Logic Pro 9 Adding PDF music in Score

[lucifersam]

Can anyone tell me how to import sheet music into Score. I have a file on PDF (as well as others on paper) that I would like o get Logic to play.

Anyone help?

Thanks,

L.

 

[Markdvc]

Logic does not have a feature to convert from pdf to score. There seem to be other programs offering this feature, a quick google search brought up:

http://www.myriad-online.com/en/products/pdftomusicpro.htm

I have no idea how good it is, or if there are other, better alternatives out there.

kind regards

Mark

 

[Pete Thomas]

Logic does not have a feature to convert from pdf to score. There seem to be other programs offering this feature, a quick google search brought up:

http://www.myriad-online.com/en/products/pdftomusicpro.htm

That one will export to MIDI, which you can import to Logic, but would need reformatting (slurs, text markings, ornaments, layout etc.)

Like mark, I don't know how good it is.

 

[Pete Thomas]

Photoscore would also do this. My wife uses it (but with Sibelius), she says it is quite good for printed music, a bit iffy for handwritten music, and even though text and slurs etc. are imported into Sibelius, there is still quite a lot of formatting to do.

 

[zerobeat]

If it's PDF, and isn't simply a scan of handwritten notation, then it likely came from an existing program like Finale or Sibelius. Access to those original files means you'd need those programs to open them, but those programs can export to MIDI file, which Logic can then import. But only the rudimentary graphics would be stored in the MIDI file.

Sibelius has a sister program called Photoscore that has OCR (Optical Character Recognition) capabilities where it can make sense out of a scanned score. Handwritten ones are obviously harder to deal with so you end up doing many corrections, but it's often still a lot less work than transcribing from scratch.

Finale has something similar.

 

[David51]

I import MIDI scores but the slurs, articulations, and other details are not supported in MIDI so you will[unless a miracle happens and Apple adds music XML2 as import/export option] still have to learn the score editor, what helped me a great deal was J. Prischl's "Logic Notation Guide", available only from his web site[google the name and title]. The guys at Logic Pro Help [this forum] where amazing in how helpful they are-they even taught me to successfully use the score, and I'm an idiot!
The Myriad does covert PDF to it's own crappy softsynth's sounds, but didn't help any getting score into Logic. I bought the Full version of SmartScoreX, which can scan image scores and using OCR you can correct them, but we are still stuck with no import/export in Logic via xml, as in Finale and Sibelius. Even Cubase 5 only works with XML 1.1,which is actually worse than MIDI and XML2 is the latest version of music xml from recordare.com.

 

[stv_collins]

I use Photoscore Ultimate (http://neuratron.com/) for scanning from printed sheets or pdfs; the interface to Logic is midi. The program is rather expensive ($249). It is capable of very high accuracy with high-quality input & can read in full scores & sort out the parts. It can also deal with repeats with multiple endings & simple DS/codas. The latest version touts its ability to read handwritten music, but I have not been impressed with the accuracy in my limited experience with that feature.

As others have pointed out, the midi interface is a limitation if you are primarily interested in reproducing the printed sheet within Logic. (BTW, the midi file includes the lyrics, so I sometimes will code rehearsal marks & other notations as lyrics in Photoscore to help me on the Logic side) One of the strengths of Photoscore, I think, is that the midi output - in terms of how it plays within Logic - can be quite expressive & realistic. It does modulate note velocity according to the the accents, interprets dynamic markings & crescendo/decres. It also will modulate loudness to follow ascending/descending note lines in a natural way. There are menu settings to adjust the amount of swing given to note timings and the "gain" of the extra expression in dynamics that is added to the midi interpretation.

Steve Collins

 

[David51]

Thanks for the reply stv, I was so busy learning Logic's score that I missed finding the things you explain about what Logic CAN do. One reason I want to use MIDI scores is to do things that cannot easily be done in an audio mix. Also my 30 years of early music work gives me a strange perspective on contemporary music. I don't enjoy extremely loud distortion-that leaves me way out in left field today-but,here today-gone tomorrow, my ears don't like the equally false intervals of equal temperament,a real pain.

 

[stv_collins]

You're welcome, David51-if you are more interested in the sound as opposed to the score representation, you might consider working in the piano roll or on the midi data in the event list. Things are changing on the audio side, also; with the new time manipulation features in Logic 9 & capabilities of plugins like melodyne in the pitch domain-messin' with audio is getting easier.

Steve Collins

 

[David51]

Thanks again Steve, I am still trying to see if the curse of muzak has really destroyed our ability to hear natural intervals, so the Scala tunings in Logic provide a MIDI mix to be bounced in several different Tuning systems. I don't think most listeners can tell if they are hearing a pure third or an equal third, I fear the worst-i.e.-we can no longer even hear the difference. No, the worst would be if the pure thirds sounded wrong because we have all grown up with false tuning and don't know it. Similar to how the drum machine killed musical rhythm[which is not metronomic].Cheers.