Questions on Finale, DP's Quickscribe etc.

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mikehalloran
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Re: Questions on Finale, DP's Quickscribe etc.

Post by mikehalloran »

I'll try to be brief and as kind as possible about that review. I have no idea what he was reviewing but it was not any version of Encore that existed in 2009.

Among the nonsense was the following:

File compatibility with Encore 4.5.6.4 .enc. - this was a free beta that corrupted the older 4.5.5 and newer 5.0.2 versions. It was a big mistake to release that publicly as it did much more harm than good as it also installed corrupted font files. I'm not certain how many times I had to post complete removal instructions for 4.5.6.x so that 5.x would work.

Legacy scores open perfectly Anyone who actually tested as the reviewer claimed would know that was incorrect. Not even v. 4.5.5 can open legacy scores unless they were done in v. 4.21 or later unless you are doing it in OS 9. One of the reasons I keep a G4 around is to open old Encore scores if I need them in OS 9 & save them in 4.5.5. Reboot into OS 10.4.11, open them up again in 4.5.5 and save, open again in 5.0.5 and save again. Now I have a version that will open in the current version 5.0.6.

That review was written nearly 4 1/2 years ago when Encore 5 was a buggy piece of garbage. Most of the features in that review didn't work yet. As the support dept for a wife who won't use anything else, I know this inside out. In 2009, your best bet was to do most of your work in 4.5.5 and open it in 5 for printing as 5 did look much better. With Encore 5.06, this is no longer possible since it will no longer open legacy scores nor will it work on OS 10.4 (the web site is wrong). Otoh, 5.0.6 does finally work mostly as advertised on the Mac. Windows users aren't quite as lucky but they are getting there.

The author's claim that has 90 - 95% of the functionality of professional products was a ludicrous fantasy in 1996 when the feature set was established by Passport Designs - the 2009 rewrite added not one actual feature except that it looked much better. By 2013, a few features have been added and it now works but that is all.

For knocking out lead sheets, praise band, choral arrangements, marching band, high school jazz band etc., Encore will fit the bill. Preview the sounds in standard MIDI to get a feel of it. Yes, finally, you can import other libraries but most don't. It's a nice looking alternative to writing it out by hand but an alternative to Finale or Sibelius? No.
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