Sheet Music Scanner SCANSCORE
Every musician has had a problem at least once in his life working with handwritten notes or poor quality xero-copies. Occasionally we would like to transpose a particular piece of music to a convenient key for us. This involves rewriting the whole material to a new key by hand. Sometimes we would also like to listen to a particular piece of music or a fragment by any music player. For these tasks, programs that process ordinary sheets of music into music ready to be edited MIDI or another program to edit notes are invaluable. However there are several programs on the market to help us by scan the charts.
I used to use Photoscore by Neuratron in the past and now I am checking ScanScore. ScanScore is now the freshest product in the market. It is produced by a German company located near Hamburg. The producers say that „Our goal: to make scanning sweet music as easy as possibile”.
And indeed, the software is very simple to use. It takes a few minutes to install and activate, and it provides us with a very intuitive interface. It contains all the tools necessary to make any corrections to the scanned music image as in any professional music editing program. The reading material can be imported with a traditional scanner, a PDF file or with a free application from your smartphone.
On the left side of the screen we have the original material and on the right side of the screen there is a ScanScore reading. All corrections are made on the right side of the screen using a desktop tool. The quality of material reading by Scanscore depends of course on the quality of the original. Handwritten notes will always require more corrections. The material with a variety of complex rhythmic structures requires a lot of attention as well. The program also successfully reads text, lyrics and chords as well as dynamic terms, slurs, etc.
After the edition, the whole material can be exported as PDF, XML or MIDI files. When exporting MIDI, the whole thing has to be adjusted rhythmical correctly. If we don’t do this, the program will warn us about incorrect saving.After all the adjustments have been made, our material can be prepared for printing using Finale, Sibelius, Donico or free Musescore.
The software can be purchased in three different price versions:
ScanScore Melody ($39) reads only one voice
ScanScore Ensamble ($99) reads up to 4 voices
ScanScore Professional ($179) allows you to read an unlimited number of voices.