Muzitex - for music text

Music notation symbols, fonts, font sources and font creation, SmuFL.
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OCTO
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Muzitex - for music text

Post by OCTO »

I have been searching for a "perfect" (well, in my opinion) text font for expressions and articulation, for many years.
I used so far: Times (and NR), Garamond, Minion, Caslon etc... Nothing was satisfying. Either to bold, or not enough visible, or to curved, or to wide...

I have created a font called Muzitex only for text in music notation.
What is the difference?
As you can see, Normal (here FreeSerif "Times"-looking font) is to thin in my opinion. It doesn't catch so much attention. On the contrary, Bold version of it is to much bold (serfs are to much bold).
Therefore I have equally emboldened Normal for that purpose.
It displays excellent when printing. Please test and let me know what you think.
Screen shot 2015-10-12 at 3.16.39 PM.png
Screen shot 2015-10-12 at 3.16.39 PM.png (69.26 KiB) Viewed 13903 times
It is a GPL-font. Embedding in PDF allowed. License included. Muzitex is derivative from FreeFont. https://www.gnu.org/software/freefont/
EDIT: version 2 available here repository
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Muzitex.zip
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Last edited by OCTO on 19 Dec 2015, 16:35, edited 1 time in total.
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Peter West
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Re: Muzitex - for music text

Post by Peter West »

I like Minion Pro and Sabon
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Knut
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Re: Muzitex - for music text

Post by Knut »

Octo,

I absolutely agree with your assessment of the Times font in a musical context, and think creating a semibold version is a good idea.

It looks like you have increased the stroke width by the same amount across the board? I would have preferred a little more contrast between thick and thin strokes.

It also looks like you have tightened the spacing? If you plan to use the font together with original bold version, I would adjust the spacing for the increased boldness, but otherwise keep it as is.

Times has incredibly thin serifs, which doesn't look good to me at all. I would make these relatively thicker than the rest of the strokes, but this is a matter of taste.

Did you increase the boldness automatically? What software did you use? There are small errors in many of the curves, typically generated by an automatic process. You should go through each character and clean these up.
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OCTO
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Re: Muzitex - for music text

Post by OCTO »

Peter West wrote:I like Minion Pro and Sabon
Minion is generally a very good font as Normal. As italic, it fails for me since it is to much calligraphic. IMHO, there is no need for calligraphy in music text, since it makes to much distinction and so also distraction.
Sabon Italic fails for me since it is to curly. Some crucial symbols like "f" and "p" are missing the lower serif on one side.
Minion VS Sabon VS Muzitex
Minion VS Sabon VS Muzitex
85868598.png (57.4 KiB) Viewed 13853 times
Knut wrote:It looks like you have increased the stroke width by the same amount across the board? I would have preferred a little more contrast between thick and thin strokes.
That is what I wanted. I wanted less distraction between thin (white) and thick (black) part of the symbols.
Knut wrote:It also looks like you have tightened the spacing? If you plan to use the font together with original bold version, I would adjust the spacing for the increased boldness, but otherwise keep it as is.
That is right. I will make another try, maybe a bit more spacing. If you wish I would be more than happy if you could help me to create a very good and stable, non-distraction text type.
Knut wrote:Did you increase the boldness automatically? What software did you use? There are small errors in many of the curves, typically generated by an automatic process. You should go through each character and clean these up.
Yes, I did, it was automatically done. I have tried FontForge as well Fontographer. It is result of the later.
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Knut
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Re: Muzitex - for music text

Post by Knut »

OCTO wrote:
Knut wrote:It looks like you have increased the stroke width by the same amount across the board? I would have preferred a little more contrast between thick and thin strokes.
That is what I wanted. I wanted less distraction between thin (white) and thick (black) part of the symbols.
Of course it's fine if that is really what you want, but the thin strokes of your semibold version is currently even thicker than those in the original bold version, which is too much in my opinion, especially if you want to use the two fonts together.
OCTO wrote:
Knut wrote:It also looks like you have tightened the spacing? If you plan to use the font together with original bold version, I would adjust the spacing for the increased boldness, but otherwise keep it as is.
That is right. I will make another try, maybe a bit more spacing. If you wish I would be more than happy if you could help me to create a very good and stable, non-distraction text type.
I've been thinking of doing such a font myself, although I never have had the time. Crafting well balanced and spaced text characters for my music font has made me realize that this is currently more work than gain. I'd be more than happy to give you some more feedback as you go along, though.
OCTO wrote:
Knut wrote:Did you increase the boldness automatically? What software did you use? There are small errors in many of the curves, typically generated by an automatic process. You should go through each character and clean these up.
Yes, I did, it was automatically done. I have tried FontForge as well Fontographer. It is result of the later.
I see. Another presumably unintended effect of this automatic conversion is that your x-hight and cap hight has been reduced slightly. Times already has a pretty low Cap hight, so I wouldn't go below the original.

If you haven't done so already, try crating a mask of the original glyphs in each slot before making the conversion. That way you will have more visual control over how the program affects both the strokes and the spacing.
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OCTO
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Re: Muzitex - for music text

Post by OCTO »

Knut, that all you describe is above my knowledge.
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Re: Muzitex - for music text

Post by Knut »

OCTO wrote:Knut, that all you describe is above my knowledge.
Sorry about that! I'm assuming you are just referring to my last comment?

x-hight is the hight of the lower case letters, cap hight is the hight of the upper case letters.

A mask is a reference to an outline displayed in the glyph vindow. You can most certainly copy all the characters as masks into each glyph window before conversion. In FontLab you select all glyphs in the font window and press Control+M. It might be just the same in Fontographer.

Alternately you could just copy the original glyphs into each glyph window after conversion. The important thing is to be able to view the original glyphs side by side with the converted glyphs to know what's changed.

I hope that clarifies it a bit.
Best of luck!
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Fred G. Unn
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Re: Muzitex - for music text

Post by Fred G. Unn »

Hi Octo,
Just off the top of my head, here are a few I've seen used for music that haven't been mentioned yet, just in order that I thought of them with Times at the top for comparison purposes. Some of these fonts do have true semibold versions available, especially if there is an Adobe "Pro" version available, but for consistency's sake I left everything the same position, point size, and style as Times. Something like Perpetua obviously would need to be larger.
fonttest.jpg
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(I meant to include Galliard too but forgot.)
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OCTO
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Re: Muzitex - for music text

Post by OCTO »

Fred G. Unn wrote:Hi Octo,
Just off the top of my head, here are a few I've seen used for music that haven't been mentioned yet, just in order that I thought of them with Times at the top for comparison purposes.
Very nice.
Is any of these your favorite?

I have too used Warnock.
I still have impression that calligraphic fons are disturbing, at least for me.
Of the fonts you have listed I personally enjoy Utopia. It is very simple and yet powerful.

I will make the second version of Muzitex tomorrow, we can make more comparison.
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Re: Muzitex - for music text

Post by Fred G. Unn »

I've used a lot of those in the past and have friends that use some of the others. There was a period when I used Minion for years, but stopped as it became quite popular and I think I just got a little tired of seeing it. One of the problems as I see it is that we are sort of stuck with a set of characters for the dynamics and time signatures that are essentially two different bold modern fonts, meaning strong contrast between thick and thin. Finding a typeface that pairs well with the dynamics, that has a large enough x-height for legibility, that can be unique enough to represent your own house style and differentiate you from the competition, but is still "invisible" to the performer from a typographic standpoint is quite a challenge. (By "invisible" I mean you don't want the font to be so noticeable that it distracts from the music.)

I'm very partial to Robert Slimbach's designs so I've used Minion, Utopia, Kepler, and Warnock before. Warnock is just a bit too quirky for me I think. Utopia has a very large x-height and is quite clear so I've used it at times, especially if it is for something that will be printed at a small size or for children. This is a bit of an odd choice, but Kepler is probably my current fave. It's a transitional font (like Times) but has enough humanistic quirks to make it interesting to me.

It's been several years since I revisited my text typefaces. I should probably do some research on some recent releases.
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