Overture

Features

Easy to install and set up
Create piano, band, orchestral, choral, and lead sheet notation
Print arrangements of up to 64 instruments
Comes with fun music and templates to get started

Just point and click
Overture is easy-to-use notation software that's powerful enough to satisfy the needs of today's professional musicians and composers. You can quickly enter notes on-screen with your mouse or computer keyboard, or record a MIDI performance for instant viewing. Overture’s intuitive interface puts powerful editing tools and symbol palettes at your fingertips, so you spend time composing music instead of searching through menus. For complete orchestral arrangements, lead sheets, individual cues or even simple notation examples, there’s no faster way to create professional notation than Overture.

Professional page layout
The score window in Overture allows you to notate your music quickly and easily. You control all notation elements with the mouse or computer keyboard. Extensive text handling functions make it easy to add or edit lyrics, page text, floating text, measure text and rehearsal marks.

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Figure 1: Overture Mac Screen

Extensive MIDI features
Overture has powerful MIDI recording capabilities that you won’t find in other notation programs. It reads and writes standard MIDI files, provides tape deck-style transport controls, as well as punch-in/punch-out recording options. Overture offers complete MIDI playback of all dynamics, repeats and endings. And you can edit your recorded MIDI performance on-screen, using either the score window or the graphical piano roll display.

Desktop publishing
Need to include a few measures for a textbook example, test brochure or multimedia presentation? Just click and drag over any section of the score to capture it as a separate file. Then save the data as either a PICT or an EPS file and place it into the publishing program of your choice. Macintosh version only.

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Figure 2: Overture Windows Screen

Drum Mappings
Notating drum parts has never been easier. Play your drum kit over the entire range of the MIDI instrument and Overture will remap the notes onto a five line percussion staff. (You can load a drum library map, or create new ones.) Notate both closed and open hi-hats on the same line with an X and circle-X. For more clarity, you can even choose which staff lines show.

Smart Tablature
Overture is the fastest, easiest and smartest way to notate music as tablature. Bends and other useful markings are fully supported. Automatically takes into account fixed or floating positions, finger span, alternative tunings, capo positions. Adjustable font, staff, note stem size. Automatically transposes fret position number from string to string! All articulations and marks become symbols when entered into blank space.

Guitar Palette
With Overture you get complete tools for guitar notation. Symbols can be attached to notes or placed anywhere on your score. Guitar bends attach to notes, when notes move the bends will move along with them. Guitar notations include finger articulations, hammer ons, tapping, rotatable and stretchable "bend" articulations with 25 easily adjustable quarter tone steps (+3 to -3 whole tones), tremolo marking, vibrato, barre at fret number, and more.

Jazz Articulations
Overture offers a wide variety of jazz articulations including: lift, slide (pick scrape), rip, wah wah, fall off, spill, stab, flip, smear, bend, doit, plop, wow wow, and shake-with 7 selection line type.

Expression Library
Create your own expression library with unlimited entries. Assign name, font, style, playback parameters and more.

Expression palette
Fully editable expression palette with definable font, font size, font style, line type, end cap, extract on all part selection, and hide in print selection. And you can assign play back parameters to your expression markings: tempo, patch, controller w/ controller value.

Overture Features

Staff/Score

Easy setup with Setup dialog
256 staves with 8 voices per stave
64 staves per system, unlimited number of systems
8 voices per stave, each assignable to a MIDI device
0 - 16 lines per staff, choose which lines show, i.e. lines 1 and 5 only
Hide, show or scale any staff from 25% - 250%
Hide or show various staff elements including staff lines, key signature, time signature, barlines and clefs
Automatic page tiling for printout
32,768 measures per score
Scrolling score window during playback
34" x 44" maximum page size

View/Edit Windows

WYSISWYG Page layout—what you see and edit is what you get
Piano roll MIDI data window
Zoom score from 10% - 800%

Staff Types/Clefs

G (treble clef) G (8va) G (8vb)
F (bass clef) F (8vb)
C (movable-tenor, alto, soprano, mezzo soprano clefs)
Percussion with staff line, notehead and MIDI pitch mapping
Tablature with fingering, hide stems

Meters/Keys

Multiple meters and complex meters
Different meters between staves are supported graphically

Noteheads

Supports all note marks and ornaments
Intelligent placement of noteheads can be manually adjusted
Accidentals can be dragged anywhere
Fingering can be attached to notes

Rhythmic

128th note to triple dotted whole notes
Tuplets from 1 - 99 over 1 - 99
Beam patterns are automatic or user defined
Beaming: cross staff, cross barline, feathered
Adjustable beam height and angles
Nested repeats and endings with MIDI playback

Input Methods

Computer mouse
Computer keyboard
MIDI controller/keyboard real time and step time
Import standard MIDI file, quantize each track differently
Import Encore and MusicTime files.
Import MusicXML files.

Chords

Support user defined symbols/suffixes in libraries
Automatic chord recognition in step entry (MIDI) mode
Mouse click and computer keyboard entry of chords
Chords transpose

Guitar Frames

Support user defined guitar frames in libraries
Mouse click entry of chords
Chord can be altered after they are entered

Text

Lyrics--8 verses for each voice--mass entry, paste from word processor
Rehearsal marks
Page text including footer, header, titling with page numbers, date and time
Measure and system text

Preferences

Engraver settings
Color settings
Libraries for: allotment table, chord symbol, drum maps, etc.
MIDI playback: as recorded (MIDI data), as written or in swing

MIDI

Records all MIDI events, including notes, controllers, aftertouch, pitch bend, key velocity, etc.
Graphic editing including Strip Chart for drawing in controller data
MIDI playback of all rests, dynamics, trills, repeats, tremolos
Assign MIDI values to dynamics (pppp to ffff), hairpins, and some articulations for playback
Tape deck style MIDI transport controls with punch in/out and wait for note.
480 PPQ (parts per quarter note) capture of MIDI

VST Hosting

Host up to 256 instruments
Save playback to wave file
Instrument definitions for most sample libraries playback to wave file

Output

Mac: any Macintosh compatible printer
Win: any Windows compatible printer
Use any alternate music font, such as the Jazz Font or GoldenAge handwritten-style fonts (alternate fonts available separately)
Part extraction with auto transpose and multi-measure rests
Standard MIDI files

Transposition

Chromatic
Diatonic
Enharmonic
Includes notes and chord symbols

Editing

All elements (notes, stems, beams, accidentals, ornaments, fingerings, staves, clefs, barlines, all text including lyrics, chord symbols, dynamic markings) can be clicked and dragged or nudged with arrow keys
Option drag to copy is supported
Automatic recognition of elements, edit any item without switching tools
Copy/paste/merge/paste special for pasting only certain elements
Hide, show or scale any element 25 - 250%
Automatic or manual voicing and transcription, including re-transcribe
Beat charts are user modifiable including copy and paste
Step entry includes notes, rests, rhythmic slashes and chord symbols.

System Requirements

Macintosh OS X 10.4 and above

Macintosh 68020 or Power Macintosh Native
256Mb application RAM
Macintosh-compatible Printer
Macintosh-compatible MIDI interface required for MIDI recording
CD-ROM drive

Windows 95-Vista

Pentium 100 MHz
256Mb application RAM
Windows-compatible Printer
Windows-compatible MIDI interface required for MIDI recording
CD-ROM drive

Overture 4 comes on CD-ROM or can be downloaded.