Sebastian SMuFL font

Music notation symbols, fonts, font sources and font creation, SmuFL.
NorFonts
Posts: 86
Joined: 08 Jan 2021, 18:55

Re: Sebastian SMuFL font

Post by NorFonts »

benwiggy wrote: 26 Jan 2021, 14:56 And the font is installed in your system? Does it show in other apps? (The font is Finale-compatible, too.)

I've reinstalled it here, and it seems fine. You may need to clear your font cache.
Hi Ben,

Yes the font does actually work fine in Finale and Sibelius, but it doesn't display at all on Dorico 3.5 on my macOS Big Sur...very strange.
Nor Eddine Bahha
https://norfonts.ma
Jazz pianist, composer/arranger, author and Type Designer
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NorFonts
Posts: 86
Joined: 08 Jan 2021, 18:55

Re: Sebastian SMuFL font

Post by NorFonts »

Hi Ben,

I finally could install Sebastian.OTF font. What a wonderful great work Ben, I love this font. Congratulation!
Last edited by NorFonts on 02 Feb 2021, 10:24, edited 1 time in total.
Nor Eddine Bahha
https://norfonts.ma
Jazz pianist, composer/arranger, author and Type Designer
JAZZOLOGY Book: https://www.halleonard.com/product/311167/jazzology
DatOrganistTho
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Joined: 19 Jan 2016, 17:30

Re: Sebastian SMuFL font

Post by DatOrganistTho »

benwiggy wrote: 26 Jan 2021, 13:13 OK, I think I've brought this font to some kind of working order. There are now 828 glyphs, so enough to cope with a range of music.

I'd say the essential character of the font is for clear numerals and alphabet-based symbols: dynamics, C, etc. It's not as heavy as Bravura, but not as washed out as some of the early computer fonts.

Let me know what you think.

Sebastian_b1.zip

Sebastian 001.png

Bravura 001.png

Leland 001.png
Gorgeous! Bravo! I'll be driving it for a while and give more detailed feedback.
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benwiggy
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Re: Sebastian SMuFL font

Post by benwiggy »

After some very useful feedback, I've released version 1.00, which has over 1000 glyphs.

https://github.com/fkretlow/sebastian/releases/tag/v1.0

I'm pretty happy with it. I dare say keener eyes will find things to improve. But I would plan that it can be used now in projects, and any updates to the font to 'tweak' things won't change the spacing in a document.
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OCTO
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Re: Sebastian SMuFL font

Post by OCTO »

Wow, bravo, congratulations!!!!
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)
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jan
Posts: 84
Joined: 22 Jun 2016, 08:29

Re: Sebastian SMuFL font

Post by jan »

Congratulations!

What do you think about changing the font name to a unique name like Sebastian2 (or something similar) to make clear that it's completely different than the old version (as is November2).
This makes it much easier to identify the font in the host software.
The old font was running in Finale with MacSymbolFonts.txt addition, the new one must not be added, because it uses unicode symbols.
And there is also a third "Sebastian" font which is completely different ( https://web.archive.org/web/20071020061 ... loads.html ).

In my Perfect Layout plug-in I have a huge font engine and major encoding changes like this one are very difficult to handle as they require a more a deep analysis of the font, instead of just looking at the internal font name. Especially if the program has to support all three versions on MacOS and on Windows.

Jan
benwiggy
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Re: Sebastian SMuFL font

Post by benwiggy »

Are you really writing rule cases for every conceivable font? What happens if I have my own custom font, unknown to Perfect Layout?
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tisimst
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Re: Sebastian SMuFL font

Post by tisimst »

benwiggy wrote: 04 Feb 2021, 21:43 After some very useful feedback, I've released version 1.00, which has over 1000 glyphs.
Bravo! That's a huge undertaking that I can sympathize with.
Music Typeface Designer & Engraver - LilyPond | Sibelius | Finale | MuseScore | Dorico | SMuFL | Inkscape | FontForge
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jan
Posts: 84
Joined: 22 Jun 2016, 08:29

Re: Sebastian SMuFL font

Post by jan »

Are you really writing rule cases for every conceivable font? What happens if I have my own custom font, unknown to Perfect Layout?
Yes. You can't do layout automation without knowing what the music symbol means.

Ca. 1200 symbols from 500 music fonts are currently supported by Perfect Layout (all fonts from the Music Font Comparison and some more). Plus another ca. 1100 music fonts which are partially known to the plug-in.
This font list is also important because adding a font name to MacSymbolFonts.txt influences the symbol slots in Finale. Perfect Layout has to make sure that Finale's font encoding settings match the font engine. The font engine was developed for the music font comparison.
It is also the base for the automatic music font conversion tool which I used to create the Maestro-compatible Elbsound fonts. The font engine just exchanges the symbols in the fonts, adjusts the metrics and thus more or less automatically generates a fully compatible font.

So it's not rule cases in Perfect Layout for each font, but a font database where each font symbol is linked to a symbol type.
The plug-in itself works font-independent and only checks for a symbol type, for example:

Read the articulation font name and symbol
Check in the font database what the symbol means
Do whatever is required with that symbol

Unknown music fonts are either expected to be Maestro-compatible which is usually the case in Finale - or the semantics are unknown to the plug-in which obviously means: the plug-in does not know what to do best with a symbol.
That's one of Finale's advantages over SMuFl. You can use any font. But without semantics layout automation is limited.

In practice it's not that relevant:
in Finale most fonts (or better: symbol slots) are Maestro-compatible or fonts for special symbols which aren't included in automatic placement, but only taken into account for collision removal of other symbols or better spacing. It's also mainly articulation symbols in Finale that are sensitive, for example for the order of automatic stacking.
The plug-in warns the user if it detects any font issues.
If you want to have a font (name) added to the list of "known" music fonts, just send me a mail and it will be included in the next update.


To come back to Sebastian again: I very much recommend to change the name to also avoid conflicts with existing installations of the old Sebastian v1 font. Nasty font cache updates are probably required and/or several font files may exist in the Windows font folders.
There will also be conflicts with old font annotation files and the MacSymbolFonts.txt file, if these aren't replaced correctly.
Last edited by jan on 08 Feb 2021, 08:54, edited 2 times in total.
DatOrganistTho
Posts: 192
Joined: 19 Jan 2016, 17:30

Re: Sebastian SMuFL font

Post by DatOrganistTho »

@benwiggy I think the compromise you made on the flats and other adjustments for 1.0 is really nice, and very mature.
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