Bars & Pipes Professional: Printing Notation

Overview

Bars&Pipes Professional provides several options for printing your composition in standard notation. You can print a concert or transposed score from the Song menu, a Group of Tracks from the Groups menu, or one part from either the Tracks menu or a Track's Graphic Editor window's Notation menu.

You can also save your music printout in standard notation as a graphics file. This file can be loaded and modified by paint programs such as Deluxe Paint from Electronic Arts.

Preparing to Print

Before you print a Track, you must first arrange things so that Bars&Pipes Professional prints to your specifications.

Selecting The Printer Driver

You must choose the correct printer driver in your Workbench Printer Preferences program. Be sure to set the graphics preferences for the printer driver, too.

Note
Setting the graphics preferences may require some experimentation. Please refer to your Amiga Users Manual for more information.

Printing Memory Requirements

Printing requires large amounts of free and contiguous (i.e. non-fragmented) graphics memory. Bars&Pipes Professional Tools and Accessories, along with any other application running on your system, consume this precious resource.

For a common example of memory usage, let's say that you wish to print a page of four measures across and four full staves down at normal note spacing and normal resolution. This operation requires 64 Kilobytes of free graphics memory. At high note spacing, this memory requirement increases to 283 Kilobytes.

There are several things you can do to decrease the amount of graphics memory required for a print:

1. Decrease the number of measures across and staves down you wish to print.
2. Decrease the note spacing of your printout by sliding the Note Spacing: slider in the Page Print Options requester (please see the next section for information about this requester).
3. Print in Default Res or High Res rather than Extra Hi Res.

Also, make sure that no other applications are running, and that all unnecessary Bars&Pipes Professional Tools and Accessories are removed from your system.

Tip
You can see how much contiguous free memory you have via the Workbench title bar.

Organizing Your Score

Before you Print, prepare your score to get the best results.

Fill In The Title And Composer

The printout includes the Song title and composer. Enter these in the Title/Author requester accessed by the Title/Author... command found in the Song menu. Bars&Pipes Professional centers the title on the top and places the author's name in the upper right-hand corner of the first page it prints.

Label The Tracks

Each Track label is the instrument name. Use the Track Name requester found in the Tracks window by double-clicking on the Track Name to the left of each Track. Bars&Pipes Professional prints the name of each part in the top left-hand corner of the first printed page. In a Concert or Transposed Score, Bars&Pipes Professional prints the name of each part above the first measure of each line.

Organize The Tracks

Bars&Pipes Professional prints the individual parts of Concert and Transposed Scores in the order in which the Tracks appear in the Tracks window. To rearrange the ordering of your Tracks, and thus the print order of your score, use the Track Up and Track Down buttons found on the top of the Tracks window.

Select a Track, then click on the up arrow to move it up one in the list or on the down arrow to move it down. Double-click to send a Track to the top or bottom of the Track list.

Size The Display

The sizing of the first Track's Graphic Editor display determines the number of measures per line printed. To change the Sizing of the Edit display, open the Edit window for the Track by double-clicking on the Track. Use the Zoom In and Zoom Out buttons, or the Sizing menu option, to choose the overall Sizing for the Edit display.

Select The Clefs

Each part may be printed on the Treble Clef, the Bass Clef, or both. For each Track, open the Graphic Editor and select the desired Clefs from the Print Options... submenu of the Notation menu.

By default, Bars&Pipes Professional prints both Treble and Bass Clef. You may choose either or both.

Set The Transpositions

You may need to print certain instrument parts in the appropriate transpositions. For example, an Alto Sax part can be displayed in Eb to be easily read by an Alto Sax player. If you need to set the Transposition for a Track, open the Transposition requester from the Notation menu of the Graphic Editor.

Determine the Transpose type by clicking after the Transpose: prompt and selecting from the scrolling list. If you'd like to define your own transposition, select Custom and drag the Octave and Interval sliders. Please read Note Editing, for a thorough explanation.

Printing Ledger Lines

When printing a single staff, it is usually desirable to print several ledger lines above and below the staff.

The Graphic Editor's Notation/Print Options/Set Ledger Lines... menu command allows you to customize the way that each Track's staves are notated and printed.

Example: Print Treble Clef With As Many Ledger Lines As Possible.

Note
If you want to print a bass clef with as many ledger lines above as possible, click the up arrow until the white arrow is as high as possible.

1. Open the Graphic Editor for a Track by double-clicking on the Track in the main Tracks window (or, single-click and hit the Return key).
2. Make sure that the notation staff is showing. If it isn't, select the Show/Staff-Notation menu option.
3. Choose the Notation/Print Options/Set Ledger Lines... menu command. The Adjust Ledger Lines requester opens.
4. Click on the down arrow until the white arrow pointing to the staff is at the bottom. This arrow denotes the center position between the bassclef and the treble clef.
5. Click Okay. Bars&Pipes asks if you would like to renotate your entire Track.
6. Click Yes. Bars&Pipes renotates the Track with the new ledger line positions. Notice that most notes in the bass clef are now actually part of the treble clef.

Note
If you choose No, Bars&Pipes does not renotate, and your music prints the same way it always did. This allows you to renotate only the measures that you wish, using the Notation/Transcribe/Between Flags menu option.

Printing Tablature

To enable Tablature printing for a Track, open the Graphic Editor and choose the Notation/Print Options/Tablature menu option.

Note
Tablature can not print by itself. It requires that you also print at least one staff, or both staves along with it.

Make sure that you've tabulated your music before you print. If necessary, choose the Tablature/Tabulate menu option from the Graphic Editor.

Formatting The Printed Page

You can easily tell Bars&Pipes how many measures to print per line and how many grand staves to print per page.

You can set these options in one of two ways:

1. Choose Notation/Print Options/Page Options... from the Graphic Editor.
2. Choose Preferences/Page Print Options... from the main Tracks window.
3. The Adjust Page Print Options requester opens.

Slide the Measures/line: slider to the number of measures per line you would like to print.

Slide the Full Staves/Page: slider to the number of full staves you would like to print per page.

Note
If you open the requester from the Graphic Editor, and you've chosen to only print one staff, the second slider reads "Half Staves/Page" instead of "Full Staves/Page", and is double the number of full staves per page.

The Note Spacing: slider controls the overall resolution of the printout. The only real way to know the best note spacing on your particular system is to try a few sample printouts.

Tip
Low note spacings tend to look chunkier and clutter the notes together. High note spacings make the notes thinner and more spaced apart. Normal note spacing is a compromise between the two.

The Print Requester

Once you have finalized your printing specifications, open the Print requester by selecting the Print... command. When you select the Print requester from the Song menu, Bars&Pipes Professional prints the entire score; when you select it from the Groups menu, Bars&Pipes Professional prints only the selected Group's member Tracks; and when you select the Print requester from the Track menu or an individual Track's Graphic Editor window's Notation menu, Bars&Pipes Professional prints the contents of the Track.

Additional Information

The top six buttons in the Print requester select additional information to print. To turn each option on or off click on its button.

Sections

If you choose to print Sections, Bars&Pipes Professional prints the A-B-A section names above the music.

Bar Numbers

If you choose Bar Numbers, Bars&Pipes Professional prints the measure number over each line's beginning measure in your music.

Tempo

If you choose Tempo. Bars&Pipes Professional prints the tempo at the beginning of your music.

Chords

If you choose Chords, Bars&Pipes Professional prints chord changes, entered in the Song Parameters, above each Track, or part. In either a Concert or Transposed Score, Bars&Pipes Professional prints chords which were entered in the Master Parameters above the first Track.

Lyrics

If you choose Lyrics, Bars&Pipes Professional prints lyrics, entered in the Song Parameters, above each Track, or part. In either a Concert or Transposed Score, Bars&Pipes Professional prints lyrics which were entered in the Master Parameters above the first Track.

Dynamics

If you choose Dynamics, Bars&Pipes Professional prints dynamic markings, entered in the Song Parameters, within a Track, or part.

Transposed Or Concert Score

If you choose Transposed Score, Bars&Pipes Professional prints each Track transposed by the key established in the Transposition requester (see above.) Choosing this option tums off the Concert Score option.

If you choose Concert Score, Bars&Pipes Professional prints each Track without transposition. Choosing this option tums off the Transposed Score option.

Selecting Measures To Print

To specify which measures Bars&Pipes Professional prints, enter the starting and ending measure numbers after the From Bar: and To Bar: prompts.

If you want to print all measures, click on the All button, which sets the fields to cover the entire range of the piece.

Print Resolution

You may choose from three different print resolutions.

Default Res

Select Default Res for printing in the default resolution. You may determine the resolution from the graphics preferences in your WorkBench printer Preferences. Typically, you might set the WorkBench preferences to the minimum acceptable resolution, for fastest printout. Use this option to get quick trial printouts.

High Res

High Res automatically chooses the highest resolution available in your Workbench preferences. This option gives the best quality available under Workbench 1.3.

Extra Hi Res

Workbench 2.0 users with at least 1 megabyte of chip memory can select Extra Hi Res for much sharper printing. This mode creates much cleaner lines but requires extra time to print.

Previewing

To view the final output without actually sending it to the printer, click on the Preview button found in the Print requester. This opens a small screen with the notation displayed.

Note
If you're previewing an Extra Hi Res printout, you can scroll to view the entire screen by clicking down with the mouse and dragging.

It also opens a small requester with three buttons: Next, Print and Cancel.

Next

To view the next line of notation, click on Next. Bars&Pipes Professional shows you each line of notation until it has displayed all of the selected measures.

Print

Click on the Print button to leave preview mode and start printing immediately.

Cancel

Click on the Cancel button to access the Print Requester again. (If you want to exit the Print Requester, click on its Cancel button.)

Printing

Bars&Pipes Professional prints notation by sending an image of the music to the Preferences printer driver. Remember, in order to print properly, you must set Preferences from Workbench to accommodate your printer.

To begin printing, click on the Print button. Bars&Pipes Professional opens a display screen, paints the notation in it, and sends this out to the printer. Above, it opens a requester with a Cancel button. Printing can take a while, so be patient. Click on the Cancel button to abort printing.

Saving as an ILBM File

Click on the Save button in the Print Requester if you would like to save your music as an IFF/ILBM file. The file requester opens. enter a unique file name for each page of printout. The IFF/ILBM file(s) may then be loaded into a graphics program such as Deluxe Paint, and imported into word processors, etc.