Composer's Mosaic 1.58 on Mac OS X?

[TeeAich]

Hey, Guys:

I've just about given up trying. I'd rather spend time (when necessary) to work with Mosaic on my G4, System 9. It works fine to the extent of editing and printing the documents I have already created. All new docs have been with Sibelius 6 on the G5 running OS 10.5.8.

Thanks much for your input.

TH

[mikehalloran]

And to Mike Halloran, as you list Encore as in use in your studio but don't mention it for the import support, I take it that the new version does not support what the OP needs to do, and/or doesn't have a crossgrade price from Mosaic?

Encore is a lightweight semi-pro app at best. Feature-light, I use it for down and dirty quick charts for four-part vocals or praise band arrangements. For that, it is rather quick and easy. The current version has fixed many of the bugs that have plagued the program since it was owned by Passport Designs (good riddance). It does import MIDI files much better than Finale or Sibelius - that is one place where it shines.

I don't know if there is a cross-grade for Mosaic owners but, if so, it might be useful. Were I not a long time user and upgrades being fairly cheap, it would not be a bargain at all.

It has no import features except for MIDI so I would not recommend it for converting Mosaic files.

My earlier recommendations stand.

[Quintaton]

Re - Composer's Mosaic 1.58 on Mac OS X

I have been struggling with this ever since Mac OSX appeared on the scene. I have found that Mosaic will not install on any disk which has OS X - it simply puts up a message saying "cannot be installed on this hard drive". As a church musician using EPS graphics from Mosaic into AppleWorks for the best part of 15 years I have too much investment to abandon it and in any case have found that all attempts to open Mosaic files in other software come to grief for one reason or another.

For years I have used my old G4 500 to produce Mosaic EPS graphics and e-mailed them to my Mac Mini for insertion into AppleWorks service sheets.

Infuriatingly, every, upgrade to Snow Leopard makes AppleWorks run less smoothly and the feeble replacement Apple offers in iWork (presumably because somebody there is hooked on the "i") will never be as competent, except perhaps for "Numbers" as AppleWorks for my purposes. Pages bitmaps Mosaic's EPS graphics and renders then unsuitable for reprinting. If Apple had spent on AppleWorks all the money it must have spent on iWork, AppleWorks would be a World Class programme now. Like MOTU, as has already been observed, Apple doesn't have enough regard for its customer base.

Now that my old G4 is becoming unreliable I am awaiting deliver of a second hand G4 1.25 Ghz dual processor dual boot (the last machine to boot native in OS9) and, with Tiger on a second hard drive, hope to be able to drag copy EPS graphics from Mosaic off the OS9 drive to the Tiger drive and reboot as necessary.

I hope that this convoluted solution might be of interest to somebody out there!

[TeeAich]

Sounds very interesting. Let me know if your solution is successful—please! ?

[jessearead]

I have taken over the library created by my late brother who made many transcriptions and modern editions of chamber music, band music and solos with piano, on Mosaic. I have kept all the files, and have the original Mosaic discs, but have no way of working with these files. I have a passing knowledge and experience with Finale, and am contemplating moving to Sibelius, for compatibility with my colleagues. I would like to revive this library, and need some advice.

I think I can find a machine that will run OS 9, and at least print out the
files, then perhaps scan with the big version of Sibelius. If there are any other solutions that have come along in the last year, please advise, and thank you in advance.

Jesse
jesse.read@ubc.ca

[TeeAich]

Jesse:

To open and work with Mosaic, you would need any Mac that can run OS9, and the Mosaic app. You would have to find these two items somewhere, perhaps by surfing around. I have these and they are the only way I can access all my old Mosaic files. (Sorry, but I will never let go of my Mac G4 or my Mosaic 1.58 disk, which is copy protected.) Good luck!

TH

[Nigel Keay]

Jesse:

If there are many scores/files, presumably many of these are declared "finished" and won't need to be modified again. In this case, if you get Mosaic running it's easy enough to save a .ps file and open under OSX in Preview then save as a pdf; this procedure was described in detail in a recent thread.

I understand there are graphics programs that'll change notation details of pdf although I've never tried that myself, but if at some point you no longer have Mosaic running, that might be useful to correct or modify small details.

If it's a case of wanting to modify several times in the future then probably easiest to create a new Sibelius file via MIDI file or scanning (I haven't tried scanning).

[mikehalloran]

Printing and scanning into a professional music program works surprisingly well. Not only Mosaic but nearly anything in print. What is your time worth?

The "Lite" versions bundled with Finale (SmartScore) and Sibelius (PhotoScore) only do notes and rests. To import expressions and lyrics as well as handwritten scores, you need to buy the full (Pro) versions per my earlier post.

Another advantage to owning the Pro version of either is that you can also save in XML and export to anything that supports it.

Yes, this will cost money. $199 for the Finale* cross-grade plus another $199 for SmartScore Pro if you need it. Sibelius/PhotoScore pricing is similar. Or you can skip Finale/Sibelius and use SmartScorePro alone at $399. Again, what is your time worth?

In the beginning, I started with Deluxe Music Construction Set, an Amiga program ported to the Mac (anyone remember that?). Later, I had to buy Opcode Overture to translate my DCMS files to MIDI so I could import them into Rhapsody so that an early version of Encore could open them...(Oh my!) DCMS would not run in OS 8! There were four other notation programs for the Mac that I owned before settling on Encore/Finale/SmartScorePro (none of those four are available anymore).

Among the three programs, I can do just about anything I need. Now that Encore supports MusicXML, I can export files to Finale if I ever need to. The latest version of Finale has a much, much better lyric tool so I may stop using Encore - or not.

There is no free solution to the problem. It would have been nice if MOTU let something else be compatible - but they didn't. Nor did they take the logical step and let DP open Mosaic files. Shame on them. Oh well. Time to stop whining about it and decide one more time: What is your time worth?

Welcome to the 21st Century.

*Qualifying Programs: Sibelius, Encore, Rhapsody, Overture, Cubase Score, Score, Mosaic,
Music Printer Plus, Musicator, Nightingale, Notion and Freestyle.