"Step-Time" Playback?

2011-11-20 04:39 am

Greetings everyone,

I am a several year user of NWC but a newcomer here on the forums. I formerly used Music Printer Plus until it essentially dried up on the vine. I then got interested in other pursuits and did nothing with notation software until about two years ago when I tried to get back into barbershop harmony arranging which is what I had primarily used MPP for. I then discovered my old Win 98SE machine that had sat around gathering dust and the MPP/LAPC-I installation was no longer functional. A friend of mine was using NWC and spoke highly of it, so here I am. So far it has done most everything I need; I did post a couple of messages today inquiring about the ability to have functional "courtesy" accidentals and caesuras without cumbersome work-arounds, so we'll see how those go.

Are there any other former MPP users here? Maybe we can comiserate the fact that it was never rewritten for true Windoze. The feature MPP had that I am missing most with NWC is the "step-time" playback capability. My use of MPP for barbershop charts was not only to produce legible spots (ALWAYS observing copyright restrictions, of course) but to also produce part predominent sound files for training purposes. The step-time feature made this a breeze: you could start the playback but also be in a quasi-record mode for the .PRM file of the composition which was basically the note-duration/tempo map of the song. Then, each time you tapped the space bar, the playback would move to the next chord or note change of the piece, so you could simply tap your way through the song and have all of your desired rhythm changes and rubato become a part of the .PRM file without having to manually insert a million tempo changes. (Barbershoppers tend to sing songs, particularly ballads, in a manner that maximizes the message and emotional content of the song, and the strict time duration values of the individual notes are only "suggestions" in how the song may be performed.) So, now I have two questions: 1. Is such a "step-time playback capability being considered for NWC and are there others of you that would find such a capability useful? 2. Is there the slightest possibility that anyone has written a program that would convert MPP's .MP1 (the graphical portion of the composition) to NWC format? I have back-up copies of all of my MPP songs that I would LOVE to get into NWC. I AM able to load them up in a barely working MPP installation I have in a "legacy" computer and save them in MIDI format that I CAN import into NWC, but of course a lot of the information (words, etc.) doesn't make the jump and I have to do massive editing to get anything useful. Anyone? Anyone?

Re: "Step-Time" Playback?

Reply #1 – 2011-11-20 12:54 pm

You might be interested in this earlier thread which will install a better viewer/player on everyone's PC. It allows for repeat play as well as faster or slower playback. The program is free so others in your quartet or chorus could use your .nwc files.

BTW, you might want to search (upper right side of these windows on NWC) for barbershop for other ideas.