Reviews of our Music Notation Software

 "Simply the Best" said "...a tool for professional-level musicians who need to be able to print out high-quality music."

"Now that I'm using MusPub 6 I just had to tell you how wonderful it is! That's a real people's product when you create a major upgrade - introducing newer, better ways to do the same tasks. The tweaks you've incorporated are great! I love them all. You've certainly made it easier for us users. Keep up the good work!" [KW. California]

"I tried several popular notation programs before I settled on MP6. 90% of our music is from Byzantine chant and with MP6 I don't have to struggle to make the music fit a particular time signature. Also, your tutorial is great! The other software I tried had nice glitzy tutorials and at the end of them I was still lost as how to proceed. I love the low-key conversational style of your tutorial. Within the hour I was easily entering notation. I find your shortcuts very intuitive and therefore easy to remember. The mnemonics used are also very helpful.
I can read music and understand the basics of music theory but am by no means a music scholar. I believe anyone with just a bit of musical knowledge would find MP6 very easy to use." [PB.London]

As customers have upgraded to Music Publisher 6 they have been complimentary about the previous version MP5:

"When I first downloaded MP and ran the tutorial I was writing music within minutes, the fastest program to learn I have encountered. It is very clear for the novice and written with a sense of humour which I very much appreciated. I would recommend anyone new to MP to run the tutorial.
Can I just say that I've always found Bernard's Help Files and his Manual are in a league of their own when it comes to clarity and precision in outlining procedures in Music Publisher."[MH. London.]

MP5 is the best system I have ever used for my particular needs - education worksheets, guitar scores and even scores for the ukelele. I'm looking forward to using MP6. [RG, Derbyshire].

Thank you for Music Publisher 5. I must say that being somewhat 'slow' with a PC I was truly amazed at the speed and ease I found my way round Publisher 5 after following all instructions. From the word go, everything produced was first class. [RK, Manchester].

Music Publisher 5

For reviews explicitly of Scanning click here.

For an interesting phone call click here.

For a full independent review, click here, but let me whet your appetite with the first few sentences:

"Music Publisher 5 is an absolutely wonderful piece of software. It will take a bit to cover what it can do and it'll be well worth it as you'll see when you read through the review. Grab yourself some coffee and some donuts and get ready for an in-depth, exciting and enjoyable discussion of this software. It is truly terrific!" [Vikki Olds, Music of Yesterday]

In response to the question “What notation software, Sibelius or Finale?” posted on the newsgroup rec.music.makers.piano, Richard Trahan wrote:

"Assuming you're not intentionally using the old rhetorical trick of constraining the response set to get the answer you want, I vote for Music Publisher 5 (MP5). It has everything except part extraction, which is rumored to be forthcoming. It's only $170 and is completely free-form; you don't have to devise tricks to defeat the beat count, etc. The company is small enough so that you get almost instantaneous feedback on bugs and enhancements, with a turnaround time of days, not months, on fixes (it seems bug-free right now, anyway). New features are aggressively added based on user feedback. It comes with a comprehensive user manual, for the few who actually read them, as well as online help and a tutorial to get you jump started. It's jammed with features, and the good news is you can download a free trial version that has everything; it just won't play back entire scores or do a couple of other big operations. MP5 has a convenient American/British nomenclature option so you can deal with quarter notes or crotchets in the online documentation, as you wish. It has everything you'd expect in a high price spread, like full text editing support, cut and paste, a notation palette which seems to have everything but Gregorian chant (and I've heard that's coming, too), superb printing, transposition, easy entry of notes and accidentals, user-definable templates, word processor-style pagination options, playback in dozens of instruments, MIDI file save, prettifying functions, manually adjustable slurs, an optional scanning module, and -- for heavens sakes -- it even plays the bagpipes. What more could one ask for?"
Richard teaches Piano in New Jersey.

"If only other software companies would follow your example and write programs which are compact and easy to use but deliver a mighty punch with quality." [email from PG Lancashire]

"I have had your MP5 for a week now and am full of admiration. It is a marvel. I haven't had this much fun for years." [email from SW Norfolk]

"I tried several notation software packages from the Internet and yours is the easiest to learn and operate. I can score a song in less than 30 minutes (I write arrangements for a 9 piece big band)." [Email from RG, Alabama]

"Many thanks for providing such a brilliant tutorial, so much better than having to wade through a book full of non understandable terms. This is the first time I have experienced such clear and concise instructions and to realise that there is at least one expert who has sympathy for the amateur!" [JB, Herefordshire]

"My wife just started using the Music Publisher software I purchased a month or so ago. I usually help her a good bit with new programs as she fumes at their design and training idiocies. I thought you'd appreciate knowing that all I had to do was turn her loose on your tutorial. She sailed through it and was able to be productive immediately - including figuring out with the help of the manual how to do a complex barred repeating-note pattern. We are both delighted with your design sense and clear writing." [JEM, Philadelphia]

"I think Music Publisher is wonderful! You are clever and the tutorial has had me hooting with laughter - every comment is spot on; how do you predict all our mistakes in advance?! If I had to sum up MP in one word, 'Wow' comes to mind. Thank you so much - I'm going to have great fun with it." [JB, London]

"The sound facility is a great boon, especially in checking rhythym, timing, harmony and couterpoint whilst work is in progress... it is an absolote joy to use. ... Your manuals I have always held in the highest esteem for their clarity, readability and comprehensive coverage of every major detail imaginable, but I think in MP5 you have excelled yourself. The major software houses ought to be able to learn a lesson or two....[RB, Kent]

Scanning

[posted on rec.music.makers.choral newsgroup]
"I am currently using Bernard Hill's program to good effect, to scan orchestral parts that need to be transposed and in some cases to be converted from bass clef to tenor, or from treble to alto. The scans are surprisingly accurate, and - being essentially a graphics program - MP mercifully doesn't attempt to juggle with the result in an attempt to tidy up the layout, as more elaborate programs do. This means that the scanned layout is exactly the same as in the original, bar for bar, system for system, and generally just omits any item it can't decode. So proof-reading is largely a matter of finding gaps and filling them, and then listening to the playback to spot the occasional problem with accidentals.... "

"... the scanning program is orders of magnitude better than anything I have tried before" [DU, Royston, Herts]

"I have been using Music Publisher 5 now for several months and done a lot of work with it. In particular I have produced MIDI files for our men's chorus for 18 choral arrangements. I scan in the sheet music, edit as needed (usually a function of how "clean" the original is), and then produce the MIDI file. Using a MIDI player that allows playing parts individually -- and slowing down the tempo when needed -- this makes a great rehearsal tool for our members. It is particularly useful when we get some poor guy just joining us and he has umpteen pieces to learn. Your software is a lifesaver." [JF, Santa Rosa, USA]

Occasionally I get excited phone calls, but with strange complaints....

"It's super, absolutely super. I can't tell you thrilled I am with it.... I only got it yesterday, but I could have killed you at 3 o'clock this morning ... no, there was no problem, it was just that I was too excited about your program to get to sleep...". The name of the caller was sadly not recorded, but the words are genuine :-).

© Braeburn Software 2008