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John Bertotti
Jan-17-2005, 10:50pm
Cost aside which programs have you used for ABC. translating writing printing in standard and playback.etc.. I'm seeing three main choices Barfly, Melody assistant, and Harmony assistant. Anyone have any experience with these. I'm looking at these for the mac compatibility. Thanks John

Avi Ziv
Jan-17-2005, 11:01pm
John - I use BarFly on my iMac from time to time and like it. One of the interesting features is configurable rolls that make the playback a lot more enjoyable and less mechanical sounding. It also comes with a decent concertina sound that's very good for Irish tunes. Lots of other features but I haven't explored them all yet.
Avi

Martin Jonas
Jan-18-2005, 4:39am
John -- on the commercial side of things, I've tried the demo versions of TablEdit and of Melody Assistant and they're both handling abc files just fine. Both are available on the Mac, too. TablEdit makes the more professional impression and is much better in adding tablature(although I believe you don't use those). It also has the better interface for playback. Melody Assistant is somewhat less crippled in the demo version.

However, there's no need to spend any money just to convert abc files to standard notation and get some basic playback. There are a number of freeware programs for Mac: abc4mac (http://www.geocities.com/Nashville/7088/abc4mac.html) and Skink (http://s92972807.onlinehome.us/skink.html), and any number of Unix/GNU-based programs that can be made to run on Macs for those whose tastes run towards the hackerish (the abc homepage (http://staffweb.cms.gre.ac.uk/~c.walshaw/abc/#software) has all the links).

Martin

sjusk
Jan-18-2005, 7:00am
Martin, I also have Tabledit demo version on my computer. Do I understand you right when you say it can actually convert ABC to TEF?
At least you say that Tabledit handles ABC fine...how?
I´d be thankful if you´ll enlighten me, since ABC looks like #%?£$€ to me!

PS: I didn´t go for that Trob Mandola - just got second thoughts about I guess. Maybe I should save the money and wait and go for something higher..hmm..

Søren

John Bertotti
Jan-18-2005, 7:51am
martinjonas, thanks I actually down loaded skink yesterday but haven't tried it yet. I was leaning a bit towards the melody or harmony version because it stated you could actually change the character sets of the notes if you chose. There is probably a way to do that with the others just haven't looked that deep into it yet. I would like to be able to print off stuff with a good looking notation instead of some of this boring looking blocky stuff. Thanks I'll give skink a shot for awhile. John

Martin Jonas
Jan-18-2005, 7:59am
To import ABC into TablEdit, use the File>Import>Import ABC... (http://www.tabledit.com/help/english/importabc.shtml) menu command. You can then edit it just like any other TablEdit file.

About the Troubadour -- it's a great instrument for the price, but of course you can get something much better in "proper" luthier-built OMs/mandolas. Horses for courses...

Martin

John Bertotti
Jan-19-2005, 6:06pm
Ok my first attempt at ABC is using skink. Some of the tunes are good some have errors. The error encountered so far are these two lines and it states the problem with a flashing cursor between the -c #or -d. line written as follows
d>-c #and also c>-d. Both these lines give an error only I don't see the problem Anyone able to help. These were downloaded from this link in the first packet of music. Thanks John O'Neills Music of Ireland (http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/music/book/oneills/1850/)

Here is a sample of one of the errors in the whole piece. fourth line from the bottom. Thanks John
X: 3
T: The Little Heathy Hill
M: C
L: 1/8
B: "O'Neill's 3"
N: "Moderate" "collected by F. O'Neill"
Z: "Transcribed by Norbert Paap, norbertp@bdu.uva.nl"
K: Gm
B/2-c/2 | d2 d>-c B2 A-B | (GBAG) F2 D-F | (G>AG).F (D>CD).F | G2 G>-A B3 c |
(d>ed).c B2 A>-B | (GBAG) F2 D-F | (G>AG).F (D>CD).F | G2 G>A G3 ||
D | GABc d2 d=e | f2 =ed c>AF>>c | d>edc B2 AB | GFD=E F2 B-c |
(d>ed).c B2 A2 | (GBAG) F2 D-F | (G>AG).F (D>CD).F | G2 G>A G3 ||


improziv I'm going to try BARFLY also. I love concertinas. Thanks John

One additional question this song sounds as if it would be real hard to play in places. Do these programms play them back accurately. I tried this one in skink. If anyone know the tune is it replaying it correctly? Thanks John
X: 6
T: The Dark Woman of the Glen
M: 3/4
L: 1/8
B: "O'Neill's 6"
N: "Very slow" "collected by P. Tuohy"
Z: "Transcribed by Norbert Paap, norbertp@bdu.uva.nl"
K: G
G-E \
| D2 E-F D(E/4F/4G/4A/4) \
| (BG/2E/2) (D/4E/4F/4G/4A/4B/4c/4d/4) e>f \
| g2 (fg/2a/2) g>e \
| (3(fed) (3(edB) (3(dBA) |
| (B3/2G/4B/4 A2) (B/4c/4B/4c/4B/4c/4B3/4A/4) \
| (G/4F/4E/4F/4G3/4A/4 G4) \
| d>B .A/2.B/2.c/2.d/2 e>f \
| g2 f/2e/2d/2e/2 (f(3e/2f/2g/2) |
| a2 bg f2 e>d d2 g2 \
| (a/4g/4f/4g/4 e/4f/4e/4d/4 B/4A/4B/4d/4 e/4d/4e/4f/4 g/4f/4g/4a/4 b/4a/4g/4f/4) \
| g2 (fg/2a/2) g>e |
| (3(fed) (3(edB) (3(dBA) \
| B2 (3(GBA) G2 \
| (G/4E/4D/4E/4F/4G/4A/4B/4) .c/2.d/2.e/2.f/2 g>a \
| g2 (fg/2a/2) g>e |
| (3(fed) (3(edB) (3(dBA) \
| B2 (3(GED) (3(FGB) \
| A4 (B/4c/4B/4c/4B/4c/4B3/4A/4) \
| (G/4F/4E/4F/4G3/4A/4 G4) |:|

John Bertotti
Jan-19-2005, 8:11pm
I trashed skink. It showed errors and half of them were eliminated in Barfly. Although there are still errors there are not as many and I can do play back in mando sound. Well sort of mando. #John


I understand know what some have said about the ABC playback. Keeping perfect time and playing notes ideally but with no human element kind of leaves it all cold. Or s it just me? #John

I got an email from John Chambers about some of the issues, he fixed some. Seemed to be real helpful. Has a pretty impressive site of abc also. That is the site I listed above here is the main page. O'Neill's music (http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/music/book/oneills/)

and here is his abc finder page. ABC finder (http://jc.tzo.net:1742/~jc/music/abc/findtune.html)

Thanks for all your help everyone. John

David M.
Jan-20-2005, 10:15am
It may have been mentioned already, but concertina.net has an ABC translator in it that's used online. Just cut/paste the ABC in and play the MIDI. I'm not a real fan of MIDI's, but it's a start to the tune.

Fiddlers Companion is a great site w/lots of ABC's and tune info in alphabetical order.