Is scanning sheet music to MIDI a good option?

I do believe Logic Pro X has this capability. Does anyone who has tried this or other 'stand alone' methods see the results as being satisfactory for complex music or should I just hire a professional to play the music into Logic Pro X?

Hmmm! 

This is definitely something I'd be interested to find out...

Many (classical repertoire) scores are available as MIDI file on IMSLP.org.

Some might requires tweaking, but all in all, that is a tremendously useful score/MIDI resource!

This is a fresh, beautifully and clearly "hand-written" 18-page composition by a composer in the Netherlands. I'm able to read and play on the piano keyboard but not to the speed where I can hear it in context and in tempo yet... could take me months to bring it up to speed. While I remember there can be quite a bit of 'editing' and also, this composer changes time signatures and even keys to the music as it goes along, all of which is out of range for what could be expected from a 'linear' rendition in Logic Pro. I'm going to give it a shot this weekend and see what comes out on one page only and go from there. I see that many other 'stand alone' software's, supposedly able to bring in scanned music, are no longer available... not a good sign as to how well they worked. I think Logic Pro will give me my best chance at making something of it that I can then listen to in tempo 'up to speed.'

Not ideal, but have you considered one of the step recording input techniques?

There You Go Atlas007! Perfect! - This means that input will be accurate and I can go at my 'snail's pace' to get the notes in place, that will win half the battle right there!

Thank You Atlas007,

Ken

I hate to be a pest, but I definitely have been on these forums, I have a screen shot here and Advanced Tools is turned on in preferences but nothing happens when I press notes on the keyboard, I can hear the sound and see the meters actuate when I play but see below it says 'create midi region' - maybe that is the problem? I don't see anything in help about creating a midi region which I think it wants down there in the 'piano roll' area... any suggestions on this?

http://www.studio10webgraphics.com/InternetPosts/step_input_window.jpg

Okay, I've created a midi region (thanks to YouTube video) and here is the current window, did not make a difference as when I press notes they do not register on screen...

http://www.studio10webgraphics.com/InternetPosts/step_editor_window.jpg

Oh, thank goodness, saves us all a lot of frustration... 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR20JWqhRDs

Admittedly, the LPX published documentation is lame compared to LP9 on that subject (at least)...

Thank You Atlas007

AFAIK, Logic does not do music score scanning OMR / OCR.

That would be great!

I posted a feature request in that regard on the Logic's Feedback website.

I would encourage you to do the same.

In the meantime, if you are interested, there are other software available, such as those from Neuratron, Playscore, or Musitek, to name a few... I never tried them.

Thanks Again Atlas007, I have just brought in the entire 15 page score into Neuratron's PhotoScore. Amazing how well it recognized the notes and constructed the 'live' version, but I'm having issues with it and have opened a support ticket as the first step, scanning in the music accurately makes all of the other apps I've tried 'cough and gag' and bring back completely 'destroyed beyond recognition' versions. PhotoScore is the side-kick program to Sibelius, the top Music Scoring program out there and the two are supposed to work hand in hand, Photoscore sending the resulting scan or import from PDF back into Sibelius. BUT, being able to save to MIDI is what I'm interested in, because that would work with Logic Pro X. Because there seem to be so many programs out there that are not worth a hoot, I did not try Playscore or Musitek yet so can't say about them, I'm wondering if Logic Pro X would be best left out of the game as, if a feature like that were any less than perfect (I think Logic Pro X is 'perfect' in my opinion,) then it would not be a good part of an already complex and highly capable Digital Audio program. Thanks for the right help with this, you are on to the best solutions and now all I need to do is to prove PhotoScore or try the other two you mentioned if it doesn't pan out. I will follow up on this and try to have a conclusive answer by the end of this week. 

 

PS: Step-playing in Logic Pro X into MIDI is a good feature but is not working well and I've given up on it as the results are not very good IMHO.

Thanx for your feedback!

Please, keep us posted...

BTW, could you tell us more about what is not working well with Logic's step recording?

any chance for fun you could post 1 page of the 18 page hand written score for us experiment with ?

I knew you could the challenge...

any chance for fun you could post 1 page of the 18 page hand written score for us experiment with ?

I am happy to... please let know and share any good results you get from this... Page 1...

http://www.studio10webgraphics.com/InternetPosts/Rondo_per_Vita.TIF

BTW, could you tell us more about what is not working well with Logic's step recording?

Logic Pro's step recording yields the same result as many of the scanning programs in that the results seem to be controlled by a 'mind within' the software which is confused at best and basically seems to be 'trying too hard' and not following exactly what the artist (me) at the keyboard is doing. This surprises me because If I play at tempo for a normal recording then the MIDI result is perfect to what was played. It seems the 'step' process confuses the slowed down process when I try to play at the keyboard. In short, it makes a mish-mash of what I was entering: conglomerating what I meant to be separate notes into a cluster sometimes and also not getting the notes in order by joining them at the same time rather than keeping them separated. Step-entry might be fine if I were entering one note at at time, like 'Mary Had A Little Lamb' but as we know, most music is much more complex. NONE of the software I tried did a perfect job, far from it, and all I am saying is that, through my trials over a weeks time, Musitek's SmartScore did the most acceptable job, amazing really, considering the complexity of the task. I gladly paid the reasonable cost to own this program now. I'm very happy with it as it way out-performs entering a score like this by hand and it did out-perform all others I tried (I tried about a dozen others.)

Thanx for sharing your experience and glad you found a solution that suits your workflow.