Pizzicato Professional 3 [Professional]

In comparison to Pizzicato Professional 2, Pizzicato Professional 3.0 has the following additional features:

• Improvement the Tuplets function: style, placement and stability. Specifically, the placement of a Tuplet reserves space for the notes, so that you can avoid the problem that occurs when you try to place a tuplet on the last beat of a measure. See the lesson about tuplets.

• Importation of NIFF files. This builds a bridge to music scanning and recognition softwares. Two scanning softwares are suggested to work with Pizzicato and directly import the scanning result. See the lesson on NIFF files and scanning.

• The optimisation of systems has been enhanced. You can now specify for each system which staff is visible or hidden. See the lesson on page setup.

• A specific view has been designed to graphically display the various MIDI effects produced by symbols and by data modifications (through Edit, Data modification...). The playing of symbols may be selectively activated and the volume/velocity curves may be visualized as generated by a succession of nuances, crescendo,... or simply from the MIDI file import. An eraser, a pen and a straight line may be used to visually modify the curve. You may also modify the effect of a symbol or individual accent. This is available for all effects, for each staff and several effects views may be open at the same time. See the lesson on the musical effects view.

• Repeats : by placing a negative number in a repeat box, the software stops playing after that measure (it lets you stop the score in the middle of a piece). See the lesson on repeats.

• A specific tool has been designed to add grace notes. The note contextual menu lets you add a simple, double, triple or quadruple grace note. See the lesson on grace notes.

• You may specify an octave sign to a clef so that there is an automatic transposition. See the lesson on clefs.

• It is now possible to adjust lyrics globally. It is useful when lyrics has been individually moved around and if you want to readjust them all at once. See the lesson on lyrics.

• Cross-staff beaming is now possible. Notes from a measure may be displayed into the upper or lower staff. See the lesson on cross-staff beaming.

• Individual voices may be played separately. See the lesson on the instruments view.

• The name of the Maj and min chords may be abbreviated to "M" and "m" to save place. See the lesson on chords library.

• The starting repeat bar appears now correctly after the clef, key and time signatures.

• There are new options for measure numbering. See the lesson on staff characteristics.

• An automatic saving of files may be set as well as a backup manager to automatically keeps up to 5 versions of the same document. See the lesson on saving and backups.

• A special "paste" function selects the items to copy (notes, symbols, clefs,...) and filter the rhythmic voices of a measure. This function lets you also "merge" or "explode" music into or from several staves. See the lesson on the special paste function.

• Measures may have several versions. You may add, remove and change versions of measures. See the lesson on the measure versions.

• The MIDI management has been entirely renewed and may connect up to 16 MIDI inputs/16 MIDI outputs. It is automatically configured at startup with one MIDI port and may be asked to configure all ports on demand. See the lesson on MIDI setup.

• A new set of tools have been designed to help you to compose music. The smart link tool lets you establish links between measures. It is a sort of intelligent paste and parametered transformation function. It is similar to a spreadsheet for music. See the lesson on the smart link. A new view has been designed: the conductor view. It is a musical desktop that lets you manage several scores, play them and create groups of scores to structure a music composition. See the lesson on the conductor view. An instrument becomes an object that can be used and managed on the conductor view. They offer you an easy way to handle, change and test the instruments of your composition. See the lessons on intruments. Virtual keyboards will transform your simple MIDI keyboard in a multiple keyboard that will greatly enhance your musical playing possibilities. See the lesson on virtual keyboards. Music libraries will help you start designing your own rhythmic patterns, like a structured building block construction set. You test, try and listen. No music knowledge required. See the lesson on music libraries.

In comparison to Pizzicato Professional 3.0, Pizzicato Professional 3.1 has the following additional features:

• The possibility to use audio files together with your music scores. You may for instance add one or more voices or life instrument, recorded with a microphone. Audio WAVE files (".wav" extension) may be recorded, copied, pasted and edited with a powerful audio editor. You may also add audio files in your music score and determine the exact moment they will be played in relation to the score. See the lesson on audio tracks and on the audio editor.

• You may export an audio file from your music score into a WAVE file, exactly as you would hear Pizzicato playing it. Once you have that audio file, you may use it with your CD burning software to create an audio CD that can be played on any CD player. See the lesson on the creation of an audio file.

• A better handling of ties between notes, mainly when combined with repeat signs or when a score is played starting at a measure containing ties from a previous measure.

• Concerning the lyrics, it is possible to add a lyric extension from inside the fast encoding window ( _ sign). You may also add a minus sign "-" inside one lyric, without cuting the word automatically. A function may add the note names (C, D, E,...) inside the lyrics. The lyrics may be placed above the notes. The font, size, style and color of the lyrics may be adjusted for each staff/voice of the main system. When entering the lyrics in linear view, the measures scroll automatically. See the lesson on lyrics.

• The page setup may now use two braces or brackets for each staff, which may be needed for orchestral scores. See the lesson on the characteristics of staves.

• Several additional options are available. You may specify the default directories as well as the backup directory. See the lessons on the global options and on automatic saving.

• An option improves the page numbering feature. See the lesson on text blocks.

• Practical contextual menus have been added for the score, the sequencer and the main view, notably a paste/transpose item.

• An option has been added in the special paste function, so that merging staves may keep the voices separated. See the lesson on special paste.

• An option has been added for the German notation of chords. See the lesson on the chord library.

• The % and °//o symbols (repeat of one or two identical measures) are now really played by Pizzicato.

• The piano roll view now follows the real time playing, like the other views.

• When using different measures in the same system (for instance 3/4 for one instrument and 4/4 for another one), Pizzicato adjusts the tempo ratio for each instrument so that the durations of the measures become the same (in the preceding example, the 3/4 instrument will play in a faster tempo than the 4/4 instrument).

In comparison to Pizzicato Professional 3.1, Pizzicato Professional 3.2 has the following additional features:

• A new view is used to edit the notes of a measure in a graphical way. It is the graphic editor. Each note is displayed as a small horizontal bar that may be moved, deleted or created. See the lesson on the graphic editor.

• An additional graphic option is used to display the notes according to the chord symbols. The notes of the chord are displayed in green, the notes of the scale are displayed in orange and the other notes are displayed in red. Very practical to compose a melody on given chords. See graphic options. This option is also active in the graphic editor.

• A new music composition tool has been designed: the harmonic space. It is a set of prepared chords in which you can navigate in an intuitive way to find a chord progression that fits your composition, with a real time arranger that can also be combined to music styles. See the lesson on the harmonic spaces.

• The concept of drag/drop is generalized as an intuitive composition tool. Scores with notes rhythms, instruments, effects and chords may be dragged and dropped in your score to build it or complete it, like a construction set game very easy to use. See the lesson on dragging/dropping scores.

• SO as to be able to use the drag/drop function, numerous composition libraires are found in Pizzicato: libraries with instruments, with individual instrument patterns, notes, rhythms, chords, chord progressions and other kind of musical objects. Also 35 ready to use styles as well as MIDI style importation functions that can import file styles of the Yamaha format ("*.sty" files), that you can find in quantity on the Internet. See the lessons on music libraries and the use of styles.

• The music generators are musical objects that can create series of scores on the basis of elementary music elements (notes, rhythms, chords, instruments) and a set of combinatory rules. They are a considerable source of music material, starting with the imagination of the user. See the lesson on the music generators.

• The score arranger contains a series of basic harmonisation and voice conduct rules. Starting from a chord sequence, Pizzicato helps you to arrange your score whether for two voices or for a full orchestral score. See the lesson on the score arranger.