Does Musitek or sharpeye sheet music recognition play well with MuseScore?
I am looking for software to read printed sheet music or pdf's and turn this into a file that is compatible with my MuseScore program. This will hopefully enable me to spend more time arranging than playing in the original music to MS.I have read a good bit about Musitek and Sharpeye. My question is: in your experience, will either of these serve my purpose and will MS be able to read their scan?
Thanks as always, I am trying to learn!
Scott
Comments
Sharpeye will export MusicXML and as such is compatible with MuseScore.
Be aware though that what ever OMR software you use there is an enormous amount of cleaning up to do after scanning the score.
Sharpeye is the best I have come across, but even so it is usually quicker to input scores by hand than to do it via Sharpeye.
I've also just yesterday decided to look at scanning, as a change from entering everything by hand. I've downloaded sharpeye and got their 30-day free usage to test it out. First couple of tries and I'm quite impressed. If you haven't done that I'd recommend it. I don't suppose I'll ever do a genuine check on whether scan or hand is quicker - too tedious to do anything serious twice.
Oh - and if you buy it don't just take the first price that you come across.
Could you explain about your comment on pricing? Thanks!
In reply to Could you explain about your by scottw46
All I did was search for various companies selling sharpeye, and found that in UK there was a £20 difference - and that outside UK there appeared to be rather more to go for (typical! it's why I never bought Sibelius). So far as I know what you get is an emailed key in each case. I won't be exploring that further unless/until I decide to buy: a few more trials first.
Looking back at your first question, I haven't converted a PDF. I'd either need a decent PDF to TIFF converter or, possibly, print the PDF and scan the print.
In reply to All I did was search for by John Kilpatrick
Thanks, John.
Do you need any special scanner to make this work, or will a run-of-the-mill scanner suffice?
I actually downloaded the free trial but never got a chance to use it due to a hectic life at the time. I'll try it again if my generic scanner is up to the task.
Regards,
Scottw
In reply to Thanks, John. Do you need any by scottw46
You need to scan at 300dpi resolution or better, in black&white (or greyscale). My Brother A3 multi-purpose printer works fine and it responds to sharpeye's "acquire" in which the above settings can be made.
It would be interesting to know whether you have difficulty getting a second trial period. For example there could be something lurking in the registry that doesn't get deleted on Uninstall.
In reply to You need to scan at 300dpi by John Kilpatrick
Just my luck!
Thanks!
I have used SharpEye for around two years and it now works extremely well for me as an input method for MuseScore.
Here are some points I have found out:
1. The quality of the scanner is very important. I had to give up on my home printer/scanner because the recognition rate by SharpEye was terrible. Now I use a large Canon A3 scanner.
2. You will need to experiment in adjusting the density of scan: I have found that setting the scan to the darkest (most dense) setting often helps a lot. With a less dense scan, crotchets are often rendered as minims because the notehead isn't entirely solid.
3. Do expect SharpEye to capture all the notes and lyrics, but don't rely on it to put in slurs, hairpins, trills, ottavas or arpeggios correctly. It's much quicker to add or edit those elements in MuseScore.
4. Before exporting a MusicXML file from SharpEye, do edit the SharpEye file to eliminate all the "rhythm warnings" - these are usually caused by a missing note, an incorrect note length or a missing time signature. If you export to XML with errors still there, the MuseScore parser will issue a warning - and you will have trouble with the bars concerned. It's much easier to correct in SharpEye.
Having started off with a disappointing recognition rate of less than 30%, I can now achieve between 80% and 100% - depending on the quality of the scanned music. Some of my scans are of music printed 80-90 years ago and the quality can be patchy.
I use SharpEye almost every week and I can strongly recommend it.
HTH,
Dan