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Gerry Peters
Registered Member

Date Joined Dec 2012
Total Posts : 42

Posted 11/29/2016 10:23 PM (GMT -6)

I chose this:

file/import - SmartScore lite scan

and followed these instructions

https://usermanuals.finalemusic.com/Finale2012Win/Finale_Left.htm?import#CSHID=1|StartTopic=Content%2FFinale%2FSearch.htm|SkinName=main

At the end of the process I chose Begin recognition and got this error.

Error while importing MusicXML file temp.xml at part 1, measure 4. Contact Make Music

it only transscribed 3 bars. Any suggestions on how to get this to work? The preview looked very good

thanks,

Gerry Peters
Midi Magic Studio
Finale 2012c

Mike Rosen
himself

Date Joined Feb 2006
Total Posts : 14146

Posted 11/30/2016 12:00 AM (GMT -6)

It probably won't get any better. Scanning is highly dependent on a number of factors: condition and complexity of the original, primarily. But even with a good print of a simple score, editing will probably be necessary.

Please don't be discouraged by the people who will tell you that scanning is worthless, and you should spend your time learning how to efficiently enter music directly into Finale. It's not always flawless. Sometimes, it doesn't work at all. At that point, yes, you need to enter the music with either Simple or Speedy Entry.

Those of us who do a lot of scanning have found it well worth while to invest in one of the fully-featured programs. I use SmartScore Pro, with very good (in many cases, excellent) results. At least with that program, I can do much of the editing within the app, rather than in Finale, where many things are much more difficult. Knowing both SmartScore and Finale lets me decide what to do, where.

Sorry I can't be more optimistic, but the lite version that was packaged with Finale is pretty lame. Scanning has saved me hundreds of hours, but it took an investment of both money and time, to purchase and learn another program. Remember that, as a Finale owner, you can purchase SmartScore Pro for half price, about $200, rather than the $400 list price.

Feel free to contact me via private message, if you want to discuss this in depth.

Mike Rosen
www.specialmillwork.com

Bass with Choir of the Sound www.choirofthesound.org
Volunteer copyist (The Gang of Twelve) for the Barbershop Harmony Society
FINALE TIPS at www.specialmillwork.com/finale-tips-and-tricks/index.html

Finale 2014.5 on El Capitan
Simple Entry, QWERTY keyboard, numberpad. That's my system, and I'm stickin' to it.

"As a musician, he's a damn fine woodworker."

Gerry Peters
Registered Member

Date Joined Dec 2012
Total Posts : 42

Posted 11/30/2016 12:30 AM (GMT -6)

Thanks so much Mike for your thoughts and experience. I've been using Finale for 25 years. I got a lead sheet and they want sheet music, so I was hoping I'd save some time by scanning in the lead sheet and then working from that.

I have 2 Canon scanners both hooked up to an XP computer. Finale is on a Win 10 computer. I can always hook the printer up to the Win 10 computer. I've tried 3 different pages of the lead sheet to scan. One scanner is not showing up in SmartScore, but with both scanners I also saved TIFF files, to see if that would work better. I've tried scanning black + white and grayscale at 400 DPI.

The lead sheet looks pretty good. I don’t think was was done with Finale, but it's a computer program so it's neat and orderly. This is the first time in 25 years that I've wanted to do this, so certainly paying even $200 for the upgrade of SmartScore sure wouldn't' be worth it. I don’t' assume they have a functional trial version do they?

Do you think I should try plugin the printer directly up to the Win 10 Finale computer? Or in your honest opinion, is this just a waste of time?

Thanks so much Mike,

Gerry Peters
Midi Magic Studio
Finale 2012c

Mike Rosen
himself

Date Joined Feb 2006
Total Posts : 14146

Posted 11/30/2016 11:06 AM (GMT -6)

Yes, there is a demo available for SmartScore Pro.

musitek.com/smartscore-pro.html

I scan at B&W, 300 dpi. Although it seems counter intuitive, more dpi may not work as well.

(I've sent you a private message.)

Derrek
Registered Member

Date Joined Dec 2009
Total Posts : 2347

Posted 11/30/2016 11:53 AM (GMT -6)

That's interesting: I always seemed to have better luck with Grayscale instead of B&W for OCR--music or text. Not that I do a lot of it.

Finale 2014.5, Finale 25.1 - Windows 7 (64-bit)
GPO 5, JABB 3, World Instruments
TG Tools Full, (Sonar Platinum, Dorico)

“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” — Groucho Marx

Mike Rosen
himself

Date Joined Feb 2006
Total Posts : 14146

Posted 11/30/2016 1:26 PM (GMT -6)

And in fact, musitek recommends greyscale, as well. Guess I'll have to try it!

Charles Lawrence
Registered Member

Date Joined Dec 2009
Total Posts : 3638

Posted 11/30/2016 2:46 PM (GMT -6)

Mike,

IIRC, the demo is not fully functional in that you cannot save or print any processed files. I think you can save the intermediate files.

"Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about!"

Windows 10 Professional (x64) (build 10586)

3.50 gigahertz Intel Core i7-5930K, Multi-core (6 total), Hyper-threaded (12 total)

32638 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory, 17514.37 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 - 4GB [Display adapter]

ASUS Rampage V Extreme motherboard, Realtek HD Audio

Finale 2014.5.6359, Finale 25.1.0.182
Garritan GPO4.02

Cakewalk SONAR X3 - (X3e build 244) - x64, Sound Forge Audio Studio 10.0, Audacity 2.1.0
Sharpeye 2.68, PhotoScore Ultimate 7.0.2, SmartScore X2 Pro 10.5.8

"There is a world of difference between a person who has a big problem and a person who makes a problem big." – John Maxwell

Motet
Isorhythmic

Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 12849

Posted 11/30/2016 3:11 PM (GMT -6)

Mike Rosen said...
I scan at B&W, 300 dpi. Although it seems counter intuitive, more dpi may not work as well.

At higher resolution such as 600 or 1200 there is more detail but also more noise, and also a lot more data to plow through (the number of pixels increases as the square of the of the DPI increase since it's in two dimensions). It's also probably the case that the software was developed and heuristics determined using 300, since that was standard in the past.

Finale 2014.5, 2011b, 2005, TGTools
Windows 7, MIDI input
Finale Transposition Chart

Mike Rosen
himself

Date Joined Feb 2006
Total Posts : 14146

Posted 11/30/2016 5:36 PM (GMT -6)

The OP sent me his file. I'm not too surprised that the lite version had problems. There were two measures with slash notation, and a number of x-noteheads, neither of which were recognized. In addition, the scan missed a few barlines, which would have caused a number of measures in Finale to have had hidden, incorrect time signatures.

HOWEVER, all of these issues were quickly and easily resolved in the full version of SmartScore Pro, probably no more than ten minutes work. Then, an almost flawless score was imported into Finale.

All in all, still faster than I could have entered with Simple.

Zoots
Registered Member

Date Joined May 2010
Total Posts : 385

Posted 12/1/2016 9:45 AM (GMT -6)

Comment on resolution: If you are doing something where the staves are considerably smaller than typical size then increase the resolution. I did part of a conductor score and used 600 instead of my usual 300 and got much better results. This is mentioned in SmartScore's Scanning Notes.

I have used both greyscale and black and white.

Finale 2012c
JABB3/Aria

Smartscore Pro X2

Windows 10

Intel i7 with more than I need

Bob Stiffler
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 269

Posted 12/9/2016 12:05 PM (GMT -6)

Gerry:

I agree 99% with every word Mike Rosen ha said. The only difference is that I use "Sharpeye" to scan. Sharpeye has not been updated for years and I suspect Smart Score may be better because it has been upgraded over the years. Scanning has save me hundreds of hours of work. In my active gigging days some one in my groups would want something in their key. We used to do custom shows lika a western show or a Spanish show etc. We all worked off of lead sheets, so we could prepare a show in one or two rehearsals.

Bob Stiffler

Bob Stiffler
Duffer Musician
Finale 3.7...all.....Finale 2014.5
HP I7 Laptop, 35" flat screen monitor
Lots of Keyboards and clarinets

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