SCORE Music Publishing System VS. Graphire Music Press

Recommendations concerning notation and publishing software in a non-partisan environment.
George M19
Posts: 16
Joined: 02 Mar 2017, 03:39

Re: SCORE Music Publishing System VS. Graphire Music Press

Post by George M19 »

I purchased Graphire Music Press from E. Mansfield. Thanks jrethorst!

I haven't gotten too far along with it, but it functions more like an engraving simulator than a practical computer program; there is no wizard to help setup the score for a particular project, you have to draw how many staves you need (instruments), the minimum distance between staves, how they are grouped, how barlines are drawn (whether on staves or through them), all more or less manually. Even though you can get high quality results with the program, with such a high learning curve I can see why it didn't catch on.

Having said that, I can see the same thing happening to Finale right now. Although, I hope that really doesn't happen.

If anyone is interested in seeing samples of Music Press, let me know. I guess I can do requests .. but it'll take me a while to get familiar with the program.


Thanks all!
User avatar
OCTO
Posts: 1738
Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 06:52
Location: Sweden

Re: SCORE Music Publishing System VS. Graphire Music Press

Post by OCTO »

Thank you for your feedback. It would be great to start a new topic (or topics) with just your learning curve and with some results. As many people here are very interested in any notation software regardless of its learning difficulties, your contribution would be very appreciated. I don't know if anyone else is using Graphite Music Press here on the forum.
Freelance Composer. Self-Publisher.
Finale 27.3 • Sibelius 2023.5• MuseScore 4+ • Logic Pro X+ • Ableton Live 11+ • Digital Performer 10+ /// MacOS Monterey (secondary in use systems: Fedora 35, Windows 10)
jrethorst
Posts: 122
Joined: 09 Apr 2016, 18:48

Re: SCORE Music Publishing System VS. Graphire Music Press

Post by jrethorst »

You're welcome, George. A couple of thoughts: when I got the program it came with a Windows PDF manual. I'm on a Mac and asked Ernie; he promptly sent a Mac manual. It might have something about score setup, or the Yahoo group could. Otherwise, I'd just make a few templates. If that's the way to do it, I'd be surprised if the Yahoo group's Files section didn't have some. Also, the Graphire sample in the Ten Music Notation Programs 2nd ed. comparison (see the thread on it in this forum) was done by a music publisher, Whitco Press. They might have other sources for templates.
John Rethorst
tomaszt81
Posts: 1
Joined: 04 Oct 2023, 12:09

Re: SCORE Music Publishing System VS. Graphire Music Press

Post by tomaszt81 »

Hi! How's progress going with Graphire? Maybe you could record a video of what it's like to work in this software? I couldn't find anything on YouTube :) greetings!
NorFonts
Posts: 86
Joined: 08 Jan 2021, 18:55

Re: SCORE Music Publishing System VS. Graphire Music Press

Post by NorFonts »

Hi,

I was recently emulating Graphire Music Press output in Dorico, so here are some quick PDF tests, one that mimics a bit GMP settings and the other one with default Bravura's Dorico settings:
GraphMP.pdf
(105.5 KiB) Downloaded 413 times
GraphMP — Bravura Settings.pdf
(124.77 KiB) Downloaded 384 times
Nor Eddine Bahha
https://norfonts.ma
Jazz pianist, composer/arranger, author and Type Designer
JAZZOLOGY Book: https://www.halleonard.com/product/311167/jazzology
jrethorst
Posts: 122
Joined: 09 Apr 2016, 18:48

Re: SCORE Music Publishing System VS. Graphire Music Press

Post by jrethorst »

Yahoo groups are gone, and the WordPerfect group is now at https://groups.io/g/wordperfectmac, with free plug-and-play emulators that run any legacy Mac program such as Graphire on any modern Mac (OS 10.6 to Ventura; our Sonoma updates are in final testing).
John Rethorst
jrethorst
Posts: 122
Joined: 09 Apr 2016, 18:48

Re: SCORE Music Publishing System VS. Graphire Music Press

Post by jrethorst »

The Music Press user group, formerly at Yahoo, is now also at groups.io: https://groups.io/g/GraphireMusicPress. It's small but I think they would welcome our questions.
Last edited by jrethorst on 18 Nov 2023, 04:37, edited 1 time in total.
John Rethorst
NorFonts
Posts: 86
Joined: 08 Jan 2021, 18:55

Re: SCORE Music Publishing System VS. Graphire Music Press

Post by NorFonts »

Nor Eddine Bahha
https://norfonts.ma
Jazz pianist, composer/arranger, author and Type Designer
JAZZOLOGY Book: https://www.halleonard.com/product/311167/jazzology
ErnieMansfield
Posts: 1
Joined: 14 Nov 2023, 01:21

Re: SCORE Music Publishing System VS. Graphire Music Press

Post by ErnieMansfield »

Greetings! Thanks to an email I received from NorFonts, I just became aware of this website. I am the authorized dealer for Graphire Music Press. So, I'd like to help with questions, if possible.

First of all, Graphire Music Press (GMP) is a legacy app; ie, development stopped about 20 years ago. Alan Talbot, creator of GMP, was (and is) a very talented programmer who got involved in more lucrative projects, and thus could no longer maintain GMP.

From 1996 until 2006, I was a full-time music engraver, using GMP almost exclusively. I worked on numerous projects, with publishers such as Sher Music (Real Books), Kjos Music, UC Press (Berkeley), Wadsworth, Thompson Learning, as well as working with individual songwriters and composers. I had personal access to Alan Talbot, and had some input into the features he implemented. For me, at the time, I could create any type of music I needed, and did not have to resort to design apps (such as Adobe Illustrator). Some of the more unusual notation I created involved Big Note music for children's method books, and "handwritten" music for the Real Books. Dorico credited me in the design of their Petaluma font (Petaluma is the city in California which is the location of Sher Music. (It is also the city where the "Back to the Future" movies take place, for you trivia folks.)

I currently sell the GMP app for $150 (price subject to change). That being said, I don't recommend purchasing the app unless you are trying to open archived GMP files. As mentioned, it has not (and will not) be developed further.

That being said, I am happy to answer any questions anyone may have about GMP.
NorFonts
Posts: 86
Joined: 08 Jan 2021, 18:55

Re: SCORE Music Publishing System VS. Graphire Music Press

Post by NorFonts »

Hi,

Just to clarify the way how I re-created my Graphira SMuFL based on Graphire MP online pdf samples.

The font I am creating is only an emulation of the font that uses GMP, so I printed out the pdfs, re-scanned the shapes in Ai/FL8, and made a new font, so there is no © copyright infringement here, what is copyrighted is the font but not the shapes. You can find many fonts that have other names but look like Times New Roman, Arial, Futura etc... Notice that Bravura and Maestro fonts are based on Notaset and those resulting fonts can or are be also ©’d.

So since I’m not taking the glyphs directly from Revere font (which I never could find online...) into my SMuFL font I don’t think there is any © issue here, that’s my hard work of scanning and re-shaping./re-drawing back the curves to generate a new font that looks like Revere.

FYI, for typefaces in particular, there is quite a bit of a legal grey area. I’m not a lawyer, but my understanding is that you cannot copyright the letter forms and glyph shapes themselves, but only the font software, i.e. the actual outline data, metrics, etc. from the font file itself. So if you were to reproduce the glyphs in a font completely by hand by drawing them all from scratch in your font editor – then you could not be accused of copyright infringement.
Nor Eddine Bahha
https://norfonts.ma
Jazz pianist, composer/arranger, author and Type Designer
JAZZOLOGY Book: https://www.halleonard.com/product/311167/jazzology
Post Reply