Whither !Maestro?

Aimed at Chris Wraight, I suppose.

I’ve been following the fixes to !Maestro, and it seems to be growing into a polished app. I was wondering what developments are currently bubbling away, and what the trajectory might be?

I’m not expecting a new Sibelius¹ but I am very interested to know where it is going.

¹ I’ve used Sibelius on Windows, but it appears to have increasingly lost its way. I now use Dorico for my compositional and engraving needs (which quantity is small, but non-zero), and like it very much. Sibelius on RISC OS was awesome.

As I see it, the biggest problem with !Maestro is that the default “instruments” leave a lot to be desired. Is it possible to integrate the third party add-ons, so that it no longer relies on StringLib-RustyGearbox, Percussion-FailingHarddisk, and WaveSynth-ScienceFairElectronicsKit, and sounds more like actual music?

StringLib-RustyGearbox, Percussion-FailingHarddisk, and WaveSynth-ScienceFairElectronicsKit

Brilliant, Charlotte!

Your all-too-accurate descriptions have made my day :-)

To be honest, I tinker with Maestro mostly because I enjoy it, and it’s a blast of nostalgia – I can remember trying to use it at school, and never getting very far :)

I do have a plan in mind, implementation of which is dictated mostly by free time, etc. Current efforts are to improve the music typesetting. The biggest single improvement here would be to get barbed notes using proper beams. This isn’t a simple task, partly because of the complicated way Maestro holds its data, but I do have a handful of changes planned which will hopefully put this in place. Once that’s done, together with counterpart updates to the printing routines, Maestro could be regarded as a simple, but possibly useful, little score editor.

After that, I’d like to fill in the various features outlined in the spec but never implemented, such as saving named voices, title strings, extra clefs, etc. Further down the line, playback could certainly be improved, both for the internal sound system and for MIDI. That’s not something I know very much about at this stage, but it might be fun to learn how things work and see if at least the worst bugs could be squashed. And the interface could also see some further improvement, so that user preferences are stored, copy and paste is implemented, maybe even a multi-score interface.

There are some limitations that may never be practical to overcome. The internal file format is heavily tied to eight channels, with a maximum of four staves. Removing this overhead would (I think) require a new file format and some fairly extensive reworking. Not impossible, I’d guess, but whether it would worth doing depends on how many people would ever use the app. I do occasionally toy with the idea of suggesting a bounty, to gauge interest in more ambitious work and see if that might free up more of my time to work on it, but given the handful of possible users I don’t think it’s likely to attract much interest. And I suppose it also might take away from the fun of working on it, if I felt constrained to meet expectations or deadlines.

As I see it, the biggest problem with !Maestro is that the default “instruments” leave a lot to be desired.

That’s true. There are three ways of improving this (in order of likelihood of implementation any time soon):

- Adding named voices to the saved files, rather than just channel numbers. This would allow a composer to specify use of other 8-bit voice generators in a score (assuming there are any out there still – I’m not sure if many are 32bit)
- Improving MIDI support, so that you can more easily opt to play out to either a connected MIDI instrument, or an internal MIDI player
- Adding an option to play through the 16-bit sound system, maybe using the SharedSound interface, in which case the instruments could be samples

Thanks Chris, that’s a far more comprehensive roadmap than I had expected!

I’m firmly in the camp that if one is not receiving compensation (in whatever form one deems appropriate) for an undertaking, then one should do it solely for as long as it is enjoyable. But having said that, I will certainly be happy to see whatever improvements to !Maestro you have the time and inclination to implement. I remember hearing (and watching) Bach’s “Gigue” Fugue in playing in !Maestro, and being determined that I would one day be able to play it myself (it took another eight years of practice). For that reason alone, it will always have a special place in my heart.

Now if it could receive and process MIDI messages from an external keyboard, and translate them into actual notes on the stave…

What might be an idea is some sort of support for SoundFont on RISC OS. Could be worth seeing if Tony has thought about adding this to RDSP (as it’s quite a capable sound player already).

But, yeah, the three Charlotte accurately describes haven’t exactly changed since Arthur.

I will certainly be happy to see whatever improvements to !Maestro

It’s already looking much better. It’s amazing what a little bit of TLC can do!

Now if it could receive and process MIDI messages

Plus import and export MIDI files. ;-)

I keep wanting to make a convertor (within the limitations of Maestro), but both are weird formats. MIDI is ostensibly a set of MIDI events with a delta time (relative to each other, not the start) but the speed is dictated somewhere else in something like eighths of a beat, and there can be multiple tracks that might run concurrently or everything stuffed into one track. I’ve also come across MIDI where a piano part was broken into left and right hand parts as separate tracks.
So far my MIDI dumper outputs gibberish, so not there yet. Granted, I worked on it for a couple of hours one weekend several years ago, and most of that was reading file specs on various websites…
I can’t help but feel that there is something really obvious that I’m missing.

I’m firmly in the camp that if one is not receiving compensation (in whatever form one deems appropriate) for an undertaking, then one should do it solely for as long as it is enjoyable.

I long ago adopted the view expressed by my father, which can be expressed by editing your text:

I’m firmly in the camp that whether, or not, one is receiving compensation (in whatever form one deems appropriate) for an undertaking, then one should do it solely for as long as it is enjoyable.

I have only ever done work, paid or otherwise, that I enjoyed. People at work may sometimes annoy me, but then by return I hand the gift back with a little extra.

I’m firmly in the camp that whether, or not, one is receiving compensation (in whatever form one deems appropriate) for an undertaking, then one should do it solely for as long as it is enjoyable.

I agree. I have been fortunate at school, university, paid employment and, since retiring at age 50½, in voluntary employment to be able to follow this precept. OK I got put on report at Grammar School for History, Geography and PE as I only liked Mathematics, French, German, Latin, English Language, Physics and Chemistry but I dropped History and Geography at the end of the third year (now called Year Nine I think). University was a zero cost option at the time I did it, with just a little bit left over for beer if you didn’t buy too many textbooks. Taking casual employment (or staying overnight more than 3 miles from the University) during term time was prohibited, as indeed it should be. Graduate training was a nice, gentle introduction to real work. As a professional engineer in the electricity supply industry I was entitled to first class travel on any business trip although in latter years futile attempts were made to restrict this privelege (and the provision of a contract hire car) to managers.

Truth.

Sometimes (not all the time), when People of a Certain Age complain about how Today’s Yoof don’t realise how good they have it, I think they would do well to remember that, in many ways, Today’s Yoof have it significantly harder than those of us who are of a greyer and wrinklier persuasion.

I’m firmly in the camp that whether, or not, one is receiving compensation (in whatever form one deems appropriate) for an undertaking, then one should do it solely for as long as it is enjoyable.

In an ideal world, certainly. I think that a lot of people today don’t have this luxury, and have to choose between having fun and being able to pay for a roof over their head and food on the table. There’s always been some of that, and I think it is cyclical in some ways. I’m one of the lucky ones and I have pretty much always enjoyed what I do for a living, but not everyone can say the same. In those situations, perhaps the next best option is to have a plan and an exit strategy into something better.

I think that a lot of people today don’t have this luxury

Indeed. My job is kind of crap and badly paid (I’m basically a glorified janitor), but I haven’t made any attempts to do anything else because I like things to be simple and I like a nice clear separation between “work” and “not work”. I turn up, clock in at about 9am (usually 8.58 or so, I’m not one of those people who will stand there staring at the gizmo until it says 9am). I do my stuff. I go on break at 2pm, back for 2.45pm. It’s me that chooses that time, I’m pretty much autonomous. I do some more work, everything to a schedule, then clock out at 4.45pm and if I’m not shopping, I’m back here by 5.12pm.
And I don’t need to give work one single thought until the alarm goes off at 7am the next morning. All hell breaking loose with the pastry stuffer? NMFP. Somebody manage to lose an entire palette of product? NMFP. Actually, as the Chief Bog Brush Wrangler, it isn’t MFP anyway. ;-) But you see what I mean.

I was better paid, a long time ago, doing code monkey stuff. Hated every single moment of it. I’d happily take a drop in pay to not put up with crap like that again. Became a Care Assistant instead. Much more interesting. Over here? Well, it’s my first French job. Been there eleven years…

have to choose between having fun and being able to pay for a roof over their head and food on the table

It pays the bills. I don’t have fun at work (I don’t hate it, just kind of “meh”), that’s what home time is for. And it’s why I simply don’t deal with fixing people’s computers any more. Or socialise much (if at all). If my idea of fun that day is a reclining chair under a tree, a Dr Pepper, and a good book, then so be it.
Today? Just fired up Netflix. Something based upon Sherlock Holmes that looks like a bunch of teenagers. I’ll give that a try.

perhaps the next best option is to have a plan and an exit strategy into something better.

I think what a lot of people are forgetting is that in the olden days, especially post war, there were more jobs than employees. This gave workers a certain amount of power, as if they didn’t like the company they could up sticks and go elsewhere.

These days, there are many more workers than jobs, and some who got suckered for the university route end up so overqualified for the job they’re applying for that they start omitting stuff from their CV just to make it through to an interview.
There’s a “stagiere” (trainee) at work that has psychology and half of nursing school under her belt. She basically ran in horror at the conditions people were working in through Covid. Can’t say I blame her.
One of the machine operators is a trained mechanic of something really weird like military helicopters. Did all the training, didn’t get the job because there were so many other applications they could choose a Dwayne Johnson lookalike (her words, not mine).
Here in France, everybody wants to be “encadrement” (management). It’s an actual different social category, comes with status, blah blah.
Actually, many people want to work in the public sector. It’s like the above, but you can retire at the young age of 55 (part of the yellow vest thing in France in 2019 was protests because Macron was like “why the hell do you get to retire at 55 and everybody else at 62?”). Because of this, intense competition.

And employers know it. Think of all the stories of how badly Amazon treats employees, and yet people line up to get timed, tracked, and pee in a bottle (delivery drivers) or wear adult nappies (pick and pack). If people had options and choices, they’d never willingly work in such a hostile place. Hell, have they even managed to unionise yet?

Today’s Yoof have it significantly harder

Well, for a start there’s pretty much no such thing as a job for life any more.

While we are all looking back (or should that be forward?) to the past, I found a film on YouTube last week that I last saw, with my mother, when I was 13 and never forgot. It was charming and imaginative, and without violence, and we could hardly believe that such a film could come out of the USA. It was called It Grows on Trees , though I had forgotten the title. Made in 1952.

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

Ten years later, and still black and white, one of the first films I watched as a child – The Innocents https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0P4yNjMUvA
Remade, more than once, never as good as the original.

Another black and white oldie I liked is On Borrowed Time (1939). No YouTube link, the only version I’ve been able to find there is in pieces with a logo of some software product in the middle of the picture.
On the other hand… https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6ps02a and https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6ps01t and https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6ps01w (all left and right flipped).

She basically ran in horror at the conditions people were working in through Covid. Can’t say I blame her.

Mixed situations I suppose. I went into the office on Thursday, and then as an infill on Friday.
The network team is currently 6 strong, but the director expects to see only 1 member of the team on site on any day. This started with Covid, but people working from home works so well that we have changed to a hot desk setup. So Thursday I shifted the two boxes of general tat around my desk and drawers¹ and Friday I sat in a different office for the day, sanitised the desk at 4:55 and went home with my extra laptop.² With vision in only one eye I’m slightly different on “in-office or home” so I’ve only been on site for two days in the last 6 months otherwise it would be 1 week in 6.
The director doesn’t expect things to change much from that setup post-Covid, should that happen. If it did change back the cats would be really upset at the lack of service.

Hell, have they even managed to unionise yet?

News article yesterday as I recall, Bernie Sanders with the Amazon workers in Alabama.
Basic premise, if they vote to go union all the others will follow, union pushes for better pay and Bezos gets to part with a small fraction of the obscene money pile.

¹ Three PC base units to extract old working files/scripts that weren’t on the server, the FreeRADIUS build and the Perl CGI GUI for it (needs modernising I’m sure)

I think we may have strayed a little off topic.

I think we may have strayed a little off topic.

David, I think you have failed to notice that this is Aldershot – where “off-topic” is de rigeur!

I rather took the view that Maestro being a RO built in app is most definitely NOT a match for the forum: “Everything with nothing particularly or remotely to do with ROOL”

So, basically we basically "strayed a lot on topic for the forum.
Most unusual.

I actually thought I posted this in General. If there is a next time, I shall do better.

With some !Zap tinkering the Piano module from a Sibelius 6/7 demo can easily be 32-bitted. Sounds good in Maestro.
Alternatively, the X3M module (www.serdaco.com) connects via Rick Murray’s USBMIDI module, and Maestro then plays midi sound. Even better.

I actually thought I posted this in General. If there is a next time, I shall do better.

We’ve all been there.

If there is a next time,

Well, I very much appreciated this thread popping up, so please do keep posting :)

If there is a next time, I shall do better.

Oh dear! That came across rather more sulkily than I had intended. What I meant was that I don’t expect I’ll be posting all that many new threads but, should I have occasion, I’ll take more care of what forum I’m in.