can write over the bar line tuplets in musescore by selecting the two measures and clicking "tools" then "measure" then "join selected measures" then add whatever rhythm you want and add the bar line in the appropriate place back with the bar line drop down
I use MuseScore with Virtual Drumline, but if you’re having struggles with MuseScore, here are some tips.
1. Sticking: Add text, but choose sticking, and not lyrics. This way, you can position the sticking the way you want. Optional: add a keyboard shortcut.
2. If you don’t like the cymbal techniques, add mappings to your own desire. You might need a MIDI editor, but it will make your life a bit easier.
Actually to fix the Sticking with Dynamics problem
1.Go to add
2.Go to Text
3.Select Sticking
From there write your sticking because it should automatically be below the note and from there add the dynamics. but if that's still being a problem just click on the dynamic and uncheck the box that says "automatic placement" to move it where you want
For the double stop
1.Click on the note
2.Hit N
3.Then Shift+A
EMC your dankness is over 6,900 I couldn’t find any other way to say this
You actually can make triplets go over the bar if you join 2 measures together, create the triplet, and then insert a bar line, and move it wherever you want
LIKE SO ERIC CAN SEE THIS
we need a Muscore tutorial video! Also, never get out. Stay in as long as you can, retire at 48 and you'll still be young and healthy enough to keep working. That retirement income will be a nice cushion to allow you to pursue other interests.
You can change the notation for each instrument in finale so you don’t get a bunch of different notes on the same shared line. I usually duplicate the basic snare line and and move the “snare section hit” down a spot and adjust it later
@ EMCproductions
I use Finale 2012 (I was in college so I haven't upgraded) and here are some tips that might help you in Finale:
1. You can turn off the option to not allow extra notes in a measure going to the "Simple" tab, hitting "Simple Entry Options" and unchecking [Check for Extra Notes], that way you shouldn't have a triple-dotted 128th note fiasco.
2. Using your keyboard arrows (UP/DOWN or #/-) you can select faster the types of hits/techniques for the drumline sections. Then using ENTER you can simply put the notes on the staff. Also using the numbers 1-8 you can select 32nd all the way down to double-whole notes. (1=32nd, 2=16th, 3=8th, 4=quarter, etc,)
3. Holding pressing the number "9" and then holding shift while starting a triplet will allow you to define (like you did but faster) the type of tuplet you desire.
Also, do you have any tips on understanding tuplets in tuplets? For example: three 5-lets, individually organized, but also beneath a triplet bar.
(I hope that made sense, and I hope these tips help).
As a fellow percussionist I find your channel uplifting, resourceful and entertaining! (I never was in any major drumlines aside from captain/1st snare of my HS drumline) but always found the camaraderie and teamwork fulfilling.
Sibelius has its flaws, but watching you struggle with Finale was confirmation that Finale is still worse.
Needed this!
Why haven't I heard of your channel before??? This is great
Eric’s computer speakers go BBBBBBRRRRRRRRR
17:33 "But just for Poops and Giggles" -- Sgt Eric Carr. Very Professional! 😲🤭😉
Shortcut for tuplets in Finale
To make it fit in the bar without the MATH, enter the first note of your tuplet, then his alt+9 (or option+9) and select your tuplet duration (x notes in the space of y beats). It should work fine without the *MATH*
Nice, you happened to choose the two that I happen to own and use
Epic channel !!
LOVE THE SHIRT😃
Learning the keyboard shortcuts for programs makes things 10x faster
beautiful gems
0:26 ahhh yes, Popeyes. The greatest music notation software.
Hi Eric! This might have been suggested in one of the other 278 comments, it looks like you use the "Lyrics" tool for sticking in the video. MuseScore does have a "sticking" option under Add>Text>Sticking
That should fix your issue with colliding elements and exporting parts. Hope that helps! Cool vid!
I use the articulation and expression tool keyboard shortcuts and add them while I write the notes out. Saves a little time.
Pretty great video Eric. There are some shortcuts on finale that work around a lot of the problems you mentioned. It is still really slow. After using finale for almost 30 years, maybe I'll give muse score a try.
Ok so Finale is by no means perfect, you do have a lot of valid criticisms in this video. But for someone who's used it for a long time as you said, I'm incredibly surprised that you're using what seems like barely any keyboard shortcuts in your workflow. Articulations especially are so much easier if you press a single key and then select which notes you want to have that articulation (ex. press 'A' for accents, 'S' for staccato, etc.) I feel like you're doing a lot of mouse movement when Finale is really at it's best on your computers keyboard. Idk, I feel like all of your times could've been cut down significantly if you just memorized some of these shortcuts.
Yeah, same for Musescore. For basically any software, if you use it every day, take some time to learn the most important shortcuts. It will save so much time (and tendon strain) in the medium to long run. Keep your non-mouse hand on the home row.
Tip for Musescore:
For more cymbal noises (like tap chokes, muted taps, etc.) go under the marching percussion tab when choosing instruments and choose 'Cymbals' not the MDL cymbals
Hope this helps
ty
this is what i do its so much better
I really like flat because you can create scores on different devices and as long as you are signed in it synchronises, plus it's free unless you want the premium version, which definitely isnt necessary. Musescore is my second favorite because it is very customisable which I really like.
For double stops in musescore, you can just hold shift and then the key to input the note.
Great stuff as always! I've been on Finale since (gasp) 2003. So, I know it, i am comfortable with it, etc. Most of the issues you pointed out have easy work arounds and speedy entry options that would cut back on the time. That said, it's still SOOOO clunky. And every update brings both new improvements, but also takes away existing features that worked well.
I also use Sibelius which looks great, has better marching percussion sounds stock without having to add Virtual Drumline, and presents a cleaner finished product. But it is equally full of strange little things that are annoying and unneccesary.
Finale is probably the program with the widest scope of use. It's an industry standard for orchestral, choral, symphonic, and academia. For our limited marching purposes, it's good but not great. The one area that I think its the best is when arranging percussion for some of these other types of ensembles. If all you do is drumline segments, cadences and warm ups etc, musescore is easily your best bet.
You can also use numbers 1-6 on the keyboard to select note lengths in musescore!
I use flat. I tried note flight, and it doesn’t have as much instruments as Flat, but I like muscore over them.
I use flat to
@@xxichopixx7203 me too! Almost 2 years!
thanks for making this video! Each software has tools to offer for the user..but whatever software you know the best wins! (sometimes! lol)
I also hated using Finale when I tried to. I have used Sibelius for many years and feel like you get a more professional looking product that is more user-friendly with significantly less time. However, Avid has been very frustrating in some of their handling of the development of the software since they bought it out and removed the original development team.
On Musescore, there's multiple keyboard shortcuts that can be used to make the process a lot faster. Example, to see what instruments you have, you can just hit "i"." Also, to add more than one note onto one beat(double stops), you hold Shift and click
I don’t think he used keyboard shortcuts for finale, either, from how he talked about adding stuff like diddles
on musescore you could use the numpad to select the note duration, which makes note input very fast
I've always used Virtual Ensemble Trilogy for front ensemble and battery notation with Finale through Kontakt, very intrigued with the idea of making your own samples though, that could be a cool project!
Ayyyyyy festive overture whats up. Where my trumpets at?
For musescore sticking go to add->text-> sticking and it will make them above dynamics
My trick for cross-barline notes in MuseScore is similar to my trick in Sibelius: Double the time signature for the bar. Hide the time signature and slide the notes back over. Write the score as normal, then add a barline from the toolbar on the left. Then, in the next measure, change the time signature back.
I'm not here to say Finale is great (it isn't). But a lot of your issues with Finale would solved by using keyboard shortcuts, a midi keyboard, and a VDL template.
100% agree. And in that case finale wins lol
@@JSSoundsmusic
Finale is also 600 dollars more expensive
I guess when you have $99- $600 to spend on a music writing program what’s a little extra money for those accessories as well?
Agree, seems like he is just to used to Muscore
I'm loving the...
New set! Where did you get that fireplace? I love it!
Diggin' the no glasses look!
Thnxxx 😬
I've used Overture for years, though I write and arrange for horns, too, so my choice was based on that. Will have to give Musescore a tryout.
Great video. I agree, Musescore is much easier than Finale and for the right price. A tricks I used to enter notes "faster" (loosely used) was with a midi keyboard for selecting VD2.5 sounds and computer number pad for selecting note value. Finale template wrote correct note head type and locations based on midi keyboard. I got pretty fast with this method, all so I could playback the parts and make practice tapes.
I don't know if you have figured it out by now, but there is a keyboard shortcut for double stops. If you hold down the shift key and press the letter note for the type of note you want to input it will make it a double stop. hope that made sense
Festive Overture!!
In MuseScore you can hold shift and click the hotkey for the drum again to add a doublestop
Look good in those contacts....I’m going to try the Muse software for something’s I’m working on
Okay I watched this video and I did not understand what you were talking about but I watched anyway.
Your eyes are enchanting
Okay I have a ton of advice for you on Musescore to make your life SO much easier, so hopefully you see this. This advice is given from a Mac perspective
I'll go in order of when you do things, so if you read something that you talk about later in the video, it's because I was too impatient to keep watching, so my apologies. Also a lot of these are probably in other comments that I didn't read through so if theres duplicate things here, also Sorry. Hopefully you learn something new:
1) Pressing "I" (capital i) in your score will bring up the Instrument editor.
2) You can press "N" to turn on or off note input mode, and press "1" through "7" to change the note values. 7 is a whole note, 6 is a half note, etc. If you need to quickly tie a note to another note (say you want a half note value over a barline or you have multiple whole notes tied together or whatever the case may be) you can use the + button (shift + "="). That will add a note of whatever value you have selected (which you can change with the number keys like I mentioned) tied to the note you just put in basically. I mostly use this with tied whole notes over barlines, but it's also useful when I have notes within bars tied together.
3) With MDL instruments specifically (and really with any percussion instrument that's setup to use keyboard shortcuts, which is like all of them, but I find it especially helpful for marching drums which I write for more often) you can actually press "A" through "G" to automatically insert notes. For example, for MDL snare pressing A puts in a snare hit, and B puts in a rim shot, etc. Once you get a solid grasp on what letter corresponds to what note, it'll become super easy to put in things like bass and tenor notes that move around a lot, and combined with using the number keys to change note lengths, you'll end up mostly using the keyboard, and be able to get music written so much faster. HOW THIS PERTAINS TO DOUBLE STOPS is if you hold SHIFT before pressing the note, then it will instead add that note to whatever note you have currently selected. So with those doublestops you were trying to do on those triplets, you could write in the triplets, go back to the first one with the arrow keys, and Shift+A to add another snare hit to that first partial.
4) Pressing backslash on a note adds a grace note. You can then adjust it up or down to change what note the grace note is.
5) If you need anything like a triplet or fourlet or fivelet etc., just enter the note value you want that polyrhythm to occupy and do command+[number of subdivision]. Another way of thinking about it is first press the number of how many beats you want the subdivision to take up and then command press how many notes you want to be in that amount of space. For example, let's say you're writing and you want there to be some eighth note triplets there. That would obviously take up a quarter note, so press '5' for quarter note and then command+3 for triplet. Or if you want a ninelet in the space of a half note, press '6' and then command+9 and you got it. Sometimes when you do that, it won't put your cursor at the beginning of the subdivision which gets annoying because you have to arrow key or get out of Note input mode and click on the first rest but honestly I've learned to live with that.
Edit: 6) I've hardly ever needed to open the Articulations menu with drum notation because I've discovered some helpful shortcuts: Shift+V accents the note you've selected, Shift+N tenutos it, Shift+S staccatos it, and Shift+O marcatos it.
Edit: 7) If you need a tuplet over a barline, you can select the two bars you want the tuplet and go into some menu (I can't remember where exactly) and combine the measures and put in your own barline in between the tuplet. I know you can do that I'm just not as sure how the rest of the advice here.
I'll edit with more as I learn new things or remember more tips to share, but it's gotten to the point for me that the ONLY thing Finale has going for it is that I can use the VST plugins that I spent a ton of money on with it to make it sound really good, and frankly there's even too much hassle sometimes with THAT, and with MuseScore 4 coming this summer bring a TON of new features including VST support and an overhauled DAW interface, once that drops, it's over for Finale for me at least.
Let me know if you or anyone else reading this has any questions, and I have some more advanced/complicated tips to share that make drum notation a bit easier to deal with in MuseScore too that I might throw in at some point.
Looks like you already knew a lot of this 0_0, hopefully someone gets something out of this haha
In MuseScore, pressing shift creates a double stop if you place a note on top of itself.
Hey, I have been using Finale for almost a year now, and I will say this. There are a lot of keyboard shortcuts that you can use to speed up your composing time. Also, instead of inserting every note by clicking, you could have used the Speedy Entry Tool to use your number pad on the right side of your keyboard (if you have one) to insert the rhythms and use the arrow keys for the specific pitches/sounds for each instrument. You can also create and save custom ensembles so (assuming you write a lot of these types of ensembles) you can create and save a new ensemble, which speeds up the setup time.Then, articulations, if you need mass articulation inputs of one articulation, like you said you can highlight the notes and select, but instead of trying to go to the select box, just memorize the articulation number so then instead of killing your mouse by clicking a million times for each composition, you can just input the assigned number and press enter.
Este cara é doido. Adorei. Tô inscrito.
Sibelius is my go to software. Mainly because i am used to the software. I learned to use the software and still learning.... for sounds i am still figuring out.... made a few custom instruments because samba instruments are not in the standard gm sound.... still looking for a solution
You can hold shift and press the shortcut for the note you want to make a double stop
All I gotta say is you wrote the drums on Finale in the most difficult way possible. I write/transcribe battery parts all the time and there’s way easier ways to input notes into Finale!
Id say it's a total failing on Finale that they make the bad way the most obvious way. There should only be the easier way. But Finale has a lot of cruft from decades of development with multiple ways of doing things that don't necessarily compliment each other and often the multiple solutions will get in the way of each other. Need I go on a rant on all the ways to change staff sizes and scaling? Dorico and Musescore definitely have the advantage because they don't have all that baggage (Or at least musescore did but they opted to revamp everything with 4).
13:48 Disabling "Automatic placement" for the dynamics should help. Otherwise, Musescore will always try to enforce the vertical ordering. An even better solution would be to use Sticking instead of Lyrics text.
On musescore with sticking you have to go to add then go to text and click on sticking and it will be easier to put dynamics
I use noteflight, because my teacher makes use since we can’t use anything or I don’t think so.
I use noteflight because I cant find my way around musescore
I'm pretty sure in musescore you can input double stops with shift+ the hotkey for the sound with the note selected
Thank you UnClE sAm
Just had a realization -- Finale's UI feels like a legacy throwback to the old 9" 512x342 displays on the original Mac. They simply didn't have room on the screen for articulation palettes like Musescore has.
Sibelius. Steep learning curve, but IMMENSELY powerful once you're familiar with the interface, plug-ins, nooks and crannies of the layout features, etc. Beams over barlines are not hard in Sibelius, using the beams/stems tab of the keypad. The issue you had with stickings text placement is easy to fix in Sibelius - you can create a unique, bespoke text style, and then assign its default position to be whatever you want. Or redefine dynamics' position to be lower. Same story with the distance between the number and beam for a tuplet. Those lines after lyric text are there to remind singers to continue the vocalization throughout the duration of a tied note. You can tell Sibelius not to draw those lines.
4:01 festive overture hell ya!
I have been interested in other music notation software for a while. If I update my MacBook one more time, I will no longer be able to use Sibelius 6, which I have become extremely comfortable and efficient on. I tried Finale in high school and hated it. I'll definitely have to check out MuseScore soon. Thanks, Eric!!
I almost got the chance to go record a bunch of DCI lines for MuseScore playback, but the pandemic ruined that opportunity :/ Hopefully the guys over there are able to get something implemented once it's passed though, and if you like the flow of MuseScore, check out Tantacrul's channel
i used finale for sometime now with VDL and some of the problems you’re really fixes. for the 9let, place a sixteenth note instead of a half and have the simple triplet tool and hold shift when you input the note, then do 9 over 8 and uou don’t need to copy and paste from another. for double stop triplets, input the triplet, turn simple triplet off and you’re good to go. Double stops on musescore, press A for hit then press shift + A. The articulations, make them meta keys. i have some other fixes for the problems if needed😁
and don’t let finale lose in playback, get VDL. every sound in vdl completely outmatches musescore so this is definitely a very biased review
Totally agree. A lot of problems he has are super easy to fix and just a matter of him being unfamiliar with some stuff. 🤷♀️
Nice
Pretty eyes EMC!
I like Sibelius 7, and sometimes MuseScore But did get me a virus on my Mac. And I noticed that wasn’t the problem it was just the update on Mac
I recommend testing Timbres of Heaven Soundfont for Musescore as an alternative to the General Soundfont it uses.
Might not have marching band fonts, but it would be good to check.
the playback: @16:08 (awesome track, I probably listened to the live performance about 30 times!) :)
I’d say that Guitar Pro 7.5 is the ultimate tool when it comes to digital notation. But I’ve never written tenor-lines, so I don’t know if it holds up in that field.
It’s by far the easiest to notate for me, but has little to none percussion-writing ability.
Eric, you're quirky but that's why we love you! Glasses or not, you come across as a sweetie. And ya, I'm definitely enjoying all the stuff you post, often makes me rethink becoming a chef instead of a pro musician. But hey, we all gotta eat!
7:28 check out the beam properties tab. You can do that
For double stops, you can just do “Shift+whatever sound” instead of clicking shot everytime. So after you do the first note, just do shift and the same sound and boom, double stop. 👍🏼
And for the triplet beams connecting between measures, I believe if you go to beam menu at the left, there is an option that you can double click and it should connect them.
You can create over the barline tuplets, but it's really annoying. Basically I'm gonna do my best to explain this. If you press V (I believe it is) whatever you have selected will gray out and that means you can't see it on the PDF version. This allows you to hide a lot of things in the score score make better formatting.
1. What I do is I take both measures that surround the tuplet crossing the barline and I make it 8/4. This assumes you're writing in 4/4, so if the measures are 3/4 you would make them both into 6/4 and so on.
2. You would then select the 8/4 and press v to make it invisible. (And so the same for the 4/4 you would have have to put at the end of the measure to get back to the time signature)
3. You can then go into the "barline" category on the left and put an artificial barline inside the tuplet, and just like that, you have a tuplet crossing a barline.
You can add double stops of the same note by holding shift I believe! Also, are you using ctrl + L for the sticking?
If your on MuseScore with a Mac you should be able to hit command A on whatever note you want and it should put a double stop
This video reminds me of Noteworthy Composer.... Good times!
GOOD MORNING