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Topic: .nwc to .sib, .xml, .abc, .mus ...etc??? (Read 25918 times) previous topic - next topic

.nwc to .sib, .xml, .abc, .mus ...etc???

Is there a way that I can convert a .nwc file to any other type of notation program extention like . mus or .abc, or .xml, or .sib??
If not...is there a way to convert between .nwc type 1 to .nwc type 2. When I take a song I made in NWC and save it in NWC2..I can't switch it back. Is there a better way to switch it besides re-notating the whole thing over in NWC again???
joshers2005

Re: .nwc to .sib, .xml, .abc, .mus ...etc???

Reply #1 –
Well, I found a NWC to ABC converter!! Does anyone know any other converters or any ABC to .sib, .xml, .mus....etc. converters?? let me know. My music teacher has Sibelius, and it would be nice I he could see my songs actually move instead of listening to the MIDI's and looking at the PDF's.
joshers2005

Re: .nwc to .sib

Reply #2 –
My daughter uses Sibelius at school, but we use NoteWorthy Composer at home.  Does anyone know of any way of converting NoteWorthy files so that they can be read on Sibelius?

Re: .nwc to .sib, .xml, .abc, .mus ...etc???

Reply #3 –
There is a converter available that will from NWC V1.75 or lower to musicXML.  (http://www.geocities.com/juria90/nwc.html)  However, it does not work in version 2.  :-(
MusicXML will work in Finale and Sibelius.

UPDATE: As of Beta 2.13, you can export to a V1.75 file, so you can convert to musicXML from NWC, if you are willing to lose some data.

Re: .nwc to .sib, .xml, .abc, .mus ...etc???

Reply #4 –
Exporting a midi file from NWC and importing it to the other program might do it.

Or printing it from NWC, fairly large for accuracy, and then scanning the image with Sharpeye.  Sharpeye can then export to MusicXML.



Re: .nwc to .sib, .xml, .abc, .mus ...etc???

Reply #5 –
Quote from: David Palmquist –
Exporting a midi file from NWC and importing it to the other program might do it.
If you go this route, make all your non-muted staves legato. This should eliminate superfluous rests in the import.
Registered user since 1996

Re: .nwc to .sib, .xml, .abc, .mus ...etc???

Reply #6 –
I think I agree with you, Rick. 

I know playing midi into NWC is a pain, and importing a midi file isn't always great either, but I think exporting from NWC to midi should create a pretty accurate file suitable for importing into the other package, shouldn't it?  i.e., no odd rests and awkward ties across bar lines etc.


I think we all missed the obvious, too.  Isn't NoteWorthy Composer Viewer designed for just this eventuality, though, i.e., a free viewer for *.nwc song files. It will load, perform, and print files created by users of the NoteWorthy Composer program, including files created or last saved by version 2. The Sibelius user wouldn't be able to load the NWC file into Sibelius, but wouldn't need to, with Viewer.  Jane, you can download it here http://www.noteworthysoftware.com/nwc2/viewer.htm

Re: .nwc to .sib, .xml, .abc, .mus ...etc???

Reply #7 –
G'day David,

Quote from: David Palmquist –
<snip>
I know playing midi into NWC is a pain, and importing a midi file isn't always great either, but I think exporting from NWC to midi should create a pretty accurate file suitable for importing into the other package, shouldn't it?  i.e., no odd rests and awkward ties across bar lines etc.

Given that MIDI is about absolute note off and note on times rather than notation I think that any MIDI import would likely have odd rests and note values etc.  Rick's suggestion about setting a legato style prior to export should minimise this as the note on and off times should then be as close to full note value as possible.

Quote
I think we all missed the obvious, too.  Isn't NoteWorthy Composer Viewer designed for just this eventuality, though, i.e., a free viewer for *.nwc song files. It will load, perform, and print files created by users of the NoteWorthy Composer program, including files created or last saved by version 2. The Sibelius user wouldn't be able to load the NWC file into Sibelius, but wouldn't need to, with Viewer.  Jane, you can download it here http://www.noteworthysoftware.com/nwc2/viewer.htm

If all the student needs is to be able to display their work then you are correct, but it's my guess that they'll need to be able to edit it at school.  In addition, many schools don't like "unauthorised" software being loaded on their machines.  In most cases, system security prevents users installing anything.
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: .nwc to .sib, .xml, .abc, .mus ...etc???

Reply #8 –
Thank you everyone very much for all your comments and suggestions.  They are all very much appreciated.

Quote from: Lawrie Pardy –
it's my guess that they'll need to be able to edit it at school.  In addition, many schools don't like "unauthorised" software being loaded on their machines.  In most cases, system security prevents users installing anything.
Lawrie is quite correct,  my daughter needs to be able to continue editing the music at school.  Usually all the major writing/editing is done at school.  Any small amendments/additions, that she thinks of at home, are scribbled on MS paper in pencil and then entered up onto Sibelius when she is back at school.  Unfortunately, she has been unable to get to school sometimes recently because of the bad weather. (Getting to school involves a ferry journey.)  She was wanting to work on her composition while stuck at home, and was feeling frustrated that she wouldn't have much time to enter it onto Sibelius back at school, as she would be trying to catch up on the lessons that she had missed.

Re: .nwc to .sib, .xml, .abc, .mus ...etc???

Reply #9 –
Jane,

I have a similar problem to yours.  In our choir we use NWC to generate our training aids, but our accompanist can only work in Sibelius, which is used at the school where she teaches.  When she wants to edit and enhance an accompaniment I convert the whole score including the accompaniment to Sibelius to save her having to re-write whole scores in Sibelius (when I've already written them in NWC).

I save the NWC file as MIDI 1 and import it into Sibelius 4.  It's almost a seamless conversion.  In our case we get four good choral staves and two piano staves but you do strike a few troubles, for example:

* You might need to try several notation alternatives (ie length of shortest notes and rests) during the importation
* Lyrics lose their hyphens between syllables
* Layered staves are "unlayered" into separate staves.  Sibelius actually has a near equivalent to <Layering> which it calls <Merging>.  It's a bit tedious to do this operation though. 
* Staccato notes appear as a half-length note and a rest.  (Rick's suggestion of making the staff <Legato> sounds    like an excellent idea (which incidentally I haven't yet tried myself).
* The dynamics do not show up on the score, but they are obviously still there because they play back correctly!
* Sibelius doesn't recognise NWC's method of notation of two voices per stave (eg chord notes of different lengths). and converts them to multiple tied notes.  (I think Sibelius can actually correct this, but I haven't taken the time to find out how to do it)

There are probably a few other problems that I can't recall at the moment.  The important point I want to make is that to produce a really <clean> conversion from NWC to Sib takes quite some time and a lot of fiddling.  You really need to have Sibelius on your home computer to do the whole conversion at home (as I do) - otherwise your poor daughter will be spending many valuable school hours converting your saved Midi-1 file to Sibelius!

CONVERSION BY SCANNING.

Sibelius has its own built-in Optical Character Recognition program called <Photoscore>.  Unfortunately the <Lite> version that comes with the program is totally inadequate for most scores.  It is possible that the school has the full <Photoscore Pro> program that's much more versatile.  If they have it, you may be able to print your NWC files and scan them straight into Sibelius.  I haven't tried it 'cos I can't afford it!


David Palmquist has touched on the other method of scanning with <Sharpeye> which can produce a Music XML file that can be read by Sibelius 4 but not by earlier versions.  Again I haven't tried this because I can't afford it either.
Reading the Sibelius 4 manual makes me doubt that the resultant conversion will be all that good.

I had high hopes of solving the conversion problem when I was made aware of James Lee's program called <nwc2xml> for converting NWC files to MusicXML.  It produces excellent-looking XML files, but unfortunately they are in an earlier version of XML that Sibelius 4 can't read!!

So my advice would be to try the <Photoscore Pro> route if your daughter's school happens to have the <Pro> version with Sibelius.  Otherwise if you find a neat solution, please let me know.

Incidentally in passing I think lots of schools are doing a disservice to their students in pushing the use of Sibelius at enormous cost, when virtually everything they do with it could be done with Noteworthy Composer at a tenth of the cost (in Australia anyway), and with a fraction of the hastle and angst!  To me Sibelius is a huge pain in the Butt!

Re: .nwc to .sib, .xml, .abc, .mus ...etc???

Reply #10 –
Thank you very much Bill for such a detailed reply.  It is all very helpful.

Quote from: Bill Denholm –
So my advice would be to try the <Photoscore Pro> route if your daughter's school happens to have the <Pro> version with Sibelius. 
I will enquire tomorrow.

Quote from: Bill Denholm –
Incidentally in passing I think lots of schools are doing a disservice to their students in pushing the use of Sibelius at enormous cost, when virtually everything they do with it could be done with Noteworthy Composer at a tenth of the cost (in Australia anyway), and with a fraction of the hastle and angst!  To me Sibelius is a huge pain in the Butt!
Couldn't agree with you more.  We are considering getting a 2nd hand laptop for my daughter.  So I looked into buying Sibelius for her, just for the ease of working on school pieces.  But I was absolutely horrified at the cost.  Here in Scotland it would be even more than 10 times the cost of Noteworthy Composer.  So it'll be a extra copy of Noteworthy Composer that we'll be ordering, and certainly not the S program.

Re: .nwc to .sib, .xml, .abc, .mus ...etc???

Reply #11 –
Jane,

Glad to be able to help.

Bill.

Re: .nwc to .sib, .xml, .abc, .mus ...etc???

Reply #12 –
I keep hoping that one day the software engineers at Sibelius and Finale will turn to Noteworthy as a "neutral language" on which to base a standardized music notation format.  Just as all Word Processors can "Save As" and open RTF files, the industry desperately needs an alternative to MIDI as the "Lingua Franca" among the various polarized communities.  Just standardizing articulation including "bowings" (strings) and tempo/dynamic variances would go a long way towards keeping the peace in many a university's Music Dept.

Omar

Re: .nwc to .sib, .xml, .abc, .mus ...etc???

Reply #13 –
Quote from: OmarFirestone –
I keep hoping that one day the software engineers at Sibelius and Finale will turn to Noteworthy as a "neutral language" on which to base a standardized music notation format.  Just as all Word Processors can "Save As" and open RTF files, the industry desperately needs an alternative to MIDI as the "Lingua Franca" among the various polarized communities.  Just standardizing articulation including "bowings" (strings) and tempo/dynamic variances would go a long way towards keeping the peace in many a university's Music Dept.

Omar

The software engineers at Sibelius and Finale have turned to MusicXML as a neutral language.  Sibelius will only import MusicXML, and Finale (only actual $600 Finale) will read and write MusicXML.  There is a lot of other software that works with MusicXML, too. As stated in my previous post, there is a converter from NWC1.75 to MusicXML, and there is now a converter from NWC2 to NWC1.75. 
 

Re: .nwc to .sib, .xml, .abc, .mus ...etc???

Reply #14 –
If you can print a PDF from Noteworthy, you can use PDFtoMusic Pro to create a MusicXML file that Finale, Sibelius, etc. can read. It might be an interesting alternative to the nwc2xml translator. It should be a lot more accurate than the scanning method, even if you use a top-notch scanning program like SharpEye Music Reader. The program is pricy but comes with free updates forever, plus it can sing the lyrics for you. There's a free trial download that works on one page at a time:

http://store.recordare.com/pdftomusicpro.html

Re: .nwc to .sib, .xml, .abc, .mus ...etc???

Reply #15 –
I'm not sure how legal this would be (with regards to licensing), but Noteworthy will actually run quite happily off a USB flash drive (meaning that you could use noteworthy 100% of the time instead of having to switch between Noteworthy and Sibelius). The first time it is used, a dialogue box will come up saying that the font is not installed, but then it will still launch the program and have full functionallity (I assume that it installs the font onto the system). Anyhow, this makes it possible to run Noteworthy on the school computers without actually installing anything. Of course, the school may not want you to do this, but it is a possibility that you might get permission to run noteworthy in this manner.

Re: .nwc to .sib, .xml, .abc, .mus ...etc???

Reply #16 –
I don't mean to sound snide  or smart or anything like that ,but I think any program that boasts that it can import any file midi or whatever and read it exactly as
originally scored ,is taking a bit of a chance no matter what the price tag.It might be a great sales pitch or carrot but you still find yourself
editing .I am note refering to photo copying or anything like that.

Re: .nwc to .sib, .xml, .abc, .mus ...etc???

Reply #17 –
Quote from: Globbilink –
Noteworthy will actually run quite happily off a USB flash drive  <snip>  Anyhow, this makes it possible to run Noteworthy on the school computers without actually installing anything. Of course, the school may not want you to do this, but it is a possibility that you might get permission to run noteworthy in this manner.
That's really useful, Globbilink.  Thank you very much.  I would never have thought of that.   Unfortunately, however, the school does not allow any removable media to be inserted into their computers.     But, I may well use that tip when on another computer myself.  Many thanks.

Re: .nwc to .sib, .xml, .abc, .mus ...etc???

Reply #18 –
How does this idea fit in with the NWC licence? 


Re: .nwc to .sib, .xml, .abc, .mus ...etc???

Reply #19 –
Quote from: David Palmquist –
How does this idea fit in with the NWC licence?
One needn't wonder.
Quote from: LICENSE.RTF
You may also install NoteWorthy Composer 2 Beta Edition on a secondary machine provided that it will never be in simultaneous use on both machines.
The license does have its quirks:
Quote from: LICENSE.RTF
You are not licensed to install and use NoteWorthy Composer 2 Beta Edition unless ... Your computer meets the NoteWorthy Composer 2 Beta Edition's minimum system requirements
which, acccording to NoteWorthy Composer 2 Beta Test Program include:
  • CD Drive (required for installing the program)
  • 15 " VGA Monitor, 800x600 Resolution
A strict reading of this would be that NWC2 may not be run on most laptops. I doubt this is the intent.

Even at temporary install will add keys to the registry in several places and install NWC2STDA.TTF
Registered user since 1996

Re: .nwc to .sib, .xml, .abc, .mus ...etc???

Reply #20 –
Hi tenor1, trouble with PDF to music Pro is that it only converts PDFs that have been made from music notation programs. So really it's not worth a cracker, especially at $199. You might as well use Harmony Assistant from a .mid file from NWC. Gives the same Japanese choir singing.